This is the first of two chapters in this volume dedicated to John Grierson (1896–1972), the founder and leader of the British documentary movement to whom four chapters were dedicated in PHD, Vol. I (1895–1959). In this discussion I focus on his 1967 written response to the carefully designed Cambridge student questionnaire bearing the title “Definitions—Answers to a Cambridge Questionnaire.” It is a key manuscript that hones in, both directly and obliquely, on this three-volume set’s metaphysical presupposition that there is a discernable discursive realm such as “Philosophical History of Documentary.” The chapter scrutinizes Grierson’s sophisticated, multi-layered answers to the first nine of the ten questions posed by the Cambridge students, and only then delves deep into deconstructing the documentarological logic of his closing seven-line definiens, which goes along these lines: “Documentary is a way of observation and thought: a way of creating the imaginable forms in which action is rooted. As such it is a necessary consideration of government. To me the task of the documentary men is plain enough. They have need to reassert and reestablish—academically, politically, and otherwise—their right to sit above the salt.”