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spite of the clearest rational evidence, and even the sensible proof afforded by the destruction of their Temple, and their own dispersion over the earth. In reality, we have no difficulty in accounting for the rejection of Christianity by the majority of the Jews. It is he who should account for its reception by so many of them. The rejection of Christianity by the Jews no more shows that Christianity had not good proof to offer, than the rejection by the same people of pure deism or atheism, or whatever else they dislike, proves that nothing inconsistent with their prejudices can be supported by clear and cogent reasons. The reception of Christianity by them supposes prejudice overcome by something; and the question is, by what? The rejection of it implies nothing but the steady action of a principle known by plain fact to exist, and known by plain fact also to be capable of resisting the strongest evidence.

'Mr. Hume states the case of miracles to be a contest of opposite improbabilities;-a question whether it be more improbable that a miracle should be true, or the testimony false.'

In reference to Hume's essay on miracles, it is worth observing that many persons have overlooked the circumstance that though he doubtless meant his readers to accept his argument as valid, he must himself have perceived that it is, on his own principles, elsewhere maintained, utterly futile, and a mere mystification. For he speaks of our 'experience of the course of Nature,' while, according to his views, there is no such thing as 'a course of nature;'—at least, any that can be known by us and we cannot have any reasonable belief of anything, except what he calls the ideas in our own minds; so that, on his system, a miracle that is believed, has as much reality as anything at all, whether miraculous or not, can have.

But as for the question what he did really believe, probably he would have been as much at a loss as any one else to answer it with truth. For he seems to have so long indulged the habit of writing (as the phrase is) for effect,' and considering merely what might be so plausibly stated as to gain admiration for ingenuity, that he ultimately lost all thought of ever inquiring seriously what is true, or of really believing or disbelieving anything.

His argument respecting miracles, stated clearly, and in regular form, would stand thus:

Testimony is a kind of evidence very likely to be false:
The evidence for the christian miracles is testimony:

Therefore it is likely to be false.

Now it is plain that everything turns on the question whether what is meant be all testimony, or some. The former is what no one in his senses would maintain. If a man were to carry out this principle, and reject all testimony to anything that is in itself improbable,' he would be consigned to a madhouse. But if the meaning be some testimony, this is true enough, but involves a gross fallacy: [Some] testimony is likely to be false; and the evidence for the christian miracles is [some] testimony,' proves nothing. One might as well say books [viz. some books] consist of mere trash; Hume's Works are books; therefore they consist of mere trash.'

Of course, if any narrative is rejected on the ground of its being more improbable-in Hume's language, more miraculous”—than the falsity of the testimony to it, this is a fair procedure. And whether this is or is not the case, is the very question on which, in each instance, issue is to be joined.

It is worth remarking by the way, that Hume has, in treating of evidence, fallen into a blunder which most schoolboys would detect. He lays down as a principle, that any witnesses, or other evidences, on one side of a question, are counterbalanced and neutralized by an equal number (supposing them individually of equal weight) on the opposite side; and that the numerical excess on the one side is the measure of the probability. Thus, if there are ten witnesses on the one side, and fifteen on the other, ten of these are neutralized by the opposite ten; and the surplus of five gives the amount of the probability. A mere tyro in Arithmetic, could have taught him that the measure of the probability is the proportion—the Ratio of the two numbers to each other. But by his rule, if in some case there were two witnesses on the one side, and four on the opposite, and in

1 As, for instance, the existence and the exploits of Buonaparte. See Historic Doubts.

2 The fallacy is (in the language of Logicians) that of a Middle-term undistributed; or, as some express it, taken twice particularly.'

3 See Historic Doubts, p. 24, and Hume's Essays, 8th and 10th.

E.C.

D

I have even tried an experiment which refutes you. I have put fish of various kinds into vessels of salt water; and it kills them, yet you tell me of fish living and abounding in your briny lake!

