The how of historical inquiry.

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On this page I gather an assortment of quotations from historianswriting about the very business of history, the historical method.

Refer also to my page on the argumentfrom silence.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 141:

Although work like [Thomas] Carlyle's [On Heroes, Hero-Worshipand the Heroic in History] is surely naive, it is also a mistake tounderestimate the effect an individual can have. Imagine what today's worldwould be like had Mohammed, Confucius, or Christ not lived, if Marx hadnot written, if there had been no Hitler!

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, pages 43-44:

In order for a source to be used as evidence in a historicalargument, certain basic matters about its form and content must be settled.

First, it must be (or must be made) comprehensible at the most basic levelof language, handwriting, and vocabulary. ..

Second, the source must be carefully located in place and time: when wasit composed, where, in what country or city, in what social setting, by whichindividual? Are these apparent 'facts' of composition correct?—that is,is the date indicated, let us say, in a letter written from the front by DwightEisenhower to his wife Mamie the date it was actually written? Is the placeindicated within the source the actual place of composition? If the documentdoes not itself provide such evidence—or if there is any reason to doubtthe ostensible evidence—is there internal evidence that can be used todetermine a probable date, or a time period within which the document wascreated? Can we tell from the content of the document itself or its relationshipto other similar documents where it was composed?

Third, the source must be checked for authenticity. Is it what it purportsto be, let us say an agreement for the transfer of land from a secular lord tothe church or—to mention one of the famous cases of forgery from recenthistory—the personal diary of Adolph Hitler? Can we tell from thehandwriting, the rhetoric, anachronisms of content, from the ink or thewatermark or the quality of the parchment—or from the typeface or theelectronic coding of the tape—that the document was not composed whereit presents itself as having been composed? Is it, perhaps, a forgery fromthe period, a forgery from a later period, or simply a case of mislabelingby archivists?

At this point Howell and Prevenier list the principal tools that historiansuse in order to authenticate the sources:

1. Paleography, the study of handwriting (pages 44-46).
2. Diplomatics, the study of charters (page 46).
3. Archaeology, the study of artifacts (pages 46-50).
4. Statistics, the study of numerical data (pages 50-55).
5. Miscellaneous tools (page 56):
   • Sigillography, the study of seals.
   • Chronology, the study of timekeeping.
   • Codicology, the study of handwritten books.
   • Papyrology, the study of papyrus texts.
   • Epigraphy, the study of inscriptions.
   • Heraldry, the study of coats of arms.
   • Numismatics, the study of coinage.
   • Linguistics, the study of language.
   • Genealogy, the study of family relationships.
   • Prosopography, the study of names and careers, or the useof biographical data to construct group portraits.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 60:

Sources must be evaluated not only in terms of those externalcharacteristics on which we have been focusing, the questions of where, when,and by whom a source was created and whether it is 'genuine' or not.Traditionally, they have also been evaluated in terms of what historianshave thought of as internal criteria. Microsoft dynamics nav project accounting principles.

Howell and Prevenier now list the chief elements of source criticism:

1. The genealogy of the document (pages 61-62), whether it is the original,a copy, or a copy of a copy.
2. The genesis of the document (pages 62-63), the circumstances, authority,and events in or under which it was produced.
3. The originality of the document (pages 63-64), whether itis innovating or merely passing on already current information.
4. The interpretation of the document (pages 64-65), the extraction ofsome kind of meaning from it.
5. The authorial authority of the document (pages 65-66), the relationof its author to the subject matter, whether eyewitness, earwitness, oreven further removed.
6. The competence of the observer (pages 66-68); is the author qualifiedto report and capable of reporting critically and with comprehension?
7. The trustworthiness of the observer (page 68); is the author lyingor telling what he or she believes is the truth?

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, pages 69-71, on comparisons of sources(which section covers pages 69-79):

Typically, historians do not rely on just one source tostudy an event or a historical process, but on many, and they constructtheir own interpretations about the past by means of comparison amongsources—by sifting information contained in many sources, by listeningto many voices. ..

