peated in a letter that which I heard her say, and if we ask what would appear the character of the evidence to one who, some fifty years hence, had before him the advertisement, the representation, and the letter, we shall see that the alleged fact would be thought by him incontestable. Only if, after weary search through all the papers and periodicals of the time, he happened to come upon a certain number of the Lancet, would he discover that this combination was not that of two heads on one body, but that of two individuals united back to back, with heads facing opposite ways, and severally complete in all respects, except where the parts were so fused as to form a double pelvis, containing certain pelvic viscera common to the two. If, then, respecting facts of so simple and so easily-verifiable a kind, where no obvious motive for misrepresentations exists, we cannot count on true representations, how shall we count on true representations of social facts, which, being so diffused and so complex, are so difficult to observe, and in respect of which the perceptions are so much perverted by interests, and prepossessions, and party feelings?
In exemplifying this difficulty, let us limit ourselves to cases supplied by the life of our own time; leaving it to be inferred that if, in a comparatively calm and critical age, sociological evidence is vitiated by various influences, much more must there have been vitiation of such evidence in the past, when passions ran higher and credulity was greater.
Those who have lately become conscious of certain facts are apt to suppose those facts have lately arisen. After a changed state of mind has made us observant of occurrences we were before indifferent to, there often results the belief that such occurrences have become more common. It happens so even with accidents and diseases. Having lamed himself, a man is surprised to find how many lame people there are; and, becoming dyspeptic, he discovers that dyspepsia is much more frequent than he supposed when he was young. For a kindred reason he is prone to think that servants do not behave nearly so well as they did during his boyhood—not remembering that in Shakespeare's day the service obtainable was similarly reprobated in comparison with "the constant service of the antique world." Similarly, now that he has sons to establish in life, he fancies that the difficulty of getting places is much greater than it used to be.
As witnesses to social phenomena, men thus impressed by facts which did not before impress them, become perverters of evidence. Things they have suddenly recognized, they mistake for things that have suddenly come into existence; and so are led to regard as a growing evil or good, that which is as likely as not a diminishing evil or good. Take an example or two:
In generations not long passed away, sobriety was the exception rather than the rule: a man who had never been drunk was a rarity.
