HUME's argument against miracles is simply this:-Every possible event, however various in its degree of credibility, must, of necessity, be more credible when it rests upon a sufficient cause lying within the field of what is called nature, than when it does not: more credible when it obeys some mechanical cause, than when it transcends such a cause, and is miraculous.

Therefore, assume the resistance to credibility, in any preternatural occurrence, as equal to x, and the very ideal or possible value of human testimony as no more than x -in that case, under the most favourable circumstances conceivable, the argument for and against a miracle, + x and x, will be equal; the two values will destroy each other, and the result will be = 0.

But, inasmuch as this expresses the value of human testimony in its highest or ideal form, a form which is seldom realised in experience, the true result will be different there will always be a negative result much or little according to the circumstances, but in any case enough to turn the balance against believing a miracle.

"Or, in other words," said Hume, popularising his ar gument, "it will always be more credible that the reporter

of a miracle should have told a falsehood, or should himself have been the dupe of appearances, than that a miracle should have actually occurred—that is, an infraction of those natural laws (any or all) which limit what we call experience. For, assume the utmost disinterestedness, veracity, and sound judgment in the witness, with the utmost advantage in the circumstances for giving full play to those qualities; even in such a case the value of affirmative testimony could, at the very utmost, be equal to the negative value on the other side the equation: and the result would be, to keep my faith suspended in equilibrio. But, in any real case ever likely to come before us, the result will be worse; for the affirmative testimony will be sure to fall in many ways below its ideal maximum; leaving, therefore, for the final result some excess, much or little, to the negative side of the equation.

SECTION II.

Of the Argument as Affected by the Covert Limitations under which it is presented.

Such is the argument: and, as the first step towards investigating its sanity and its strength-its kind of force, and its quantity of force-we must direct our attention to the following fact; viz., that amongst three separate conditions under which a miracle (or any event whatever) might become known to us, Hume's argument is applied only to one. Assuming a miracle to happen (for the possibility of a miracle is of course left open throughout the discussion, since any argument against that would at once foreclose every question about its communicability), then it might happen under three several sets of circumstances, in relation to our consciousness. 1. It might happen in

the presence of a single witness-that witness not being ourselves. This case let us call Alpha. 2. It might happen in the presence of many witnesses, witnesses to a variable amount, but still (as before) ourselves not being amongst that multitude. This case let us call Beta. 3. It might happen in our own presence, and fall within the direct light of our own consciousness. This case let us call Gamma.

Now these distinctions are important to the whole extent of the question. For the second case, which is the actual case of many miracles recorded in the New Testament, at once cuts away a large body of sources in which either error or deceit could lurk. Hume's argument supposes the reporter of the miracle to be a dupe, or the maker of dupes-himself deluded, or wishing to delude others. But, in the case of the thousands fed from a few leaves and small fishes, the chances of error, wilful or not wilful, are diminished in proportion to the number of observers,* and Hume's inference as to the declension of the affirmative x, in relation to the negative x, no longer applies, or, if at all, with vastly diminished force. With respect to the third case, it cuts away the whole argument at once in its very radix. For Hume's argument applies to the communication of a miracle, and therefore to a case of testimony. But, wherever the miracle falls within direct personal cognisance, there it follows that no question can arise about the value of human testimony. The affirma

* "In proportion to the number of observers:"-Perhaps, however, on the part of Hume, some critical apologist will say, "Doubtless he was aware of that; but still the reporters of the miracle were few. No matter how many were present, the witnesses for us are but the Evangelists." Yes, certainly, the Evangelists; and let us add, all those contemporaries to whom the Evangelists silently appealed. These make up the "multitude" contemplated in the case Beta.

tive x, expressing the value of testimony, disappears altogether; and that side of the equation is possessed by a new quantity (viz., a quantity representing ourselves-our own consciousness), not at all concerned in Hume's argument.

Hence it results that, of three possible conditions under which a miracle may be supposed to offer itself to our knowledge, two are excluded from the view of Hume's argument.

SECTION III.

Whether the Second of these Conditions is not Expressly Noticed by Hume.

It may seem that it is. But in fact it is not. And (what is more to the purpose) we are not at liberty to consider it any accident that it is not. Hume had his reasons. Let us take all in proper order: 1. that it seems so; 2. that in fact it is not so; and 3. that this is no accident, but intentional.

1. Hume seems to contemplate such a case-viz., Beta, the case of a miracle witnessed and attested by a multitude of persons-in the following imaginary miracle, which he proposes as a basis for reasoning. Queen Elizabeth, as everybody will remember who has happened to read Lord Monmouth's Memoirs, died on the night between. the last day of 1602 and the first day of 1603:* this could

* I. e., ecclesiastically: the queen died on the night of March 24, in the year which we should now (1858) call 1603, but which by every class of careful writers was then regarded as 1602. March 24 was the last day of 1602: for Lady-Day, or the day of our Lady the Virgin Mary (the day which corresponds by anticipation with December 25, or Christmas Day, so as to allow nine months for the gestation of the Holy Child), is not a moveable festival, but fixed unalterably to March 25. This was the opening day, the Jour de l'An of Paris, the New-year's-day of England, for the year 1603. And all the days which lie between December 31 of

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not be forgotten by the reader, because, in fact, Lord Monmouth, who was one of Her Majesty's nearest relatives (being a younger son of her first cousin Lord Hunsdon), obtained his title and subsequent preferment as a reward for the furious ride he performed to Edinburgh (at that time at least 440 miles distant from London), without taking off his boots, in order to lay the earliest tidings of the great event at the feet of her successor. reality, never did any death cause so much posting day and night over the high-roads of Europe. And the same causes which made it so interesting, have caused it to be the best dated event in modern history; that one which could least be shaken by any discordant evidence still in arrear. Now, says Hume, imagine the case, that, in spite of all this chronological precision—this precision, and this notoriety of precision-Her Majesty's court physicians should have chosen to propagate a story of her resurrection. Imagine that these learned gentlemen should have issued a bulletin, declaring that Queen Elizabeth had been met in Greenwich Park, or at Nonsuch, on May-day of 1603, or in Westminster, two years after, by the Lord Chamberlain when detecting Guy Faux-let them even swear it before twenty justices of the peace; I for one, says Hume, am free to confess that I would not believe them. No, nor, to say the truth, would I; nor would I advise my readers to believe them.

2. Here, therefore, it would seem as if Hume were boldly pressing his principles to the very uttermost-that is, were charging a miracle as untenable, though attested 1602 and March 25 of 1603, were written as a fraction-viz., February 10, 188, where the denominator expresses the true year, according to our present mode of reckoning. But the reader must understand that this has nothing to do with O. S. (Old Style) and N. S. (New Style). It simply expresses the ecclesiastic way of counting opposed to the civil.