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The essential problem here is distinguishing among the useful,less useful, and useless sources. Generally, historians consider sources tobe useless (for reporting purposes) if they derive from other, usually older,sources. Although it is sometimes hard to decide if a source is in some wayderived from another, once that assessment is made, eliminating the dependentsource is usually easy. It is much harder, however, to rank sources that allseem to be 'original' in that each provides an independent account of theparticular events in question.

Nineteenth-century historians developed systematic rules for making suchcomparisons. Two of the best-known rule books of the age, that of E. Bernheim,published in 1889 (Lehrbuch der historischen Methode und derGeschichtsphilosophie [Guidebook for Historical Method and thePhilosophy of History]), and Charles Langlois and Charles Seignobos,from 1898 (Introduction aux études historiques [Introduction tothe Study of History]), provide a seven-step process, which we havesummarized below. As we shall see, the procedure hardly guarantees the kindof scientific proof these scholars and their contemporaries imagined asthe historians' goal (only numbers (2) and (6) seem uncontroversial),but it can, nevertheless, provide entry into the challenging world ofsource comparison.

This sevenfold list Howell and Prevenier give as follows:

1. If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider theevent proved.
2. However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events inone way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the tests of criticaltextual analysis..
3. The source whose account can be confirmed by reference to outsideauthorities in some of its parts can be trusted in its entirety if it isimpossible similarly to confirm the entire text.
4. When two sources disagree on a particular point, the historian will preferthe souce with the most 'authority'—i.e., the source created by theexpert or the eyewitness..
5. Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred, especially in circumstanceswhere the ordinary observer could have accurately reported what transpired and,more specifically, when they deal with facts known by most contemporaries.
6. If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliabilityof each is measurably enhanced.
7. When two sources disagree (and there is no other means of evaluation),then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, pages 74-75, after using an argument from silencein an example involving Israeli involvement in the 1982 attackon refugee camps in Beirut:

Of course, an argument from silence can serve aspresumptive evidence of the 'silenced' event only if, as in thiscase, the person suppressing the information was in a positionto have the information, and was purposing to give a fullaccount of the story from which he omitted the crucialinformation, and if there were no compelling reasons whyhe should have omitted the information (other than the wishto conceal). ..

Another difficulty with an 'argument from silence' is thathistorians cannot assume—as nineteenth-century scholarssuch as Seignobos would have assumed—that an observerof a particular 'fact' would have automatically recordedthe fact. .. In addition, it is clear, silences can beinadvertently created when texts are partly obliterated, lost,or changed in unexpected ways. And, conversely, it is naiveto assume that everything that a text reports was actuallyobserved—much less that it occurred!

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 75:

Although historians must often reason fromsilences, they more commonly reason from positive evidence,and in their accounts they employ a number of logical processes.Very often historians reason by interpolation or by analogy,as though inserting missing pieces in a puzzle whose overallpattern they can discern by comparison with other, analogoussituations. ..

Comparison of this kind can be a useful technique, but itis also a treacherous one. Comparisons are never perfect.Historical actors are creative; they learn from formerevents.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 76:

Reasoning by analogy, although useful and oftennecessary, is thus often inadequate. Hence, historians employother kinds of logical processes as well, often turning to whatis labeled 'the scientific method.' In these instances, historiansconstruct testable hypotheses and marshal evidence to test them,following the principles of the physical sciences. ClaudeBernard, a nineteenth-century positivist scientist, was one ofthe first, in 1865, to lay out these steps systematically:(1) observation, (2) hypothesis, (3) fit between the hypothesisand the given facts, (4) verification of the hypothesis withnew facts. For historians who would follow this method,'observation' consists of critical analysis of the sourcesusing the methods we have considered in chapter 2 [on pages43-68, entitled Technical Analysis of Sources]. The'hypothesis' is an effort at explanation—an attemptto make causal connections between the observed 'facts.' Theprocess is dialectic, so that the resultant hypothesis is thentested by new facts, revised if necessary, and retested.And so on.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 77:

Although it is a simple process to think uphypotheses, it is no simple task to formulate hypotheses thatactually link the observed pieces of evidence—thatcan explain the facts available, not those that the scholarmight wish to have. Often, it takes many tries before thescholar can formulate a hypothesis that really works—onethat satisfactorily accounts for the known evidence. There isno formula for success in this difficultventure.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 78:

