ABSTRACT
Believing must be distinguished from having knowledge. For example, a juror may truly believe that an accused prisoner is innocent simply because the juror has taken a dislike to the principal witness and refuses to believe he is speaking the truth, whereas his testimony may be correct. In England, for instance, it is customary for a judge, at the trial of a person accused of murder, to instruct the jury that an adverse verdict need not be based upon the belief that the guilt of the prisoner has been ‘proved’, but upon the belief that the guilt has been established ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. For instance, a person who has never studied the marriage customs of primitive peoples has no good ground for believing that polyandry is contrary to human nature if it is the case that anthropologists have professed to provide evidence that some tribes practise polyandry.
