Literary notes about Evidence (AI summary)
The term "evidence" in literature carries a wealth of meanings and functions, often serving as a tangible marker of truth or character as well as an abstract support for argument and theme. Authors use it to denote physical traces or accounts that attest to past actions or events, such as recollections of a person's early character [1] or documented correspondence that confirms historical record [2]. In many works, evidence appears in legal or testimonial contexts, where it is weighed, doubted, or even twisted to suit varying narrative purposes [3, 4]. Meanwhile, in philosophical and scientific discussions, it underscores the process of thought or the trustworthiness of sensory experience [5, 6]. In every instance, whether grounding a supernatural claim, forming a legal argument, or validating historical detail, "evidence" is deployed as a critical element that shapes readers’ understanding of truth and reliability in the narrative [7, 8].
- I have even known evidence admitted to show the character he bore when a boy at school.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana - For his death, 735, the date given in the “Continuation,” seems to be supported by the evidence of the letter of Cuthbert to Cuthwin ( v. infra ).
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Saint the Venerable Bede - The murderer shall be punished by witnesses: none shall be condemned upon the evidence of one man.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - No jury in the United Kingdom would condemn her upon such evidence as that.
— from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. Braddon - I wish I could doubt the evidence of my senses, but their depositions are unimpeachable.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens - " If this theory is to be logically tenable, self-evidence must not consist merely in the fact that we believe a proposition.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell - The modesty of Alaric was interpreted, by the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of his weakness and fear.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - These contain an internal evidence which, antecedent to all reflection or combination, commands the assent of the mind.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison
