Difference of signs, indications, or circumstantial evidence, from proofs, § 1, 2. Of conclusive signs or indications, 3-7. Inconclusive signs are of weight when supported by others, 8-11. Of mere appearances, 12-14. Of prognostics, 15, 16. 1. ALL artificial proof, then, depends on indications, arguments, or examples. I am aware that indications are thought by many a species of arguments, and I had, in consequence, two motives for distinguishing them. The first is that indications generally, almost always, belong to inartificial proofs, for a blood-stained garment, a shriek, a livid spot, and similar particulars, are circumstances of the same nature as writings, reports, and depositions; they are not invented by the orator, but communicated to him with the cause itself. 2. The second is that neither can indications, if they are certain, be arguments, because where there are certain indications, there is no question, and there can be no room for argument except upon a controverted point. Nor, if they are uncertain, can they be arguments, but have themselves need of arguments. 3. All artificial proofs, then, as I say, are distinguished, first of all, into two kinds, one in which the conclusion is necessary, the other in which it is not necessary. The former are those which cannot be otherwise, and which the Greeks call τεκμήρια (tekmēria) or ἄλυτα σημεῖα (aluta sēmeia), "irrefutable signs." These scarcely seem to me to come under the rules of art, for when there is an irrefutable indication, there can be no ground for dispute. 4. This happens whenever a thing must be, or must have been; or cannot be, or cannot have been; and this being stated in a cause, there can be no contention about the point. 5. This kind of proof is considered with reference at all times, past, present, and future, for "that she who has had a child must have lain with a man" regards the past; "that there must be waves when a strong wind has fallen on the sea" concerns the present, and "that he whose heart is wounded must die" relates to the future. In like manner, it is impossible "that there can be harvest where there has been no sowing"; "that a person can be at Rome when he is at Athens"; or "that he who is without a scar can have been wounded with a sword." 6. Some have the same force when reversed, as, "A man who breathes must be alive," and "a man who is alive must breathe"; but others are not reversible, for it does not follow that "because he who walks must move," therefore "he who moves must walk." 7. It is consequently possible that "she who has not had a child may have had connection with a man"; that "where there are waves, there may yet be no wind on the sea"; that "the heart of him who dies may not have been wounded"; and, in like manner, that "there may hare been sowing, when there was no harvest"; that "he who was not at Athens, may not have been at Rome"; and that "he who is marked with a scar may not have been wounded with a sword." 8. The other sort of indications are those from which there is no absolutely necessary conclusion, and which the Greeks call εἰκότα (eikota). Though these are not sufficient of themselves to remove all doubt, when they are combined with others, they are of great weight. 9. That from which something else is inferred, as from blood is suspected murder, the Greeks term, as I said, σημεῖον (sēmeion), we call, signum, "a sign," though some of our writers have used the word indicium, "an indication" and others vestigium, "a trace." But as the blood that stained a garment may have proceeded from a sacrifice or may have flowed from the nose, it does not necessarily follow that he who has a blood-stained garment has committed a murder. 10. Though it is not a sufficient proof of itself, still it cannot but be regarded as evidence when combined with other circumstances, such as if the man with the blood-stained garment was the enemy of him who was killed; if he had previously threatened his life; if he was in the same place with him. When some presumptive proof is added to these circumstances, it makes what was suspected appear certain. 11. Among such indications, however, there are some which either side may interpret in its own way, as livid spots and swelling of the body, for they may seem to be the effects either of poison or intemperance, and a wound in the breast, from which people may argue that he in whom it is found has perished either by his own hand or by that of another. The strength of such indications is proportioned to the support which they receive from other circumstances. 12. Of indications, which are presumptions indeed, but from which no necessary conclusion follows, Hermagoras thinks the following an example: "Atalanta is not a virgin, because she strolls through the woods with young men." If we admit such a circumstance as a presumption, I fear that we shall make everything that has any reference to a fact a presumption. Such circumstances are, however, treated by rhetoricians as presumptive proofs. 13. Nor do the Areopagites, when they condemned a boy to death for picking out the eyes of quails, appear to have had any other thought than that such an act was the indication of a cruel disposition, likely to do mischief to many if he should be allowed to reach maturity. Hence also the popularity of Spurius Maelius and Marcus Manlius was regarded as an indication that they were aspiring to sovereignty. 14. But I am afraid that this mode of reasoning would carry us too far, for if a woman's bathing with men is a sign that she is an adulteress, it will be a sign of the same nature if she takes her meals with young men, or if she enjoys the intimate friendship of any man, as a person might perhaps call depilated skin, a sauntering walk, and a delicate dress signs of effeminacy and unmanliness, if he thinks that they proceed from corrupt morals as blood flows from a wound. A sign is properly that which, proceeding from a matter about which there is a question, fills under our own observation. 15. Those appearances, also, which, as they are constantly noticed, are vulgarly called signs, such as prognostics of the weather, "The golden moon is red from the approach of wind," and "The mischievous crow calls for rain with a loud voice," may, if they have their causes from the state of the atmosphere, receive that appellation, 16. for if the moon is red from the influence of wind, its redness is a sign of wind, and if, as the same poet infers, a condensed or rarefied atmosphere gives rise to a chattering of birds, we shall consider such chattering also a sign. We may likewise observe that small things are sometimes signs of great, as this very chattering of the crow; that greater things are signs of less, nobody wonders.
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