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
Marriage in England and Wales horseback. The presence of a credible witness or witnesses was usual. For much of the relevant period church courts dealt with marital matters. Ecclesiastical law recognised two forms of handfasting, "sponsalia per verba de praesenti" ("espousal by word given at the present time") and "sponsalia per verba de futuro" ("espousal by word at a future time"). In the former — the most common form — the couple declared they there and then accepted each other as man and wife; the latter form was a betrothal, as the couple took hands only to declare their intention to marry each other at