The only inquiry which reason warrants is,
whether the testimony or proof be good of its
kind : and if so, it will bear one weight of fiaujts




PROCESS OF HISTORICAL PROOF. 269

as safely as another: — it will bear any weight,
short of a real contradiction to facts, known upon
evidence still more certain. But as truth is al-
ways consistent, such seeming contradictions,
whenever they arise, proceed from some precipi-
tation or prejudice on our own part. It were
easy to adduce a multitude of examples from an-
cient history in proof of the futility of the prin-
ciple which supposes that there ought to be a
proportion between evidence and the facts estab-
lished by it. One, well adapted to our purpose,
is afforded by the history to which the first
chapters of this volume are devoted. It may be
briefly stated as follows. — *

Herodotus informs us that the first expedition
sent against Greece by Xerxes, having been al-
most destroyed by a storm near the dangerous
promontory of Mount Athos, the enraged and
disappointed monarch, partly to avenge himself
on the mountain, and partly to avoid the same
hazard for the future, sent a large detachment of
his forces to cut a trench through the narrow
isthmus which connects the lofty peninsular with
the Macedonian continent; so that his fleet, in its
coasting progress, might pass from gulph to gulph,
without doubling the head-land. But though the
width of the isthmus is little more than a mile.
* lo a Note the reader will find all the evidence and opin-
ions I have been able to collect on this curious subject.
260 PftOC£SS OF HISTORICAL PROOF.
