us hear the argument, as it is related in the essay, from the writings of the archbishop. "It is acknowledged on all hands," says that learned prelate, "that the authority either of "the scripture or of tradition, is founded merely on the testimony of the apostles, "who were eye-witnesses to those miracles of

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our Saviour, by which he proved his di"vine mission. Our evidence, then, for the "truth of the christian religion, is less

than the evidence for the truth of our

senses; because, even in the first authors "of our religion, it was no greater; and "it is evident, it must diminish in passing "from them to their disciples; nor can any "one be so certain of the truth of their "testimony, as of the immediate objects of his senses. But a weaker evidence can "never destroy a stronger; and therefore, "were the doctrine of the real presence 66 ever so clearly revealed in scripture, it "were directly contrary to the rules of just "reasoning, to give our assent to it. It "contradicts sense, though both the scrip' ture and tradition, on which it is supposed

to be built, carry not such evidence with "them as sense, when they are considered "merely as external evidences, and are not

"brought home to every one's breast, by "the immediate operation of the Holy Spi "rit."* That the evidence of testimony is less than the evidence of sense, is undeniable. Sense is the source of that evidence, which is first transferred to the memory of the individual, as to a general reservoir, and thence transmitted to others by the channel of testimony. That the original evidence can never gain any thing, but must lose, by the transmission, is beyond dispute. What hath been rightly perceived may be misremembered; what is rightly remembered may, through incapacity, or through ill intention, be misreported; and what is rightly reported may be misunderstood. In any of these four ways, therefore, either by defect of memory, of elocution, or of veracity in the relater, or by misapprehension in the hearer, there is a chance, that the truth received by the information of the senses, may be misrepresented or mistaken; now every such chance occasions a real diminution of the evidence. That the sacramental elements are bread and wine, not flesh and blood, our sight and touch, and taste and smell, concur in testifying. If

* P. 173, 174.

these senses are not to be credited, the apostles themselves could not have evidence of the mission of their master. For the greatest external evidence they had, or could have, of his mission, was that which their senses gave them, of the reality of his miracles. But whatever strength there is in this argument with regard to the apostles, the argument with regard to us, who, for those miracles, have only the evidence, not of our own senses, but of their testimony, is incomparably stronger. In their case, it is sense contradicting sense; in ours, it is sense contradicting testimony. But what relation has this to the author's argument? None at all. Testimony, it is acknowledged, is a weaker evidence than sense. But it hath been already evinced, that its evidence for particular facts is infinitely stronger than that which the general conclusions from experience can afford us. Testimony holds directly of memory and sense. Whatever is duly attested must be remembered by the witness; whatever is duly remembered must once have been perceived. But nothing similar takes place with regard to experience, nor

testimony, with any appearance of meaning, be said to hold of it.

THUS I have shewn, as I proposed, that the author's reasoning proceeds on a false hypothesis.It supposes testimony to derive its evidence solely from experience, which is false.It supposeth by consequence, that contrary observations have a weight in opposing testimony, which the first and most acknowledged principles of human reason, or, if like the term better, common sense, you evidently shews that they have not.-It assigns a rule for discovering the superiority of contrary evidences, which, in the latitude there given it, tends to mislead the judgment, and which it is impossible, by any explication, to render of real use.

SECT. II.

Mr. Hume charged with some fallacies in his way of managing the argument.

In the essay there is frequent mention of the word experience, and much use made of it. It is strange that the author hath not favoured us with the definition of a term of

so much moment to his argument. This defect I shall endeavour to supply; and the rather, as the word appears to be equivocal, and to be used by the essayist in two very different senses. The first and most proper signification of the word, which, for distinction's sake, I shall call personal experience, is that given in the preceding section. “It " is," as was observed," founded in memory, "and consists solely of the general maxims

or conclusions, that each individual hath "formed, from the comparison of the par"ticular facts he hath remembered." In the other signification, in which the word is sometimes taken, and which I shall distinguish by the term derived, it may be thus defined: "It is founded in testimony, and consists "not only of all the experiences of others, "which have through that channel been "communicated to us, but of all the general "maxims or conclusions we have formed, from the comparison of particular facts at"tested."

In proposing his argument, the author would surely be understood to mean only personal experience; otherwise, his making testimony derive its light from an experience which derives its light from testimony,