Knapp v. State-168 Ind. 153. While it is laid down in the books that there must be an open and visible connection between the fact under inquiry and the evidence by which it is sought to be estab1. lished, yet the connection thus required is in the logical processes only, for to require an actual connection between the two facts would be to exclude all presumptive evidence. 1 Best, Evidence (Morgan's ed.), §90. Within settled rules, the competency of testimony depends largely upon its tendency to persuade the judgment. 1 Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Ev., 71, et seq.; Chicago, etc., R. Co. v. Pritchard (1907), post, 398. As said in 1 Wharton, Evidence (3d ed.), §20: "Relevancy is that which conduces to the proof of a pertinent hypothesis." In Stevenson v. Stewart (1849), 11 Pa. St. 307, it was said: "The competency of a collateral fact to be used as the basis of legitimate argument, is not to be determined by the conclusiveness of the inferences it may afford in reference to the litigated fact. It is enough if these may tend, in a slight degree, to elucidate the inquiry, or to assist, though remotely, to a determination probably founded in truth." See, also, Trull v. True (1851), 33 Me. 367; State v. Burpee (1892), 65 Vt. 1, 25 Atl. 964, 19 L. R. A. 145, 36 Am. St. 775; Brown v. Clark (1850), 14 Pa. St. 469; Wells v. Fairbank (1851), 5 Tex. 582; Holmes v. Goldsmith (1893), 147 U. S. 150, 37 L. Ed. 118, 13 Sup. Ct. 288. We are of opinion that the testimony referred to was competent. While appellant's counsel are correct in their assertion that the question was whether appellant 2. had heard a story to the effect that the deceased had offered serious violence to the old man, yet it does not follow that the testimony complained of did not tend to negative the claim of appellant as to what he had heard. One of the first principles of human nature is the impulse to speak the truth. "This principle," says Dr. Reid, whom Professor Greenleaf quotes at length (1 Greenleaf, Evidence [Lewis's ed.], §7, note) "has a powerful operation, Knapp v. State-168 Ind. 153. even in the greatest liars; for where they lie once they speak truth a hundred times." Truth speaking preponderating, it follows that to show that there was no basis in fact for the statement appellant claims to have heard had a tendency to make it less probable that his testimony on this point was true. Indeed, since this court has not, in cases where self-defense is asserted as a justification for homicide, confined the evidence concerning the deceased to character evidence, we do not perceive how, without the possibility of a gross perversion of right, the State could be denied the opportunity to meet in the manner indicated the evidence of the defendant as to what he had heard, where he, cunningly perhaps, testifies that he cannot remember who gave him the information. The fact proved by the State tended to discredit appellant, since it showed that somewhere between the fact and the testimony there was a person who was not a truth speaker, and with appellant unable to point to his informant, it must, at the least, be said that the testimony complained of had a tendency to render his claim as to what he had heard less probable. Appellant, by instruction three, asked the court to charge, "that every individual member of the jury must act upon his own responsibility, and no one is bound by the 3. conclusion of the majority, if such conclusion does not agree with his own, deliberately formed after a careful consideration of the evidence and consultation with his fellow jurors." This instruction was refused, but, in lieu thereof, the court gave the following: "In deliberating upon the evidence for the purpose of finding a verdict, each juror should act for himself and form hist own judgment, uninfluenced by, and independent of, the judgment of others, and thus determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant from his own standpoint." It may be conceded that in appellant's instruction above set forth there is found a correct statement of the law, and it may Knapp v. State-168 Ind. 153. also be conceded concerning the court's instruction that, although its fundamental idea is right, it is unhappily phrased, but as was said by this court in Shenkenberger v. State (1900), 154 Ind. 630, 642: "The form of expres sion in the special instruction proposed by counsel may be much more forcible and expressive than that adopted by the court; but, it does not follow that such form is to be preferred, or that it states the law more accurately. When a special instruction is presented, the material point is the idea embodied in it, and not the language used to express that idea. In every case, the court has the right to choose its own mode of expression, and to clothe its ideas in such words as it deems suitable." Concerning appellant's instruction three, his counsel merely assert in argument that it is plainly the law, and that the refusal to give it was material error. They 4. fail to point out wherein, upon the point