The difficulties of applying the so-calledscientific method to historical research means that historiansmust often satisfy themselves with rules of logic that appearless watertight, making statements that seem probable, not'proved' in any 'scientific' sense.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 80, on establishing evidentiarysatisfaction (which section covers pages 79-84):

To a large extent, the amount or quality ofevidence required depends on the kind of event beingstudied.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 81:

But historians never have just what they wantor need. At one extreme is the historian limited to onesource. Einhard's Life of Charlemagne is, for example,the only source scholars have about the private life ofEurope's first emperor. Like many of the political biographieswritten today, this one is more hagiography than criticalbiography, and in the best of worlds historians might wellrefuse to use it as evidence about Charlemagne's life andhis character. But historians, although conscious that theyare prisoners of the unique source and bear all the risksthat this involves, use it because it is all they have.At the other extreme are historians studying the recentpast. They have a great many sources, and in many ways theirproblems are thus fewer. But even here there is nocertainty.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 84, on the facts that matter(which section covers pages 84-87):

[T]he status of any 'fact' available to thehistorian is always insecure. Nevertheless, howeverself-conscious they are about the limits of their knowledge,about its particularity.., historians must construct theirinterpretations about the past out of information thatthey deem to be of factlike status—information thatis available to them for the purposes of theirinquiry.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, FromReliable Sources, page 84:

Often, historians will privilege evidence thatseems to point to a recurring picture, to add to a story thatseems familiar or repetitive. Always, however, this is arisky choice. In some sense, all events are unique, and everyfact about an event is unique. ..

This is not to say, however, that there are not patternsin history, similarities of circumstance that allow thehistorian fruitfully to compare one place and time withanother, to look for patterns of recurrence and thuspatterns of causality. Only when one considers how similarpeople behave in similar situations can one begin to makegeneralizations about the relationships between events thatwe call cause and effect. Only then does history becomemore than the banal repetition of events.

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, pages 115-117:

The historian often has to depend uponsecondary works (i.e., other historians' second-handnarratives and expositions) for his knowledge of thebackground into which to fit the contemporary documents,but he frequently also finds that, just as a good secondaryaccount will enable him better to understand a contemporarydocument, so the correct understanding of the contemporarydocument will enable him to correct the secondary account.In the end, his knowledge is best tested by a criticalanalysis of the testimony of contemporaries.

Hence, as a general rule, the careful historian will besuspicious of secondary works in history, even the best ones.He should use them only for four purposes: (1) to derive thesetting into which to fit the contemporary evidence uponhis problem, being always prepared, however, to doubt andto rectify the secondary account wherever a critical analysisof contemporary witnesses makes it necessary to do so;(2) to get leads to other bibliographical data; (3) toacquire quotations or citations from contemporary or othersources, but only if they are not more fully availableelsewhere and always with skepticism about their accuracy,especially if they are translated from another tongue; and(4) to derive interpretations of and hypotheses regarding hisproblem, but only with a view to testing or improving uponthem, never with the intention of accepting themoutright.

In general, the rule regarding time-lapse as applied tosecondary sources is the reverse of that rule as appliedto primary sources. The further away secondary sources arein time from the events of which they tell, the more reliablethey are likely to be. That is true not only becauseimpartiality and detachment are easier for remote periods ofhistory, but also because as time elapses, more materialsare likely to become available. In addition, the last writerhas the help of the materials and interpretations containedin the earlier studies of his subject. Unfortunately, laterhistorians are not always as competent as earlier ones. Alltoo frequently they are just hack-writers, content merelywith 're-hashing' the earlier works without presenting newevidence or points of view.

