dence from beginning to end. If a man see the image of a friend of whom he was not thinking at the moment, and knew nothing except that he was far away, and if at that moment or close to it that friend should have died-I take a phenomenon of which most non-nescients admit that some of the thousands of seriously affirmed cases are true—it is a coincidence. What is coincidence? The falling of two things tothings fall together? Why,

gether. And how did these two they arrived at the same time. And how came this about? Because one happened to happen at the same moment in which the other happened to happen. And to what are we to attribute this? To coincidence. There seems something very candid about this circular reasoning; this making coincidence to be its own explanation. The truth is that the last assertion means unconnected coincidence: but the presence of the adjective strips the theory naked, while the omission hides the tatters of coincidence, the explanation under the respectable garments of coincidence the fact. Accordingly, those who rely on coincidence are not in the habit of reminding their hearers what sort of coincidence they mean.

One of the great pursuits of the world is the study of evidence: we are all engaged upon it in one way or another. But, as generally happens when a word goes much about, it picks up more than one meaning in its travels. Accordingly, evidence passes for that which is given and intended to produce an effect, and also for that which does produce it: there is the quod debet monstrari, that which may properly be tendered in aid of a conclusion, and the quod facit videre, that which gives perception of truth or falsehood. The difference, and the fallacies of confusion, are strikingly illustrated in the courts of law. While the case is preparing for trial it is the lawyer's business to collect what he then calls the evidence,

the matter which is to be offered to the jury. It is his duty to see that his 'evidence' is quod debet monstrari, not only addressed to the points raised by the pleadings, but in conformity to certain rational rules which are laid down. And thus it comes before the jury, who are sworn to give a true verdict according to the 'evidence,' which is now * the quod facit videre. So far good; the law must decide what is and what is not fit to be offered as material for evidence. But it may happen that matter slips in which the court would have prevented if it could, but could not, or at least did not prevent. And now comes one of those collisions in which the jury mind rules contrary to the legal mind. If the ghost of the murdered man were to make his appearance in court in a form which no one could possibly attribute either to imposture, optics, or chemistry, and were solemnly to declare that the prisoner was not the murderer, and then to vanish through the roof, the judge would, no doubt, instruct the jury that they must dismiss the respectable apparition from their minds altogether; that even if the spirit had offered to be sworn and to stand cross-examination, there would be very grave doubt whether his evidence could have been received, from his probable want of belief in a future state; but that, as matters stood, it was clearly their duty to take the vision pro non viso. To which the jury would reply, if they believed the ghost, by a verdict of not guilty. No honest men would ever make believe that they do not believe what they have in any way

* An exquisite proof of the need of the distinction occurred a few months ago. The jury asked the judge whether they were bound to find according to the evidence whether they believed it or not. The judge kept his countenance, and told them they were not bound; but he ought to have told them that, in the jury-meaning of the word, evidence is not evidence until it is believed.

been made to believe, if they clearly understand what they are doing. This case is only an extreme illustration: I will now state what happened a few years ago. A sued B on a bill of exchange: B's defence was I forget what insufficiency; that he had accepted a bill was admitted. Now the truth. was that B had taken up his bill, released himself from all liability, and had the paper in his own hands to prove it. But, strange as it may seem, this circumstance was not pleaded in defence to the action; why, did not appear. Accordingly, there can be no doubt that payment could not either legally or reasonably be put forward on the defendant's behalf. By accident, or as an incident of the defence that was made, the bill was actually produced, in a manner which showed that the defendant had taken it up, and was the legal possessor of the piece of paper. The jury were instructed to find for the plaintiff; they evidently demurred, and the judge pressed the matter, telling them in effect that they were to pretend to believe they did not know that the bill had been taken up. The jury were not to be persuaded, and found for the defendant; the judge warning them that the parties would be put to the expense of a new trial; which I think did not happen.

I hold, of course, that the jury were as fully justified in their verdict as the judge would have been, if he could have done it, in keeping the unpleaded fact out of their way. Though the preceding anecdote is only introduced in illustration of the two meanings of the word evidence, the approval which will be generally given to the verdict turns upon a point which receives very little attention, though all are concerned with it, both in and out of court. What is belief? A state of the mind. What is it often taken to be? An act of the mind. The imperative future tense-I will

believe, thou shalt believe, &c., which has no existence except in the grammar-book, represents a futile attempt which people make upon themselves and upon others. We all know what a horrible chapter of human history has the second person for its heading: the only thing to be said for the actors is that they believed in the first person, which, besides making them think the means they used were competent, gave the honest among them a tendency to suppose that profession might be taken for belief; the dishonest wanted only profession. The judge thought the jury could believe or not, as they liked that is, he thought they could, by an act of the will, put their own minds into the state in which they would have been if they had not known of the payment. This they could not have done all that was in their power was to encourage that puzzle-headed but doubtless, very honest confusion between belief and acknowledgement which is usually in the heads of those who say, 'I never will believe . . .

The attempt to induce others to will a belief or an unbelief is exceedingly common among all sides of all questions. There is no arguing against it: for it is a lurking attempt, unsuspected by those who make it. I go on to something in which those who have thought and read about belief as belief may not be quite hopeless of exciting useful reflection. Let the evidence tendered be what it may, it is an error to suppose it ought to produce the same effect on different persons. It is nonsense to say, Strip your mind of all bias, and make it equally ready for all impressions: you might as well tell a wrongly bent twig to please to put itself straight, that you may then give it another bend in the proper way. It is evidence which must both unbend and bend: it is not in power of anyone to alter his state by will. A person who

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finds another easier to convince than himself calls the other credulous; but when the other is the harder, the first calls him unreasonable. Every one is just at the right point; and all the initial difference between himself and others is predisposition. What right then has anybody to talk to anybody else about matters of opinion? It would seem that we are to say that is, if we may coin a new word merely to imitate an old pun-that orthorhopy is my allowance of rope and heterorhopy another person's: that right bias and wrong bias are purely relative terms. An astronomer knows it has been found that people have different knacks of observing that with the same thing to note, and the same clock to note it by, one person will nearly always be a little in advance of another, and a little behind a third. Nothing can bring them to a habit of agreement; it is their nature: and they call these differences personal equations, though to the unlearned non-equations would have been nearer the mark. But what if all the world be too quick or all too slow; surely then there is no such thing as correct astronomy: what if the disagreements be in all cases only different versions of too soon, or different versions of too late. It must be answered that first, there is good presumption that all kinds of human errors take opposite directions: and next that, if not, it would be of no more consequence than if all the clocks in the world were too fast, or all too slow, so long as they keep as close to one another as now. This last may be true enough, but the hopes of humanity must lie in the first: a nice mess we are in if it should happen that all bias is one way, and that what we call opposite tendencies lie only in the differences of one kind of tendency. Suppose, to put a case, that all mankind have a bias of credulity which is, one man with another, as 1000; while the most strong-minded, the

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