'And again, you tell me that some of these fish fly in the air. Perhaps you mean this statement for a kind of Parable, or poetical Figure, designed to convey some moral lesson. But literally, it is a manifest physical impossibility. According to all experience and all analogy, birds are formed for flying in air, and fish for swimming in water. You tell me however of a bird which you call Apteryx, in a Country called New Zealand, which has no wings at all! I may perhaps believe that, when I believe in your flying fish!

For we

'You also tell me that you have found in caverns and in rocks, the remains of the animals that formerly inhabited the earth; which, it seems, were all of them quite different from those that inhabit it now. Fossil remains, as you call them, of Man, or of any of the animals, or the plants, now existing, are never found. Now if all those ancient species of plants and animals became extinct, and new ones, such as we now see around us, were created, this is quite at variance with Analogy. see no such new species coming into existence now. 'But then you tell me that no plants or animals ever were created at all; but that the lowest of these gradually rose, in many generations, into higher and higher. Worms and snails ripened in the course of many ages, into fish, then reptiles, then quadrupeds, apes, and lastly, men. Now this is against all analogy. Our people, and our forefathers, have always kept cattle and poultry, and cultivated corn; and they never find that corn becomes palm-trees, or that sheep produce cows or dogs, or that the apes in our forests ripen into men. Neither the creation of new species, nor the change of one species into another, is analogous to anything we have observed. And you yourselves have told us that you have found in the ancient temples of a Country called Egypt, pictures supposed to be above three thousand years old, of men, and various animals, such as are now found on the earth.

All that you have been telling us therefore is at variance with the Analogy to which you yourselves have referred us.'

PART I.

OF THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, AND WHEREIN IT IS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE EVIDENCE ALLEGED FOR OTHER MIRACLES.

THE

HE two propositions which I shall endeavour to establish are these:

I. That there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.

II. That there is not satisfactory evidence that persons professing to be original witnesses of other miracles, in their nature as certain as these are, have ever acted in the same manner, in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and properly in consequence of their belief of those accounts.

The first of these propositions, as it forms the argument, will stand at the head of the following nine chapters.

CHAPTER I.

There is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.

O support this proposition, two points are necessary to be made out first, that the founder of the institution, his associates and immediate followers, acted the part which the

proposition imputes to them: secondly, that they did so in attestation of the miraculous history recorded in our scriptures, and solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of this history.

Before we produce any particular testimony to the activity and sufferings which compose the subject of our first assertion, it will be proper to consider the degree of probability which the assertion derives from the nature of the case; that is, by inferences from those parts of the case which, in point of fact, are on all hands acknowledged.

First then, the christian religion exists, and therefore by some means or other was established. Now it either owes the principle of its establishment, i.e. its first publication, to the activity of the person who was the founder of the institution and of those who were joined with him in the undertaking, or we are driven upon the strange supposition, that, although they might lie by, others would take it up; although they were quiet and silent, other persons busied themselves in the success and propagation of their story. This is perfectly incredible. To me it appears little less than certain, that, if the first announcing of the religion by the founder had not been followed up by the zeal and industry of his immediate disciples, the attempt must have expired in its birth. Then as to the kind and degree of exertion which was employed, and the mode of life to which these persons submitted, we reasonably suppose it to be like that which we observe in all others who voluntarily become missionaries of a new faith. Frequent, earnest, and laborious preaching, constantly conversing with religious persons upon religion, a sequestration from the common pleasures, engagements, and varieties of life, and an addiction to one serious object, compose the habits of such men. I do not say that this mode of life is without enjoyment, but I say that the enjoyment springs from sincerity. With a consciousness at the bottom of hollowness and falsehood, the fatigue and restraint would become insupportable. I am apt to believe that very few hypocrites engage in these undertakings; or, however, persist in them long. Ordinarily speaking, nothing can overcome the indolence of mankind, the love which is natural to most tempers of cheerful society and cheerful scenes, or the desire, which is common to all, of personal ease and freedom, but conviction.