Guide to the Study of Moral Evidence: Or of that Species of Reasoning, which Relates to Matters of Fact and Practice

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James Loring, 1834 - 246 pages

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Page 12 - Thy arts of building from the bee receive; Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Page 168 - And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God ; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
Page 194 - ... 2. Never to convict any person of murder or manslaughter, till at least the body be found dead ; on account of two instances he mentions, where persons were executed for the murder of others, who were then alive, but missing.
Page 57 - Thus, the proposition, that the three angles of a triangle are not equal to two right angles...
Page 10 - tis hard, I own, to find. I see in others, or I think I see, That strict their principles, and ours agree. Evil like us they shun, and covet good; Abhor the poison, and receive the food, Like us they love or hate ; like us they know, To joy the friend, or grapple with the foe. With seeming thought their actions they intend, And use the means proportion'd to the end.
Page 85 - ... an evidence delivered upon oath. Thus an oath for confirmation is to men an end of all strife. Lastly, testimony is either spoken or written. In some cases, written testimony is of greater •weight than unwritten. Thus, an account in writing of words spoken long ago, if written near the time when they were delivered, is more likely to be correct, than one given from memory.
Page 84 - Besides the ordinary weight of evidence, arising from the competency and presumed veracity of the witness, it introduces a solemn appeal to God, as a witness of the truth of what is affirmed, and implies a sort of self-execration, if it be false. The effect of this solemnity upon the minds of all who are not in an unusual degree void of religion, the superior guilt of perjury to a common lie in the judgment of all mankind, the punishment which it incurs if detected, and the infamy* with...
Page 193 - Fourthly, all presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
Page 17 - How far will you have altered the connection which he discerns between certain premises and certain conclusions ? To affect his belief you must affect the subject of it by producing new arguments or considerations. The understanding being passive as to the impressions made upon it, if you wish to change those impressions you must change the cause which produces them. You can alter perceptions only by altering the thing perceived. Every man's consciousness will tell him, that the will can no more...
Page 157 - Caesar, or of any other man. For suppose a number of common facts so and so circumstanced, of which one had no kind of proof, should happen to come into one's thoughts; every one would, without any possible doubt, conclude them to be false. And the like may be said of a single common fact.

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