Every piece of evidence leads toward an understanding of past events. Every piece of evidence is a footprint made in the cause of guiding a judge or juror to a conclusion which coincides with the litigant's own desired understanding of past events. As put so aptly by Janet Malcolm in her introduction to "The Crime of Sheila McGough" (Knopf 1999),p3:

"The law is the guardian of the ideal of unmediated truth, truth stripped bare of the ornament of narration; the judge, its representative, adjudicates between each lawyers attempt to use the rules of evidence to dismantle the story of the other, while preserving the integrity of his own. The story that can best withstand the attrition of the rules of evidence is the story that wins."