SECTION II. HUME'S ARGUMENT AGAINST MIRACLES. 1. THOUGH We have touched on the principle embodied in Mr. Hume's celebrated argument, in the preceding section; yet we have thought it best to give it a separate examination, because of the great importance attached to it by his followers. It is well known that the argument has been considered as the strongest, and, by many, as an unanswerable objection to the miraculous part of Christianity. Nevertheless, it has been answered, and its sophistry so clearly exposed, that Hume himself confessed defeat. This acknowledgment was made in relation to the celebrated "Dissertation on Miracles" by Dr. Campbell, of Edinburgh; having read which, Hume very frankly declared, "The Scotch theologue has beat me;" and in his letter to Dr. Campbell declined any reply, on the ground that he had resolved never to notice any attack on his works. Notwithstanding this acknowledgment of Mr. Hume himself, his followers have continued to repeat his arguments with as much coolness as if nothing of the kind had ever taken place, and with as much confidence as if no answer had ever been attempted. 2. Mr. Hume's argument is this," Experience is our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact. Variable experience amounts only to probability-invariable experience, to certainty. A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, can not be surmounted by any proof whatever from testimony, because this is variable. There is, therefore, and ever must be, a balance of evidence against miracles." 3. At the first glance this argument seems to amount to a demonstration, but upon examination it will be discovered that there is no small share of assumption about it. 4. First, it assumes that human testimony is always variable. This we deny because testimony is variable or uncertain in some cases, it by no means follows that it is in all. Under ordinary circumstances it may be variable in ninety-nine cases in a hundred; yet under certain given circumstances it may be invariable, being precisely the same in every instance of the hundred or thousand. Now, we affirm that the testimony to the miracles of the New Testament is invariable; for no instance can be adduced in which, under the same circumstances, human testimony was known to be false. It was never known that men have endured a life of toil, persecution, and suffering, and at last submitted to torture and death, in attestation to what they all knew to be an absolute falsehood. We repeat it—no such instance can be adduced from the records of history or human knowledge. Our experience of testimony, then, under these given circumstances, is invariable, and hence Mr. Hume's argument, based as it is upon a false assumption, falls to the ground. 5. Again, Mr. Hume says, "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature." This is likewise assumption; not easily proved, as we have seen in the section preceding. A miracle may be out of the common course of nature, and yet may in no wise be opposed to it. We grant that it is out of the common course of nature, but it remains to be proved that is a violation of nature, or of any of its laws. A man of Mr. Hume's philosophical knowledge should have remembered, that modesty is never out of place when speaking of nature and its laws. Every day is teaching us a lesson of humility in this respect; and every new fact which we gather from nature, serves but to show us how little we know as yet of her laws, her powers and resources, and how much there remains to be known. It becomes the philosopher, then, to be less confident in his assertions as to what is, or is not, a violation of the laws of nature. Until we know all her laws, and powers, and secrets, it would be more modest for us to suspend judgment in this respect; and it is believed, that as the pages of creation are interpreted to us, we shall find cause to think this reserve not unwise. 6. Mr. Hume says again, that "miracles are contrary to experience." This is also assertion, and not only assertion, but, as Mr. Hume and his followers ought to see, a bold assumption of the very point in debate. Christians and Jews have ever affirmed, that miracles are not contrary to experience; they steadily declare that they have been performed, and have been witnessed by thousands and hundreds of thousands. It is for Mr. Hume, therefore, to prove, not assert, that they are contrary to expepience. We beg to be excused from taking his, or any other person's mere assertion as authority here; the question is too important to be decided by mere declamation. terms. 7. If it be said that a miracle is contrary to our experience, we still dissent on the ground of an improper use of To say that a certain event is contrary to, or contradicts experience, because we never experienced it, is a false use of language-it is mere sophistry. "Strictly speaking, the narrative of a fact is contrary to experience only, when the fact is related to have existed at a time and place, at which time and place, we being present, did not perceive it to exist; as if it should be asserted that, in a particular room, at a particular hour of a certain day, a man was raised from the dead, in which room, and at the time specified, we being present, and looking on, perceived no such event to have taken place. Here the assertion is contrary to experience, properly so called; and it matters nothing whether the fact be of a miraculous nature or not."* This is a true statement of the question, and all this talk about miracles contradicting our experience, is but an attempt to confuse with indefinite and ambiguous terms. If it be said that we have not experienced such events, or that they are not generally experienced by others, we readily grant it, and it proves nothing when granted. It is no argument against miracles that they do not occur every where, and at all times. Every day miracles would be no miracles at all, so far as any beneficial effect is concerned; for their universal occurrence would destroy the very object of them. 8. Again Mr. Hume says, "the laws of nature are invariable." How does he know this? Has he lived from the beginning of time, and been acquainted with all the laws and operations of nature? If not, how does he know, how does any one know, that they are invariable, or that they have been established by "a firm and unalterable experience?" He can only speak for his own experience, he can only testify to the invariableness of the laws of nature within the small compass of his own observation, which is but a little spot of earth in England, and of that only for the few years of his life. With regard to all the rest of the earth, and the universe, he knows nothing of this invariableness, and can therefore affirm nothing-with regard to all past ages he knows nothing, and can therefore affirm nothing, except what he knows and affirms upon the authority of testimony. *Paley's Evidences,-Preparatory Considerations. 9. And here it is, if we mistake not, where lies, at least, one grand fallacy in Mr. Hume's argument. He says that the laws of nature are invariable, but human testimony is variable; and hence as miracles depend upon testimony, there is, and always must be, a balance of evidence against them. Now, as has just been shown, all we know of the invariableness of the laws of nature, excepting only that small portion which comes within our own personal observation, is derived from the testimony of others, and, therefore, from a source which, according to Mr. Hume's own statement, is variable. This, if we are not deceived, destroys the foundation of his argument, inasmuch as the invariableness of nature on the one hand, and miracles on the other, do both depend, so to speak, upon testimony. The following syllogism will show this more clearly : Testimony is variable, and can never amount to a certainty; The evidence for miracles depends upon testimony; therefore, The evidence for miracles can never amount to a certainty. This is Mr. Hume's side of the question: testimony cannot amount to a certainty for miracles, while the invariableness of nature amounts to a certainty against them. But it has already been shown that this invariableness itself depends upon testimony; and the following syllogism will show how near it amounts to a certainty against miracles. Testimony is variable, and can never amount to a certainty; The evidence for the invariableness of the laws of nature depends upon testimony; therefore, The evidence for the invariableness of the laws of nature can never amount to a certainty. 10. The reader can judge now of the strength of Mr. Hume's argument, and decide how great is the balance of gevidence aainst miracles derived from the invariableness |