LITMIR.BIZ

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the fact, Hume has not only anticipated but refuted the reasoning which is based upon it. In the succeeding chapter on a Particular Providence and a Future State, he directly disposes of such an assumption, but he does so with equal effect also in the Essay which we are discussing. Taking an imaginary miracle as an illustration, he argues: "Though the being to whom the miracle is ascribed be in this case Almighty, it does not, upon that account, become a whit more probable; since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions in the usual course of nature. This still reduces us to past observation, and obliges us to compare the instances of the violation of truth in the testimony of men, with those of the violation of the laws of nature by miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. As the violations of truth are more common in the testimony concerning religious miracles than in that concerning any other matter of fact, this must diminish very much the authority of the former testimony, and make us form a general resolution never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretence it may be covered."(1) A person who believes anything contradictory to a complete induction merely on the strength of an assumption which is incapable of proof is simply credulous, but such an assumption cannot affect the real evidence for that thing.

      The argument of Paley against Hume is an illustration of the reasoning suggested by Mr. Mill. Paley alleges the interposition of a Personal Deity in explanation of miracles, but he protests that he does not assume the attributes of the Deity or the existence of a future state in order to prove their reality. "That reality," he admits, "always must be proved by evidence. We assert only that in miracles adduced in support of revelation there is not such antecedent improbability as no testimony can surmount." His argument culminates in the short statement: "In a word, once believe that there is a God" (i.e., a Personal God working miracles), "and miracles are not incredible."(2) We have already quoted Hume's refutation of this reasoning, and we may at once proceed to the final argument by which Paley endeavours to overthrow Hume's doctrine, and upon which he mainly rests his case.

      "But the short consideration," he says, "which, independently of every other, convinces me that there is no solid foundation in Mr. Hume's conclusion, is the following: When a theorem is proposed to a mathematician, the first thing he does with it is to try it upon a simple case, and if it produces a false result, he is sure that there must be some mistake in the demonstration. Now, to proceed in this way with what may be called Mr. Hume's theorem. If twelve men, whose probity and good sense I had long known, should seriously and circumstantially relate to me an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes, and in which it was impossible that they should be deceived; if the governor of the country, hearing a rumour of this account, should call these men into his presence, and offer them a short proposal, either to confess the imposture or submit to be tied up to a gibbet; if they should refuse with one voice to acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or imposture in the case; if this threat was communicated to them separately, yet with no different effect; if it was at last executed; if I myself saw them, one after another, consenting to be racked, burned, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account—still, if Mr. Hume's rule be my guide, I am not to believe them. Now I undertake to say that there exists not a sceptic in the world who would not believe them, or who would defend such incredulity."(1)

      It is obvious that this reasoning, besides being purely hypothetical, is utterly without cogency against Hume's doctrine. In the first place, it is clear that no assertion of any twelve men would be sufficient to overthrow a law of nature, which is the result of a complete induction, and in order to establish the reality of a miracle or the occurrence on one occasion of an unprecedented effect, from any cause, not in accordance with natural law, no smaller amount of evidence would suffice than would serve to refute the complete induction. The allegation of such an intervening cause as a Personal

      Deity working miracles is excluded as opposed to a complete induction. So long as we maintain the law, we are necessarily compelled to reject any evidence which contradicts it. We cannot at the same time believe the contradictory evidence, and yet assert the truth of the law. The specific allegation, moreover, is completely prohibited by the Scriptural admission that miracles are also performed by other supernatural beings in opposition to the Deity. The evidence of the twelve men, however, simply amounts to a statement that they saw, or fancied that they saw, a certain occurrence in contradiction to the law, but that which they actually saw was only an external phenomenon, the real nature of which is a mere inference, and an inference which, from the necessarily isolated position of the miraculous phenomenon, is neither supported by other instances capable of forming a complete counter induction, nor by analogies within the order of nature.1 The bare inference from an occurrence supposed to have been witnessed by twelve men is all that is opposed to the law of nature, which is based upon a complete induction, and it is, therefore, incredible.

      If we proceed to examine Paley's "simple case" a little more closely, however, we find that not only is it utterly inadmissible as a hypothesis, but that as an illustration of the case of Gospel miracles it is completely devoid of relevancy and argumentative force. The only point which gives a momentary value to the supposed instance is the condition attached to the account of the miracle related by the twelve men, that not only was it wrought before their eyes, but that it was one "in which it was impossible that they should be deceived." Now this qualification of infallibility on the part of the twelve witnesses is as incredible as the miracle which they are supposed to attest. The existence of twelve men incapable of error or mistake is as opposed to experience as the hypothesis of a miracle in which it is impossible for the twelve men to be deceived is contradictory to reason. The exclusion of all error in the observation of the actual occurrence and its antecedents and consequences, whose united sum constitutes the miracle, is an assumption which deprives the argument of all potency. It cannot be entertained. On the other hand, the moment the possibility of error is admitted, the reasoning breaks down, for the probability of error on the part of the observers, either as regards the external phenomena, or the inferences drawn from them, being so infinitely greater than the probability of mistake in the complete induction, we must unquestionably hold by the law and reject the testimony of the twelve men.

      It need scarcely be said that the assertion of liability to error on the part of the observers by no means involves any insinuation of wilful "falsehood or imposture in the case." It is quite intelligible that twelve men might witness an occurrence which might seem to them and others miraculous—but which was susceptible of a perfectly natural explanation—and truthfully relate what they believed to have seen, and that they might, therefore, refuse "with one voice to acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or imposture in the case," even although the alternative might be death on a gibbet. This, however, would in no way affect the character of the actual occurrence. It would not convert a natural, though by them inexplicable, phenomenon into a miracle. Their constancy in adhering to the account they had given would merely bear upon the truth of their own statements, and the fact of seeing them "one after another consenting to be racked, burned, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account," would not in the least justify our believing in a miracle. Even martyrdom cannot transform imaginations into facts. The truth of a narrative is no guarantee for the correctness of an inference. It seems almost incredible that arguments like these should for so many years have been tolerated in the text-book of a University.

      As regards the applicability of Paleys illustration to the Gospel miracles, the failure of his analogy is complete. We shall presently see the condition of the people amongst whom these miracles are supposed to have occurred, and that, so far from the nature of the phenomena, and the character of the witnesses, supporting the inference that it was impossible that the observers could have been deceived, there is every reason for concluding with certainty that their ignorance of natural laws, their proneness to superstition, their love of the marvellous, and their extreme religious excitement, rendered them peculiarly liable to incorrectness in the observation of the phenomena, and to error in the inferences drawn from them. We shall likewise see that we have no serious and circumstantial accounts of those miracles from eye-witnesses of whose probity and good sense we have any knowledge, but that, on the contrary, the narratives of them which we possess were composed by unknown persons, who were not eyewitnesses at all, but wrote very long after the events related, and in that mythic period "in which reality melted into fable, and invention unconsciously trespassed

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