than that on which, in all sciences, the proficient is always allowed to establish for himself principles not wholly comprehensible by those who are acquainted with only the ruder outline, or the grosser elements, of the subject which he undertakes to examine.

CHAPTER III.

THAT THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE IN BEHALF OF IM

POSTURE.

I THINK it must be allowed even by the Deist himself, that the foregoing evidence is exceedingly strong that if it stood by itself, no objection to it could be raised and that the only objection to it is that it does not stand by itself; but that false pretensions to miracles have been common in almost all ages and countries, especially in the unenlightened and remote; and that the miracles of Christianity, though no doubt remarkable instances of the force and efficacy of vulgar credulity, are only similar to other instances of the same kind which we always reject without hesitation. And here we are told of the cow speaking in Livy, of the numerous prodigies which are related by Herodotus, of the pretensions of Alexander the Paphlagonian impostor, as described to us, or rather as ridiculed by Lucian, and of

many other

a Hume's Essay on Miracles, Part II.

fables both ancient and modern, which, though now sunk in universal discredit, have at various periods obtained the popular belief, and even the suffrage of grave and honest historians. If these, though false, or rather if any one of them, is equally evidenced with the Scripture miracles, the Scripture miracles, it is said, cannot be known to be true. If falsehood can produce any equal evidence, our evidence cannot be decisive.

And this we admit: this, if substantiated, is beyond all doubt a valid objection, and is indeed, I may perhaps say, the only one, which, among all the objections to miracles, has in it any show of reasonableness or honesty. But to this I answer, that the miracles of Christianity (over and above the reasonableness of the cause in which they are alleged, which, as has been already shown, is a strong point in the case) are not similar in this respect to any false miracle; or that there is no false miracle which is attested by similar, that is, by equal, evidence. The way to prove this is by selecting, as well as we can, among notorious, or among allowed impostures, some one or more cases of those which a Chap. 11. § VI.

Q

seem to have the best evidence, and then by showing how the evidence of the Scripture miracles exceeds, or differs from, that of these impostures.

Two previous cautions, however, are plainly necessary to be observed; the one that the case selected be a case in which the act asserted to have been performed is an act clearly above the power of man; the other that the relation be confessed an imposture. These cautions are requisite, because some acts not miraculous may yet be regarded as such by ignorant men, and because it may be contended that other miracles may be true, besides those which we find recorded in Scripture. To foretel an eclipse has been esteemed a miraculous power: and the person foretelling it may have used for purposes of deception, the influence which this power obtained for him: but no example of this kind can be alleged to depreciate any really superhuman power or skill.

So in the other case: suppose some stories of ghosts to be something more than mere credulities; or suppose true miracles to have been worked at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, or at the shrines, if they may be so called, of the earlier

martyrs :—If these be true, if they can be proved in evidence, it is not necessary, in order to substantiate the Scripture miracles, that the Scripture miracles should be at all discriminated from these. And though the evidence for these is very imperfect, and though, for other reasons, it may be very desirable to disprove them, it were absurd to imagine that the holding them to be true could neutralize our proof of the superhuman origin of the Scripture miracles. No doubt the asserting a false miracle as true is naturally of very dangerous consequence; since all persons who, either from ignorance or prejudice, are incapable of studying the subject attentively, will be inclined to reject the true together with the false. Yet we cannot imagine that the primitive Christians, or those modern Romanists, who have doubtless given credit to many supposititious miracles, were therefore unable to appreciate those of the Scripture. Nothing can destroy our proof of a true miracle, except to show that there is equal proof of a falsehood, or equal proof of some fact or some doctrine, which is in some way inconsistent with what we affirm.

But to proceed with my subject. It is now my business to show, in reference to some Qe