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dinary duties. Accordingly, when Cato in the Pharsalia is advised by Labienus to seek the counsel of Jupiter Ammon, whose sequestered oracle was then near enough to be reached without much extra trouble, he replies by a fine abstract of what might be expected from an oracle; viz., not predictions, but grand sentiments bearing on the wisdom of life. These representative sentiments, as shaped by Lucan, are fine and noble; we might expect it from a poet so truly Roman and noble. But he dismisses these oracular sayings as superfluous, because already familiar to meditative men. We know them,

"Scimus"-(says he)

"Et hæc nobis non altius inseret Ammon."

And no Ammon will ever engraft them more deeply into heart.

my

This I mention, when concluding, as a further and collateral evidence against the fathers. For if any mode of prophetic illumination had been the sort of communication reasonably and characteristically to be anticipated from an Oracle, in that case, Lucan would have pointed his artillery from a very different battery, the battery of scorn and indignation. No people certainly could be more superstitious than the Roman populace: witness the everlasting Bos locutus est of the credulous Livy. Yet, on the other hand, already in the early days of Ennius, we know, by one of his beautiful fragments, that no nation could breed more high-minded denouncers of such misleading follies.

MIRACLES AS SUBJECTS OF TESTIMONY.

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, 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 argument, "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

P-VIII.

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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