Note 157 — Chapter VII

It will be seen why we have not separately defined and studied "first-hand documents." The question has not been raised in the proper manner in historical practice. The distinction ought to apply to statements, not to documents. It is not the document which comes to us at first, second, or third hand; it is the statement. What is called a "first-hand document" is nearly always composed in part of second-hand statements about facts of which the author had no personal knowledge. The name "second-hand document" is given to those which, like the work of Livy, contain nothing first-hand; but the distinction is too crude to serve as a guide in the critical examination of statements.