mitigate, fidelity If a biographer wants to preserve credibility, he must be truthful. The author forbore (held back) and refused to mitigate (excuse or lessen) the hard fortunes of the subject and maintained fidelity (faithfulness) to history. Ascertain (determine with certainty) and scrutinize (examine carefully) are opposite in meaning to the sense of the sentence. Sophistry (false reasoning) and empiricism (reliance on observation and experimentation) don’t work in Blank 2.