In matters of historical research, there is a kind of circumstantial evidence which arises from the combination of known or authenticated facts, with critical argument on the import of doubtful passages of authors, which the reasoner endeavours to interpret, by bringing together, comparing, and making the one illustrate the other; so as to draw from the whole a degree of positive and certain information, which those authenticated facts are not of themselves sufficient to convey, and which those passages, taken separately, are incapable of furnishing. This complex species of evidence, it must be owned, is, with respect to its power of conviction, much inferior to that which arises from the ordinary proofs on which authentic history depends; for example, the testimony of actual witnesses to the facts related; or the positive information of authors, derived from clear and well authenticated records: But, at the same time, as in matters of history we have not always that best kind of evidence on which to found our belief, we are from necessity often compelled to resort to this inferior, circumstantial and analogical species of probation, in order to form to ourselves a rational creed on many matters of doubt, on which the mind is unwilling to rest in absolute uncertainty.