instructed on, the instruction given falls short of the instruction tendered. Indeed, it appears that counsel's complaint of the instruction given is that it carried the idea of individual responsibility so far as to err in the other direc tion. Concerning said instruction appellant's counsel say: "It, in effect, tells the jury that each juror should act independently of others, and not be influenced in any way by the judgment of others. It lays down the proposition that each individual member of the jury must go into a corner by himself and deliberate on the cause and come to his own conclusions; that he must not consult with his fellow jurors or discuss the evidence. It forbids the interchange of views." Surely, in view of these claims, we are not called on to analyze the instruction given to show that it contains the essential elements of the point on which appellant sought, by instruction three, to have the court instruct the jury. Referring to what appears to be counsel's real objection to the action of the court, as indicated by their language Knapp v. State-168 Ind. 153. above quoted, we pause to consider whether there 5. should be a reversal because of the instruction given. Notwithstanding the strictures of counsel, we nevertheless feel warranted in asserting that the instruction falls far short of stating to the jury that its members must not discuss the evidence or indulge in an interchange of views concerning the guilt or innocence of the accused. Independence of judgment in the reaching of a conclusion is the fundamental idea of said instruction. There is not a word in it which would forbid the fullest consultation. The cause will not be reversed merely because it is open to verbal criticism. Cleveland, etc., R. Co. v. Miller 6. (1905), 165 Ind. 381, and cases cited. The general effect of a charge is to be considered, and hypercritical objections thereto will not avail. 1 Blashfield, Instructions to Juries, $382. The language should receive a reasonable construction, under all of the circumstances, and not a strained or forced one. Davenport v. Cummings (1863), 15 Iowa 219. If the language used is capable of different constructions, the construction is to be preferred which will lead to an affirmance, un7. less it can reasonably be said, that the instruction was calculated to mislead the jury. Cleveland, etc., R. Co. v. Miller, supra; Caldwell v. New Jersey Steamboat Co. (1871), 47 N. Y. 282; People v. McCallam (1886), 103 N. Y. 587, 9 N. E. 502. The test question in every case is: Was the jury misled? Cleveland, etc., R. Co. v. Miller, supra; Indiana, etc., Traction Co. v. Jacobs (1907), 167 Ind. 85. In determining this we do not have an academic question to deal with. The question is a concrete one. This is not a question concerning 8. the matter of laying down as a rule of law a propo sition that presumptively jurors would know nothing of, but it is a question whether we are to strain after an inference, the essential thought being right, that the jurors were led to do a thing that no man of common sense 9. Knapp v. State-168 Ind. 153. would think was required. It would be no less than preposterous to suppose that the instruction, worded as it was, was calculated to lead the jurors to refuse to consult. Appellant's instruction three contains the idea of jurors consulting, but we do not understand that his counsel are on this ground complaining of the refusal of said instruction. If they were, it would be enough to say that the necessity of consultation was not put forward as a substantive proposition in the instruction, but was mentioned as a mere limitation upon its former language. If counsel deemed it expedient that there should be a direction to the jury to consult a course which finds no parallel in our individual experience-fairness to the trial court required that the demand to have the jury so instructed should be brought forward in a substantive way, and not merely as a part of the setting of an instruction upon some other proposition. 10. Instructions twenty-eight and twenty-nine tendered by appellant were erroneous. While a juror should refuse to join in a verdict of guilty so long as he entertains a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant, yet an instruction would be improper which was calculated to lead a juror to infer that the mere entertaining of a reasonable doubt, after a careful weighing of the evidence and full consultation, amounted to a limitation upon the right of the juror to join in a verdict of guilty. Fuller deliberation and consultation might clear away the juror's doubt, and render it proper for him to concur in the conclusion of his associates. The last objection urged for reversal is based on the refusal of the court to give instruction five tendered by ap pellant. That instruction is as follows: "If the 11. jury believe from the evidence that any of the wit nesses who have testified in this cause were intoxicated at the time of the facts about which they testified, the jury may consider this fact in weighing the testimony |