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, pages 90-91:

Four general rules will suffice here toindicate why one group of documents may be given precedenceover another. (1) As we have seen, incomplete observationand faulty memory are often responsible for the inadequacyof testimony. Because a witness's reliability is, in general,inversely proportional to the time-lapse betweenthe observation of the event and the witness's recollection,the closer the time of making a document was to the eventit records, the better it is likely to be for historicalpurposes. (2) Some documents were originally intended purelyas records or aids to one's memory, some as reports to otherpersons, some as apologia, some as propaganda, and so on.Because documents differ in this way in purpose, themore serious the author's intention to make a mere record,the more dependable his document as a historical source.(3) Because the effort, on the one hand, to palliate thetruth or, on the other, to decorate it with literary,rhetorical, or dramatic flourishes tends to increase asthe expected audience increases, in general the fewer thenumber for whose eyes the document was meant (i.e., thegreater its confidential nature), the more 'naked'its contents are likely to be. (4) Because the testimonyof a schooled or experienced observer and reporter (e.g.,a professional soldier reporting a battle, an experiencedcorrespondent describing an interview, a veteran policemanreporting an accident, etc.) is generally superior to thatof the untrained and casual observer and reporter, thegreater the expertness of the author in the matterhe is reporting, the more reliable his report.

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, pages 100-101:

The historian or psychologist interestedin the inner springs of consciousness may, however, sometimesfind the idealized personality of an autobiography moremeaningful than the more realistic character revealed bybetter sources. It is also true that for the correctunderstanding of personal influences, cults, and legends,the idealization by disciples often is a more meaningfulhistorical fact than the actual personality (see ChapterXI).

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, pages 139-140:

In the process of analysis the historianshould constantly keep in mind the relevant particularswithin the document rather than the document as a whole.Regarding each particular he asks: Is it credible? It mightbe well to point out again that what is meant by callinga particular credible is not that it is actuallywhat happened, but that it is as close to whatactually happened as we can learn from a critical examinationof the best available sources. This meansverisimilar at a high level. It connotes something morethan merely not being preposterous in itself or eventhan plausible and yet is short of meaningaccurately descriptive of past actuality. In otherwords, the historian establishes verisimilituderather than objective truth. ..

A historical 'fact' thus may be defined as a particularderived directly or indirectly from historical documentsand regarded as credible after careful testing in accordancewith the canons of historical method (see below, p. 150).An infinity and a multiple variety of facts of this kindare accepted by all historians: e.g., that Socrates reallyexisted; that Alexander invaded India; that the Romansbuilt the Pantheon..

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, pages 143-144:

Having accumulated his notes, the investigatormust now separate the credible from the incredible. ..In detailed investigations few documents are significantas a whole; they serve most often only as mines from whichto extract historical ore. Each bit of ore, however, maycontain flaws of its own. The general reliability of anauthor, in other words, has significance only as establishingthe probably credibility of his particular statements. Fromthat process of scupulous analysis emerges an importantgeneral rule: for each particular of a document theprocess of establishing credibility should be separatelyundertaken regardless of the general credibility of theauthor.

As has already been pointed out (p. 138), someidentification of the author is necessary to test a document'sauthenticity. In the subsequent process of determining thecredibility of its particulars, even the most genuineof documents should be regarded as guilty of deceipt untilproven innocent. ..

The historian, however, is frequently obliged to usedocuments written by persons about whom nothing or relativelylittle is known. Even the hundreds of biographicaldictionaries and encyclopedias already in existence may beof no help because the author's name is unknown or, ifknown, not to be found in the reference works. The historianmust therefore depend upon the document itself to teachhim what it can about the author. A single brief documentmay teach him much if he asks the rightquestions.

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, page 147:

It would be relatively easy, even if theGettysburg Address were a totally strange document, toestablish its approximate date. It was obviously composed'four-score and seven years' after the Declaration ofIndependence, hence in 1863. But few strange documentsare so easily dated. One has frequently to resort to theconjectures known to the historian as the terminusnon ante quem ('the point not before which') and theterminus non post quem ('the point not after which').These termini, or points, have to be establishedby internal evidence — by clues given within thedocument itself.

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, page 149:

In a law court it is frequently assumed thatall testimony of a witness, though under oath, is suspectif the opposing lawyers can impugn his general characteror by examination and cross-examination create doubt ofhis veracity in some regard. Even in modern law courtsthe old maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus tendsto be overemphasized. In addition, hearsay evidence is as ageneral rule excluded; certain kinds of witnesses are'privileged' or 'unqualified' and therefore are not obligedto testify or are kept from testifying..

