LITMIR.BIZ

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"that the class of phenomena which requires that kind of cause we denominate a Deity is exclusively given in the phenomena of mind; that the phenomena of matter, taken by themselves, do not warrant any inference to the existence of a God."(2) After declaring a Supreme Being, from every point of view, inconceivable by our finite minds, it is singular to find him thrusting upon us, in consequence, a conception of that Being which almost makes us exclaim with Bacon: "It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely."(3) Dr. Mansel asks: "Is matter or mind the truer image of God?"(4) But both matter and mind unite in repudiating so unworthy a conception of a God, and in rejecting the idea of suspensions of Law. In the words of Spinoza: "From miracles we can neither infer the nature, the existence, nor the providence of God, but, on the contrary, these may be much better comprehended from the fixed and immutable order of nature;"(1) indeed, as he adds, miracles, as contrary to the order of nature, would rather lead us to doubt the existence of God.(2)

      Six centuries before our era, a noble thinker, Xenophanes of Colophon, whose pure mind soared far above the base anthropomorphic mythologies of Homer and Hesiod, and anticipated some of the highest results of the Platonic philosophy, finely said:—

      "There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals, Whose form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature;

      But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten, With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members;'

      So if oxen or lions had hands and could work iu man's fashion, And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead, Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, Each kind the Divine with its own form and nature endowing."(4)

      He illustrates this profound observation by pointing out that the Ethiopians represent their deities as black with flat noses, while the Thracians make them blue-eyed with ruddy complexions, and, similarly, the Medes and the Persians and Egyptians portray their gods like themselves.(1) The Jewish idea of God was equally anthropomorphic; but their highest conception was certainly that which the least resembled themselves, and which described the Almighty as "without variableness or shadow of turning," and as giving a law to the universe which shall not be broken.(2)

      3.

      None of the arguments with which we have yet met have succeeded in making miracles in the least degree antecedently credible. On the contrary they have been based upon mere assumptions incapable of proof and devoid of probability. On the other hand there are the strongest reasons for affirming that such phenomena are antecedently incredible. Dr. Mozley's attack which we discussed in the first part of this chapter, and which of course was chiefly based upon Hume's celebrated argument, never seriously grappled the doctrine at all. The principle which opposes itself to belief in miracles is very simple. Whatever is contradictory to universal and invariable experience is antecedently incredible, and as that sequence of phenomena which is called the order of nature is established by and in accordance with universal experience, miracles or alleged violations of that order, by whatever name they may be called, or whatever definition may be given of their characteristics or object, are antecedently incredible. The preponderance of evidence for the invariability of the order of nature, in fact, is so enormous that it is impossible to credit the reality of such variations from it, and reason and experience concur in attributing the ascription of a miraculous character to any actual occurrences which may have been witnessed to imperfect observation, mistaken inference or some other of the numerous sources of error. Any allegation of the interference of a new and supernatural agent, upon such an occasion, to account for results, in contradiction of the known sequence of cause and effect, is excluded by the very same principle, for invariable experience being as opposed to the assertion that such interference ever takes place as it is to the occurrence of miraculous phenomena, the allegation is necessarily disbelieved.

      Apologists find it much more convenient to evade the simple but effective arguments of Hume than to answer them, and where it is possible they dismiss them with a sneer, and hasten on to less dangerous ground. For instance, a recent Hulsean Lecturer, arguing the antecedent credibility of the miraculous, makes the following remarks: "Now, as regards the inadequacy of testimony to establish a miracle, modern scepticism has not advanced one single step beyond the blank assertion. And it is astonishing that this assertion should still be considered cogent, when its logical consistency has been shattered to pieces by a host of writers as well sceptical as Christian (Mill's Logic, ii., 157—160). For, as the greatest of our living logicians has remarked, the supposed recondite and dangerous formula of Hume—that it is more probable that testimony should be mistaken than that miracles should be true—reduces itself to the very harmless proposition that anything is incredible which is contrary to a complete induction. It is in fact a flagrant petitio principii, used to support a wholly unphilosophical assertion."(1) It is much more astonishing that so able a man as Dr. Farrar could so misunderstand Hume's argument and so misinterpret and mis-state Mr. Mill's remarks upon it. So far from shattering to pieces the logical consistency of Hume's reasoning, Mr. Mill substantially confirms it, and pertinently remarks that "it speaks ill for the state of philosophical speculation on such subjects" that so simple and evident a doctrine should have been accounted a dangerous heresy. It is, in fact, the statement of a truth which should have been universally recognized, and would have been so, but for its unwelcome and destructive bearing upon popular theology.

      Mr. Mill states the evident principle, that—"If an alleged fact be in contradiction, not to any number of approximate generalizations, but to a completed generalization grounded on a rigorous induction, it is said to be impossible, and is to be disbelieved totally." Mr. Mill continues.: "This last principle, simple and evident as it appears, is the doctrine which, on the occasion of an attempt to apply it to the question of the credibility of miracles, excited so violent a controversy. Hume's celebrated doctrine, that nothing is credible which is contradictory to experience or at variance with laws of nature, is merely this very plain and harmless proposition, that whatever is contradictory to a complete induction is incredible."(1) He then proceeds to meet possible objections: "But does not (it may be asked) the very statement of the proposition imply a contradiction? An alleged fact according to this theory is not to be believed if it contradict a complete induction. But it is essential to the completeness of an induction that it should not contradict any known fact. Is it not, then, a petitio principii to say, that the fact ought to be disbelieved because the induction to it is complete? How can we have a right to declare the induction complete, while facts, supported by credible evidence, present themselves in opposition to it? I answer, we have that right whenever the scientific canons of induction give it to us; that is, whenever the induction can be complete. We have it, for example, in a case of causation in which there has been an experimentum cruris." It will be remarked that Dr. Farrar adopts Mr. Mill's phraseology in one of the above questions to affirm the reverse of his opinion. Mr. Mill decides that the proposition is not a petitio principii; Dr. Farrar says, as in continuation of his reference to Mr. Mill, that it is a flagrant petitio principii. Mr. Mill proceeds to prove his statement, and he naturally argues that, if observations or experiments have been repeated so often, and by so many persons, as to exclude all supposition of error in the observer, a law of nature is established; and so long as this law is received as such, the assertion that on any particular occasion the cause A took place and yet the effect B did not follow, without any counteracting cause, must be disbelieved. In fact, as he winds up this part of the argument by saying: "We cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature, and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it. We must disbelieve the alleged fact, or believe that we were mistaken in admitting the supposed law."(1) Mr. Mill points out, however, that, in order that any alleged fact should be contradictory to a law of causation, the allegation must be not simply that the cause existed without being followed by the effect, but that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. "Now, in the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion is the exact opposite of this. It is, that the effect was defeated, not in the absence, but in consequence of a counteracting cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some being who has power over nature; and in particular of a Being, whose will being assumed to have endowed all the causes with the powers by which they produce their effects, may well be supposed able to counteract them."(2) A miracle, then, is no contradiction to the law

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