Of the Credibility of Witnesses.



To determine exactly the credibility of a witness, and the force of 

evidence, is an important point in every good legislation. Every man of 

common sense, that is, every one whose ideas have some connection with each 

other, and whose sensations are conformable to those of other men, may be a 

witness; but the credibility of his evidence will be in proportion as he is 

interested in declaring or concealing the truth. Hence it appears how 

frivolous is the reasoning of those who reject the testimony of women, on 

account of their weakness; how puerile it is not to admit the evidence of 

those who are under sentence of death, because they are dead in law; and how 

irrational to exclude persons branded with infamy; for in all these cases 

they ought to be credited, when they have no interest in giving false 

testimony.



The credibility of a witness, then, should only diminish in proportion to 

the hatred, friendship, or connections, subsisting between him and the 

delinquent. One witness is not sufficient for, whilst the accused denies 

what the other affirms, truth remains suspended, and the right that every 

one has to be believed innocent turns the balance in his favour.



The credibility of a witness is the less as the atrociousness of the crime 

is greater, from the improbability of its having been committed; as in cases 

of witchcraft, and acts of wanton cruelty. The writers on penal laws have 

adopted a contrary principle, viz. that the credibility of a witness is 

greater as the crime is more atrocious. Behold their inhuman maxim, dictated 

by the most cruel imbecility. In atrocissimis, leviores conjecturae 

sufficiunt, & licit judici jura transgredi. Let us translate this sentence, 

that mankind may see one of the many unreasonable principles to which they 

are ignorantly subject. In the most atrocious crimes, the slightest 

conjectures are sufficient, and the judge is allowed to exceed the limits of 

the law. The absurd practices of legislators are often the effect of 

timidity, which is a principal source of the contradictions of mankind. The 

legislators, (or rather lawyers, whose opinions when alive were interested 

and venal, but which after their death become of decisive authority, and are 

the sovereign arbiters of the lives and fortunes of men), terrified by the 

condemnation of some innocent person, have burdened the law with pompous and 

useless formalities, the scrupulous observance of which will place 

anarchical impunity on the throne of justice; at other times, perplexed by 

atrocious crimes of difficult proof, they imagined themselves under a 

necessity of superseding the very formalities established by themselves; and 

thus, at one time with despotic impatience, and at another with feminine 

timidity, they transform their solemn judgments into a game of hazard.



But, to return: in the case of witchcraft, it is much more probable that a 

number of men should be deceived than that any person should exercise a 

power which God hath refused to every created being. In like manner, in 

cases of wanton cruelty, the presumption is always against the accuser; for 

no man is cruel without some interest, without some motive of fear or hate. 

There are no spontaneous or superfluous sentiments in the heart of man; they 

are all the result of impressions on the senses.



The credibility of a witness may also be diminished by his being a member of 

a private society, whose customs and principles of conduct are either not 

known or are different from those of the public. Such a man has not only his 

own passions, but those of the society of which he is a member. 



Finally, the credibility of a witness is still when the question relates to 

the words of a criminal; for the tone of voice, the gesture, all that 

precedes, accompanies, and follows the different ideas which men annex to 

the same words, may so alter and modify a man's discourse, that it is almost 

impossible to repeat them precisely in the manner in which they were spoken. 

Besides, violent and uncommon actions, such as real crimes, leave a trace in 

the multitude of circumstances that attend them, and in their effects; but 

words remain only in the memory of the hearers, who are commonly negligent 

or prejudiced. It is infinitely easier, then, to found an accusation on the 

words than an the actions of a man; for in these the number of circumstances 

urged against the accused afford him variety of means of justification.