Man-is lost. None believeth in the soul of Man, but only in some man or person old and departed! In how many churches, and by how many prophets, tell me, is Man made sensible that he is an infinite soul; that the earth and heavens are passing into his mind; and that he is drinking forever the soul of God! The very word Miracle, as pronounced by christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster; it is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain. . . . . Man's life is a miracle, and all that Man doth. . . . . A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments. The gift of God to the soul is not a vaunting, overpowering, excluding sanctity, but a sweet natural goodness like thine and mine, and that thus invites thine and mine to be, and to grow.' 'If thou hast any tidings,' says Falstaff to Pistol, 'prithee deliver them like a man of this world.' It has been often remarked as a curious phenomenon in human nature, that some religious enthusiasts have been men of good sense in all matters but one; and yet will say, and write, and approve, the most astounding absurdities in what relates to religion. But it is equally true, and a no less curious fact, that some anti-religious enthusiasts will exhibit equally strange anomalies. For example, an able Writer on other subjects has argued that such miracles as are ascribed to Jesus could not have been wrought by him; since, if they had been, the Jews could not have avoided believing in Him. Yet, almost in the same breath, he declares that he himself would not have believed in Jesus, even if he had been an eye-witness of those miracles! But, apart from this inconsistency, we might point out to him that he has before his eyes strong evidence of the force of Jewish prejudice. He sees Jews clinging to a religion which he believes to be false, and to be proved false in a most striking manner-clinging to it for ages together in 1 1 Greg's Creed of Christendom, pp. 204-207. His reason is, because, though we cannot account for such facts now by natural causes, science may discover a natural account for them hereafter. It would be shorter to say at once, that we cannot believe any fact of ancient history, because something may be discovered hereafter to refute the truth of it-or that we cannot believe any man to be honest, because he may turn out a rogue-or, indeed, trust any moral evidence, because all moral evidence leaves a possibility of the fact being otherwise. But see Lessons on Evidence, Lesson v., s. 2, p. 32, 10th edition. 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 any thing, 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 any thing 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 any thing. His argument respecting miracles, stated clearly, and in regular form, would stand thus: Testimony is a kind of evidence very likely to be false: Now it is plain that every thing turns on the question whether what is meant be all testimony, or some. The former in what no one in his senses would maintain. If a man were to carry out this principle, and reject all testimony to any thing 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.' 2 6 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 Bonaparte. See Historic Doubts. The fallacy is (in the language of Logicians) that of a 'Middle-term undistributed ;' or, as some express it, taken twice particularly.' 6 See Historic Doubts, p. 24, and Hume's Essays, 8th and 10th. 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 favor, 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 superhuman 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 any thing 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, |