PARTICULAR FALLACIES.

35

causes will, in the same circumstances, produce the same effects. This is the law; and when applied to the permanence or uniformity of the course of nature, it will stand thus: The present course of nature will be uniform and permanent, unless other causes than those now in operation shall intervene to interrupt or destroy it. The probability of the intervention of such causes is a point on which every man must decide for himself. To me it seems probable to you, perhaps, improbable; but there is nothing in the nature of the case to prevent it from being proved, like any other fact.

Having thus put this question upon its true basis, it will be necessary to say very little of the particular fallacies and consequences connected with the argument of Hume. I will simply add, that,

-

Hume's argument is a practical absurdity.—1. According to Hume, the very fact that renders a miracle possible, must render the proof of it impossible. Without a settled uniformity, a miracle could not be conceived; with it, according to him, it can not be proved. To suppose that the mind can be placed in such a relation as this to any possible truth, is a practical absurdity.

Would contradict the senses.-2. The argument of Hume proceeds on a principle which would make it unreasonable to believe a miracle on the testimony of the senses. There is precisely the same reason for opposing the evidence of experience to that of the senses, as for opposing it to that of testimony. If the argument would overthrow a "full proof" from testimony, the senses, standing as they do in the same relation to experience, could give nothing more.

Begs the question.-3. Hume begs the question. The only way in which a miracle can be a violation of

the course of nature, or contrary to experience, is, that it never happened, and was never observed; for if it had happened, and had been observed, then it would constitute a part of universal experience. But to say that a "violation," or, more properly, a suspension of the laws of nature never happened, because those laws are uniform, and to define a miracle as something "that has never been observed in any age or country," is taking for granted the very point in dispute. It is as bald and barefaced a begging of the question as can well be imagined. "But," says Hume, "it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life, because that has never happened in any age or country. There must therefore be a uniform experience against every miraculous event; otherwise the event would not merit that appellation." Is this reasoning?

১১

He uses experience" in two senses. 4. Hume uses the term experience in two senses. Personal experience is the knowledge we have acquired by our own senses. General experience is that knowledge of facts which has been acquired by the race. If, therefore, Hume says a miracle is contrary to his personal experience, that proves nothing; but if he says it is opposed to universal experience, that, as has already been said, is begging the question.

Simply opposes testimony to testimony.-5. He opposes the evidence of experience to that of testimony, evidently with the intention of opposing to testimony the high authority that belongs to personal experience; whereas, in the sense in which he must use the term "experience," - since, as has been said, we can know what general experience is only by testimony, he is only opposing testimony to testimony.

Renounced by Hume. - And, finally, Hume has himself renounced the principle of his own argument. He

ADMISSIONS BY HUME.

37

seems to have had a perception of some of the absurd consequences to which it must lead, and therefore adds, "I beg the limitations here may be remarked when I say, that a miracle can never be proved so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own that otherwise there may possibly be miracles, or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony." This single admission destroys at once the whole force of his argument. As an example, he says, "Suppose all authors, in all languages, agree that from the 1st of January, 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days; suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people; that all travelers who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction; it is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain." "But," he adds, with reference, however, to another example, "should this miracle be ascribed to any new system of religion, men in all ages have been so imposed upon by ridiculous stories of that kind, that the very circumstance would be full proof of a cheat, and sufficient, with all men of sense, not only to make them reject the fact, but to reject it without further examination." On the consistency and candor of this passage I make no comment. As showing a tendency of our nature, the argument is just the reverse. Who, after reading this, can fail to feel that Hume was guilty of a heartless, if not a malignant trifling with the best interests of his fellow-men?

Summary. Thus, after mentioning the classes of persons whom I shall hope to benefit, I have endeavored to show, first, that you, my hearers, are responsible for the manner in which you use your understandings, and for the opinions you form on this great subject.

And, secondly, that there is nothing in the nature or kind of evidence by which Christianity is sustained, nor in any conflict of the evidence of experience and of testimony, to prevent us from attaining that certainty upon which we may rest as upon the rock, and which shall constitute, if not "the assurance of faith," yet the assurance of understanding.

LECTURE II.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. - REVELATION PROBABLE: FIRST, FROM THE NATURE OF THE CASE; SECONDLY, FROM FACTS. — PROBABILITY OF MIRACLES. ASIDE FROM THEIR EFFECT IN SUSTAINING ANY PARTICULAR REVELATION. CONNECTION BETWEEN THE MIRACLE AND THE DOCTRINE. - THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, OR NONE.

THE Christian religion admits of certain proof; and to show this was one object of the last lecture. But, in searching for that proof, we may proceed in two different methods. We may either try the facts in question by the laws of evidence, precisely as we would any other facts; or we may judge beforehand of their probability or improbability. In the first case, we should allow nothing for what we might suppose previous probability or improbability, nothing for the nature of the facts as miraculous or common. We should hold ourselves in the position of an impartial jury, bound to decide solely according to the evidence. This course alone is in accordance with the spirit of the inductive philosophy, which decides nothing on the ground of previous hypothesis, but yields itself entirely to the guidance of facts properly authenticated, and refuses no conclusion which the existence of those facts necessarily involves. Let those who are to judge of Christianity approach it in this spirit, and we are content.

Need of the philosophic spirit. — And surely, if this spirit was demanded when the processes of nature only were in question, and the whole history of human