PRESUJIPTION. A presumption may be defined to be a belief or inference as to the existence of a fact not actually known, arising from its necessary or usual connection with others which are known.
A fact may be proved by the immediate knowledge of the witnesses to it, which is called direct evidence. If it cannot be so proved, some other fact may generally be proved by direct evidence, from which the fact in question may often be inferred. If such other fact can be proved, and the existence of the fact in question can be inferred, such inference is a presumption. The inference may be either strictly logical or necessary, or it may be only probable, that is, the fact inferred may be true or it may not be true. If we cannot infer from the fact proved that the fact in question may be true, there can be no presumption at all as to such last fact. In all cases then, in order to establish a presumption, there must necessarily be an inference from a fact or facts; but the inference may be either necessary or probable. If necessary, it cannot, by the supposition, be disproved ; if probable, it may either be disproved by evidence, or it may not be possible to disprove it for want of evidence, and yet the inference will still only be probable.
Presumptions which are necessary can hardly over be considered as otherwise than conclusive in any system of law. Presumptions which are probable only may, by positive law, be made as conclusive as necessary presumptions, that la, it may not be permitted to disprove them when they could be disproved ; or where such disproving evidence is wanted, and yet the inference is only probable, positive law may give it the same conclusive force as a necessary presumption.
A presumption, when established, that is, a fact when preeumed, is legally the same as a fact proved in such manner as the particular system of law requires such fact to be proved. If then the law annexes any legal consequences to a given fact when proved, it annexes the mine to it when the fact is legally presume& It Is only by virtue of legal consequences being annexed to facto that they become objects of jurisprudence. The establishment then of a presumption, in a legal
sense, le only the establishment of a fact to which certain legal con sequences are annexed.
In our own system, the presumption is sometimes made by a judge or a number of judge'', and sometimes by a jury, but the consequences are the maim. Some writers say that presumptions are either " legal and artificial" or "natural." They divide "artificial or legal pre sumptions " into two kinds, immediate and mediate. " are those which are made by the law itself directly and without the aid of a jury. Mediate presumptions are those which cannot be made hut by the aid of a jury." Presumptions may therefore be divided into three classes: I. Legal presumptions made by the law itself, or presumptions of law ; 2, Legal presumptions to be made by a jury, or prminnptions of law and fact ; 3, Mere natural presumptions, or pre sumptions of fact." The first class of presumptions, it is said, are either absolute and conclusive, or they may be rebutted by evidence to the contrary. The presumption of law that a bond was executed upon a good considera tion cannot be rebutted by evidence, so long as the bond is unimpeachod, that is, so long as it is admitted to be a bond. But though the law presumes that a bill of exchange was accepted on good consideration, it admits evidence to show that such was not the fact. Now this presumption of Law is nothing more than a fact presumed by a judge or judges, to which fact so presumed, certain legal consequences are annexed or belong. It is however a very inaccurate expression to speak of a presumption of law; for, " when the law presumes or infers any fact to which a legal cones:pence is annexed from any defined predicament of facts, the law iu effect indirectly annexes to that predicament the legal consequence which belongs to the presumed fact." One presumption of law may be opposed by another, and the law, that is, the court, must then decide which is the stronger.