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, page 150:

The historian, however, is prosecutor,attorney for the defense, judge, and jury all in one. But asjudge he rules out no evidence whatever if it is relevant.To him any single detail of testimony is credible —even if it is contained in a document obtained by force orfraud, or is otherwise impeachable, or is based on hearsayevidence, or is from an interested witness — providedit can pass four tests:

(1) Was the ultimate source of the detail (the primarywitness) able to tell the truth?

(2) Was the primary witness willing to tell thetruth?

(3) Is the primary witness accurately reportedwith regard to the detail under examination?

(4) Is there any independent corroboration ofthe detail under examination?

Any detail (regardless of what the source or who theauthor) that passes all four tests is crediblehistorical evidence. It will bear repetition that theprimary witness and the detail are now thesubjects of examination, not the source as awhole.

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, pages 188-189:

A large part of historical composition isargumentative. It attempts to answer questions such as 'Whydid Caesar cross the Rubicon?' or 'Did Washington understandthe terms of his capitulation at Fort Necessity?' or 'DidNasser really believe that American and English airplanesaided the Israeli Army in 1967?' The argument in suchcases usually consists of a mustering of the evidence on oneand the other side and of a conclusion either that one sideseems more plausible than the other or that, neither side ofthe argument being wholly convincing, the historian has tosuspend judgment. In such cases the historian is dealing withevidence as concrete things as well as abstract thought;the evidence he is dealing with, whether words or artifactsor whatever, still exists — a record of recollectionby Caesar, a capitulation signed by Washington, a transcriptionof an intercepted telephone conversation with Nasser, and thelike — even if only in a translated and re-edited versionrather than as the original document itself. When presentinghis argument in cases like these, the historian therefore isdealing with evidence that is still extant in some form,good or bad, and he is likely to speak of it in the presenttense: 'Caesar's Commentaries say..'; 'Washington'ssignature is..'; 'Nasser's voice sounds..' Such a useof present tenses is not only permissible; it may well bethe best way to use them.

Louis Gottschalk, UnderstandingHistory, page 163:

Even when the fact in question may not be well-known,certain kinds of statements are both incidental and probableto such a degree that error or falsehood seems unlikely. If an ancientinscription on a road tells us that a certain proconsul built thatroad while Augustus was princeps, it may be doubted without furthercorroboration that that proconsul really built the road, but wouldbe harder to doubt that the road was built during the principate ofAugustus. If an advertisement informs readers that 'A and B Coffeemay be bought at any reliable grocer's at the unusual price of fiftycents a pound,' all the inferences of the advertisement may well bedoubted without corroboration except that there is a brand of coffeeon the market called 'A and B Coffee.'

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 304:

Proof by circumstances (indirect,presumptive, circumstantial evidence), as differentiatedfrom proof by testimony (testimonial evidence), is usedto establish the reality of an alleged fact, or to rendera doubtful fact certain. Very often circumstances orindications of varying number and significance for eachparticular case point to one and the same conclusion.Taken individually, they yield as a rule only probability;taken collectively, they issue in certainty when theirconcurrence is such that it cannot be explained exceptby the reality of the alleged fact or facts to whichthey point.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 305:

Cumulative or converging evidence isvirtually circumstantial. It is 'a heaping up' (L.cumulus) of bits of evidence, individually nevermore than probable, and often only slightly so, untilthey form a mass of evidence, the net result of whichis certainty. But, as already noted, the resultingcertainty does not issue directly from the mass orcumulus of probabilities, since no number of mereprobabilities added together can logically producecertainty. To produce such effect, one must invoke the'principle of sufficient reason,' by arguing that theonly possible explanation why so many bits of evidencepoint to the same alleged fact, is that the fact isobjectively true.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 260:

For the reliability of the popular traditionof a historical fact, certain conditions must be fulfilled.

(a) Broad conditions: (1) Unbrokenseries of witnesses; (2) several parallel andindependent series of witnesses.

