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Belief

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States · John Bouvier · 1839

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States

is the conviction of the _ mind, arising from evidence received, or from information derived, not from actual perception by our senses, but from the relation or information of others who have had the means of acquiring actual knowledge of the facts, and whose qualifications for acquiring that knowledge, and retaining it, and afterwards 19 communicating it, we can place confidence. ‘“ Without recurring to the books of metaphysicians,” says Chief Justice Tilghman, 4 Serg. & Rawle, 137, “let any man of plain common sense, examine the operations of his own mind, he will assuredly find that on different subjects his belief is different. I have a firm belief that the moon revolves round the earth. I may believe, too, that there are mountains and valleys in the moon; but this belief is not so strong, because the evidence is Ves. 80; 1 P. A. Browne’s R. 258; 1 Stark. Ev. 127; Dyer, 53; 2 ‘Hawk. ec.

46, s. 167; 3 Wills. 427; Bl. R. 881; Leach, 270. a