The first is a tendency on the part of subsequent generations to adopt a highly skeptical attitude toward all statements and testimony derived from earlier generations. Inherent in this point of view is the feeling, consciously expressed or unconsciously followed, that all human beings contemporary with an event either lie deliberately or exaggerate without compunction. This failing, so the argument runs, becomes most apparent when any numerical estimates are involved. Thus the soldier inevitably grossly magnifies the force of the enemy, the priest inflates the number of his flock, the farmer falsifies the size of his herds, the woodsman increases the height of the tree--all just as the fisherman enlarges upon the big one which got away. That these individuals are frequently subject to an urge to exaggerate cannot for a moment be denied. Nevertheless, under many circumstances most men lack a desire to do so or, if they feel such desire, know how to curb it. To maintain explicitly or by implication that every observer without exception who reported on the size of Indian villages or the numbers of Indians seen was guilty of inflating the values is no more justifiable than to accuse every man who makes a tax return of having cheated the government. Under our law each person is innocent until proved guilty. Similarly, within the range of his intellect and the scope of his senses a traveler or a settler or a miner or a soldier of one hundred years ago should be credited with telling the truth unless there is clear evidence from outside sources that he is prevaricating. Evidence of falsehood should be looked for and, if found, the account should be discounted or discredited. Otherwise it should be admitted at face value. It need not be stressed, of course, that the acceptance or the rejection of a given datum because it does or does not conform to a preconceived theory constitutes a major scientific crime. In the assessment of the California population it may have come about through the years that the disinclination to agree with contemporary observation has been carried too far and that a more liberal attitude of mind is needed. If so, then the reduction of the population which has taken place in print may have overshot its mark and the figures may require revision upwards.