(b) Particular conditions: (1) Contenta public event of importance; (2) general belief fora definite period; (3) absence of protest during thatperiod; (4) relatively limited duration; (5)influence of the critical spirit, and application of criticalinvestigation; (6) absence of denial by the criticallyminded.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 273:

Lanzoni [in Genesi], following De Smedt,distinguishes two types of legend, mere legends, andhistorical legends. The former have no direct orexplicit historical content whatever; the latter have contentof this kind in varying degree. Both types can be of useto the historian by preserving data of value, whetherimplicitly or explicitly. The legend itself may be purefiction, and at the same time incidentally (or, as thephilosophers say, praeter intentionem) may picturevividly and even accurately various phases of a vanishedculture or civilization.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, pages 143-144:

Analogy argues from the resemblance of twothings in one or more respects to their necessary or supposedlynecessary resemblance also in other respects. The basis of anargument of this kind is the double principle that everybeing shows certain attributes or traits correspondingto its nature, that every efficient cause has a correspondingeffect; consequently, similar beings show similar attributesor traits, while similar causes have similar effects, andvice versa. Historical analogy applies the principleof analogy to historical data as a method of logicalproof.

Garraghan goes on to list a few kinds of faulty analogy,one of which is, on page 145, the interpretation of ancienttexts according to contemporary ideas and customs. Surelya good caveat to keep in mind when constructing anargument from analogy.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 146:

History is concerned immediately with single,individual facts; mediately with such generalized truths ascan be derived from the individual facts. Generalizations inhistory may be applicable only to the past, or they maybe of universal application, and as such, independent of timeand place. Examples of the two types are respectively thestatements, 'the Athenians were an art-loving people'; 'astrongly centralized government is the best in war time.' It isonly in the case of the latter type that we can speak withconsistency of 'historical laws.' The logical processemployed in arriving at either kind of generalization isknown as induction or, more specifically, incompleteinduction, which may be defined as 'the legitimatederivation of general laws or truths from a limited numberof individual cases.'

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 151:

As a method of investigation in history,the use of statistics may be taken to mean the collection,tabulation, and analysis of numerical facts of a givencategory, with a view to deducing therefrom averages,proportions, and other uniformities or laws, useful tothe historian.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 153:

An intelligent use of hypothesis conditionsall progress in scientific research. As a rule it is only bythinking out various likely explanations of a phenomenon,by testing them one after the other, and rejecting such asare unsatisfactory, that the true explanation is finallybrought to light. This is the course pursued by the physicistand other specialists in the natural sciences; it is a necessaryprocedure in the social sciences as well. Historical hypothesismay be applied not merely to the data supplied from sources,but to the sources themselves in the whole range of problemswhich they present, such as authorship, textual integrity,interpretation, trustworthiness.

Garraghan necessarily reminds the reader on page 154 thatcertain dangers attend argumentation by hypothesis, chief amongwhich is the fitting of facts into the hypothesis rather thanthe fitting of the hypothesis into the facts.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 160:

Conjecture does not greatly differ fromhypothesis. Both terms are often used as synonyms in every dayspeech; technically, however, they differ in meaning. Conjecturegenerally regards individual facts or phenomena, while hypothesis,being of wider range and significance, deals typically withbodies of facts, general situations.

Garraghan now divides conjecture into three kinds. The firstis conjectural emendation of a text; the second is conjecturalrestoration of longer passages of a text or even entiredocuments; the third is conjectural detail, used to fill out thebackground of a text.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 162:

The argument from silence aims to prove thenon-reality of an alleged fact from the circumstance thatcontemporary or later sources of information fail to sayanything about it. It is sometimes misleadingly called thenegative argument; but this can easily be taken to meansomething false, namely, that the argument rests on anexplicit denial of some fact.

Garraghan offers only two conditions that an argumentfrom silence must fulfill. First, that the writer whose silenceis invoked would have certainly been in a position to knowabout the alleged fact; second, that the writer would havecertainly made mention of it under the circumstances.

Gilbert J. Garraghan, AGuide to Historical Method, page 166:

The argument a priori is based on antecedentprobability or improbability. Direct evidence may be lackingthat a man is guilty of a crime imputed to him; but his knowncharacter, antecedents, habits, make it likely or unlikely thathe is guilty. Here the reasoning concerns facts or circumstancesprior in time to the occurrence of the event inquestion.