another case, ninety-eight on the one side, and a hundred on the other, these two cases would be alike; since in each there is an excess of two on one side: i.e., that one to two is the same thing as forty-nine to fifty!

"The existence of the testimony is a phenomenon.

The truth of

the fact solves the phenomenon. If we reject this solution, we ought to have some other to rest in.'

To take into account only the improbabilities on one side, wholly disregarding those on the other, is a procedure so grossly absurd, that though many fall into it in some particular cases, any one who should act thus throughout, would be at once set down as a madman. The events, for instance, which have occurred in Europe during the last seventy years, are, many of them excessively improbable and a man would be, on Hume's principle, bound to disbelieve them, saying that he is 'not bound to explain how the story arose.' But it is plain we are bound to point out some way in which false statements of such events might have arisen, or else to admit them (as in fact every one does) to be true.

It is wonderful how many persons, not wanting generally, in good sense, overlook the obvious truth, that to disbelieve is to believe; belief of the falsity of any proposition, being a belief of the truth of its contradictory. Excessive credulity, and excessive incredulity, though opposed, in reference to each separate proposition, are the same mental quality. If one juryman is so strongly prepossessed against a prisoner, and another in his favour, that the one is ready to condemn him, and the other, to acquit him on slight evidence, or on none at all, then the one is credulous as to his guilt, and incredulous as to his innocence; and the other is equally credulous and incredulous, on the opposite side. Even so, to disbelieve the super-human origin of Christianity, is to believe its human origin: and which belief demands the more easy faith, is the very point at issue.

And it may be added, that there are many cases in which doubt would imply great credulity. If, for instance, any one could be found who doubted whether there are any Pyramids in

1 See Historic Doubts.

Egypt, or any such city as Paris, because he had never seen them, and it is more common for travellers to lie than for kings to build pyramids, he would be believing what every one would call immeasurably improbable; namely, the possibility of thousands of independent witnesses agreeing in the same false story.

It has been said however, since the time of Paley, that Hume's argument would have been valid, if, instead of the word 'Experience' he had used 'Analogy,' and that he would have been justified in maintaining that though some things may be made credible which are at variance with our Experience, no testimony can establish anything that is at variance with Analogy.

:

Let us try. We will take the very instance which Hume himself alludes to; the account given of ice, to one who had always lived in a hot climate. Suppose some travellers describing this to an inhabitant of the interior of Africa, and urging, when he manifested incredulity, that though he had no experience of water becoming solid, there was something analogous in wax and tallow, which are solid when cold, and liquid when warm. He might answer, 'This I admit, and yet I have detected your falsehood; and I will show you how it is a well-known Law of Nature that heat expands bodies, and cold contracts them in particular I have observed this in the very case of water, which occupies more space when warm, and is more and more condensed as it cools. If therefore it could, by a great degree of cold, be brought to the state of a solid, your ice, as you call it, would be greatly condensed, and would sink in water. Yet you tell me that on the contrary it floats; which is clearly quite at variance with analogy. 'Hast thou appealed unto Analogy? Unto Analogy shalt thou go!'

'But again, you tell me of a vast body of water which you call Sea, and which you say covers three-fourths of the world. And you urge that though I have never seen it, I have seen lakes in my own Country, which are something analogous; and that no one can pronounce how large a lake may be. Very well: but then you tell me that this vast lake is brine, although it is supplied from rivers, and rain, which are both fresh water. This is at variance not only with my own direct experience, but with the analogy of all that I have experienced. And moreover, you tell me that this salt water contains abundance of fish. Now

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 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.

TO 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.