Year: 1876




to the validity of historical evidenC


depends, because there is often broa


distinction drawn between differer


kinds of evidence. To suppose ths


one kind Is more valuable than th


other upon grounds which are nc


clear-upon grounds illogically state


and which do not bear thorough an


careful inspection, always lies at th


bottom of our errors in the accepta


ton of testimony. That which iusti


fes us in our belief in conclusion


drawn from historical evidence is,


you can sift it, but at the bottom tn


uniformity of nature.


For example, if [ read In your his


tory of Tennessee, "Ramsey's History.


that hundred years ago this countr


was peopled by wandering savages, m


belief in that statement rests upon tn


conviction that have that Mr.. Ram


sey was actuated by the same sort o


motive that men are now, and that al


the persons from which MIR. Ramsel
! derived his information were actuatet


by the same sort of motive; in Other


words, that the men from whom he de-


rived his information, and he, himself
were like ourselves, not inclined tt
ma kefalse statements, at any rate wher
such statements would be detected
and we might apply to them the same
standards of truth and falsehood as
we apply to ourselves. If you read
Caesars Commentaries, wherever he
gives an account of his battles with
the Gauls, you place certain amount
OF confidence In his statements. You
take his testimony upon this. You
feel that Caesar would not have made
those statements unless he had believed
them to be true. In other words, the
motives which actuated men in Caesar s
time are assumed to be the same as
those which actuate men now. If it
were possible to suppose that at any
time the past history of the order of
nature, so far as regards men, was diff
ferent; if it were possible to suppose
that men did not care about truth or
about the detection of falsehood, then
you would know that their testimony
could not be depended upon. So you
see that belief in testimony implies
a belief in the constant order of ma
ture. This history of Ramsey's of the
State of Tennessee, takes you back for
a very short period-that more than a
hundred years or so; as the immediate
case of Tennessee is concerned, not
more than century or so; and so far
as America is concerned, not more
than three hundred at the outside, or
thereabouts.


But now let us consider the other
sources of information and what has
taken place in a country of this kind.
We find scattered about on the soil of
Tennessee (indeed | had the fortune
to see specimens in your museum at
the CapitoD specimens of worked flints
not true fints, but at any
rate closely similar These flints are
plainly, obviously worked by the hand
of man, bones and tools of various
kinds are testimony, as to the former
population.


IF the former inhabitants had died
out and become lost the discovery Of
these implements in the soil would,
notwithstanding, be evidence of the
existence Of population totally dis
tinct from that which colonized 1t of
late years. We might with degree
of certainty draw a conclusion from
the character of these implements to
the nature of the people who were
their fabricators, and the order of sue
cession or the time of that operation
could be defined by the mode OF their
construction. So, again, scattered
over the surface of your State there
are mounds wherein is exhibited the
work of the well-known so-called
Mound Builders" that has been
built up by human ingenuity. They
are indications of the existence ofmen
different from those who now inhabit
the soil, and upon some of these
mounds are found growing great trees
which have ia ken several hundred
years for their development, and it is
quite clear that the IN ound Builders"
had finished their work long before
the time when those trees had planted
themselves and grown to their present
Now that evidence of
the past history of this country is ar
chaological. 1t is evidence obtained
upon testimony-upon written, re-
corded testlmeny-not upon tradition,
but upon material facts which carry
within themselves the evidence of
their nature. And you see that this
archaeological evidence (as 1 call it),
although it is much scantier-much
less full than historical evidence-is
incapable of false indication. | do
not mean to say that ingenious people
may not fabricate these stones, and
do not mean to say that people may
not make mounds, but surely the fab
ricators would not distribute these
stones over the breadth and depth of
the land, nor would they employ any
army of navigators to go all over this
country and erect mounds.


We are quite safe that they are free
from human INSTRUMENTATION hu-
man tampering with them. And al
though the archaeological evidence is
scantier than the historical, it is the
surer evidence of the two.


1t might be that the different indi-
cations of those who inhabited this
country before white immigration,
have been falsified or modified by the
persons who wrote the history; but
these difficulties cannot affect the con-
clusion we draw from such monumen-
tai evidence as that of mounds and of
marked stones, and the latter is true
in the case of Caesars Commentaries.
IF Caesars Commentaries had never
been written, the evidence OF the tu-
null scattered all over Gaul would be
ample of the existence of an ancient
race of people exceedingly different in
their civilization and in their customs
from the French who now cover the
territory of Gaul. This archaologi- \
cal evidence not only has the advan-
tage of It's freedom from interferences
by man, but it has the further advan-
tage that it carries US into regions
which human testimony cannot reach
which lie far beyond the utmost
limit of tradition, and this would re-
uuire an amount of evidence that it is
almost inconceivable to suppose either
oral or written testimony worth much.


The rocky soil upon which the city
stands is full of evidence of that kind.
1t is, as you are aware, hard lime
stone. That hard limestone contains
an abundance of fossils which bear
more or less resemblance to animals
which are living at the present day.


Examine your museum and you can |
find any quantity of these remains. |
You can satisfy yourselves that they
are animal remains and the biological
student can very readily convince him
self that they are the remains of crea-
lures which only inhabited the ocean,
at a time antecedent to the existence
nf the savage neople whose implements
are scattered over the soil, and when