arried the sifting still further by
also omitting from the depositions those in which we found something
that seemed too exceptional to be accepted on the faith of one witness
only, or too little supported by other evidence pointing to like facts.
Many depositions have thus been omitted on which, though they are
probably true, we think it safer not to place reliance.

Notwithstanding these precautions, we began the inquiry with doubts
whether a positive result would be attained. But the further we went and
the more evidence we examined so much the more was our skepticism
reduced. There might be some exaggeration in one witness, possible
delusion in another, inaccuracies in a third. When, however, we found
that things which had at first seemed improbable were testified to by
many witnesses coming from different places, having had no communication
with one another, and knowing nothing of one another's statements, the
points in which they all agreed became more and more evidently true. And
when this concurrence of testimony, this convergence upon what were
substantially the same broad facts, showed itself in hundreds of
depositions, the truth of those broad facts stood out beyond question.
The force of the evidence is cumulative. Its worth can be estimated only
by perusing the testimony as a whole. If any further confirmation had
been needed, we found it in the diaries in which German officers and
private soldiers have recorded incidents just such as those to which the
Belgian witnesses depose.

The experienced lawyers who took the depositions tell us that they
passed from the same stage of doubt into the same stage of conviction.
They also began their work in a skeptical spirit, expecting to find much
of the evidence colored by passion, or prompted by an excited fancy. But
they were impressed by the general moderation and matter-of-fact
level-headedness of the witnesses. We have interrogated them,
particularly regarding some of the most startling and shocking incidents
which appear in the evidence laid before us, and where they expressed a
doubt we have excluded the evidence, admitting it as regards the cases
in which they stated that the witnesses seemed to them to be speaking
the truth, and that they themselves believed the incidents referred to
have happened. It is for this reason that we have inserted among the
depositions printed in the appendix several cases which we might
otherwise have deemed scarcely credible.