Philosophy of testimony captured in the motto of the Royal Society – ‘Nullius in verba (no man's word)’. Crudely put, the question is: 'How can testimony give us knowledge when we have no reasons of our own?' Coady suggests that there are two approaches to this problem: and Hume is one of the few early philosophers to offer anything like a sustained account of testimony, this can be found in his "‘An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding’" in the section on miracles. The basic idea is that our justification for believing what people tell us comes from our experience of the ‘...constant and regular
Terra nullius of November 17, 1858.' The Mexican claim was rejected for lack of proof of prior Spanish discovery and, in any event, no effective occupation by Mexico before 1858, when the island was therefore "territorium nullius", and the French occupation then was sufficient and legally continuing." According to Ian Mitchell, Rockall was "terra nullius" until it was claimed by the United Kingdom in 1955. It was formally annexed in 1972. One of the few micronations to control a physical location, the Principality of Sealand has existed de facto since 1967 on an abandoned British anti-aircraft gun tower in the North Sea.