Dr. Taylor's
consulting one as a final authority as to the very nature of the
argument on which he was himself about to sit in judgment is at the
outset a suspicious incident. The definition of circumstantial
evidence which he got from his legal friend was this:
"The process of proof by circumstantial evidence consists in
reasoning from such facts as are known or proved, and thence
establishing such as are conjectured to exist. The process is
fatally vicious, first, if any material circumstance from which
we seek to deduce the conclusion depends itself on conjecture;
and, second, if the known facts are not such as to exclude to a
reasonable degree of certainty every other hypothesis."
"Now, tried by these two tests," says Dr. Taylor, "the professor's
argument was a failure." Taking this definition as it stands,
however, we think it will not be difficult to show that Dr. Taylor
is not competent to apply the tests, or to say whether the
professor's argument is a failure or not.
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