to be refuted? Principally in one or other of these two ways: first, and most directly, by contradictory testimony; that is when an equal or greater number of witnesses, equally or more credible, attest the contrary: secondly, by such evidence either of the incapacity or bad character of the witnesses, as is sufficient to discredit them. What, rejoins my antagonist, cannot then testimony be confuted by the extraordinary nature of the fact attested? Has this consideration no weight at all? That this consideration has no weight at all, it was never my intention to maintain; that by itself it can very rarely, if ever, amount to a refutation against ample and unexceptionable testimony, I hope to make extremely plain. Who has ever denied, that the uncommonness of an event related, is a presumption against its reality; and that chiefly on account of the tendency which experience teaches us, and this author has observed, some people have to sacrifice truth to the love of wonder? question only is, How far does this presumption extend? In the extent which Mr Hume has assigned it, he has greatly exceeded the limits of nature, and consequently of all just reasoning.

The

In his opinion, "When the fact attested is such as has seldom fallen under our observation, there is a contest of two opposite experiences, of which the one destroys the other, as far as its force goes, and the superior can only operate on the mind, by the force which

remains."

There is a metaphysical, I had almost said a magical, balance and arithmetic, for the weighing and subtracting of evidence, to which he frequently recurs, and with which he seems to fancy he can perform wonders. I wish he had been a little more explicit in teaching us how these rare inventions must be used. When a writer of genius and elocution expresses himself in general terms, he will find it an easy matter to give a plausible appearance to things the most unintelligible in nature. Such sometimes is this author's way of writing. In the instance before us he is particularly happy in his choice of metaphors. They are such as are naturally adapted to prepossess a reader in his favour. What candid person can think of suspecting the impartiality of an inquirer, who is for weighing in the scales of reason all the arguments on both sides? Who can suspect his exactness who determines every thing by a numerical computation? Hence it is that, to a superficial view, his reasoning appears scarcely inferior to demonstration; but, when narrowly canvassed, it is impracticable to find an application of which, in a consistency with good sense, it is capable.

In confirmation of the remark just now made, let us try how his manner of arguing on this point can be applied to a particular

instance. For this purpose I make the following supposition. I have lived for some years near a ferry. It consists with my knowledge that the passage boat has a thousand times crossed the river, and as many times returned safe. An unknown man, whom I have just now met, tells me in a serious manner, that it is lost; and affirms, that he himself, standing on the bank, was a spectator of the scene; that he saw the passengers carried down the stream, and the boat overwhelmed. No person, who is influenced in his judgment of things, not by philosophical subtleties, but by common sense, a much surer guide, will hesitate to declare, that in such a testimony I have probable evidence of the fact asserted. But if, leaving common sense, I shall recur to metaphysics, and submit to be tutored in my way of judging by the essayist, he will remind me, " that there is here a contest of two opposite experiences, of which the one destroys the other, as far as its force goes, and the superior can only operate on the mind by the force which remains." I am warned, that the very same principle of experience, which gives me a certain degree of assurance in the testimony of the witness, gives me also, in this case, another degree of assurance, against the fact which he endeavours to establish, from which contradiction there arises a counterpoise, and mutual destruction of belief and authority." Well, I would know the truth, if possible; and that I may conclude fairly and philosophically, how must I balance these opposite experiences, as you term them? Must I set the thousand, or rather the two thousand instances of the one side, against the single instance of the other? In that case, it is easy to see, I have nineteen hundred and ninety-nine degrees of evidence, that my information is false. Or is it necessary, in order to make it credible, that the single instance have two thousand times as much evidence as any of the opposite instances, supposing them equal among themselves; or supposing them unequal, as much as all the two thousand put together, that there may be at least an equilibrium? This is impossible. I had for some of those instances the evidence of sense, which hardly any testimony can equal, much less exceed. Once more, must the evidence I have of the veracity of the witness be a full equivalent to the two thousand instances which oppose the fact attested? By the supposition, I have no positive evidence for or against his veracity, he being a person whom I never saw before. Yet if none of these be the balancing, which the essay writer means, I despair of being able to discover his meaning.

Is, then, so weak a proof from testimony incapable of being refuted? I am far from thinking so; though even so weak a proof could not be overturned by such a contrary

experience. How then may it be overturned? First, by contradictory testimony. Going homewards, I meet another person, whom I know as little as I did the former; finding that he comes from the ferry, I ask him concerning the truth of the report. He affirms that the whole is a fiction; that he saw the boat and all in it come safe to land. This would do more to turn the scale than fifty thousand such contrary instances, as were supposed. Yet this would not remove suspicion. Indeed, if we were to consider the matter abstractly, one would think, that all suspicion would be removed, that the two opposite testimonies would destroy each other, and leave the mind entirely under the influence of its former experience, in the same state as if neither testimony had been given. But this is by no means consonant to fact. When once testimonies are introduced, former experience is generally of no account in the reckoning; it is but like the dust of the balance, which has not any sensible effect upon the scales. The mind hangs in suspense between the two contrary declarations, and considers it as one to one, or equal in probability, that the report is true or that it is false. Afterwards a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, confirm the declaration of the second. I am then quite at ease. Is this the only effectual way of confuting false testimony? No. I suppose again, that, instead of meeting with any person who can inform me concerning the fact, I get from some, who are acquainted with the witness, information concerning his character. They tell me, he is notorious for lying; and that his lies are commonly forged, not with a view to interest, but merely to gratify a malicious pleasure, which he takes in alarming strangers. This, though not so direct a refutation as the former, will be sufficient to discredit his report. In the former, where there is testimony contradicting testimony, the author's metaphor of a balance may be used with propriety. The things are homogeneal; and when contradictory evidences are presented to the mind, tending to prove positions which cannot be both true, the mind must decide on the comparative strength of the opposite evidences, before it yield to either.

But is this the case in the supposition first made? By no means. The two thousand instances formerly known, and the single instance attested, as they relate to different facts, though of a contrary nature, are not contradictory. There is no inconsistency in believing both. There is no inconsistency in receiving the last on weaker evidence, (if it be sufficient evidence,) not only than all the former together, but even than any of them singly. Will it be said, that though the former instances are not themselves contradictory to the fact recently attested, they lead to a conclusion that is contradictory? I answer, it is

true, that the experienced frequency of the conjunction of any two events, leads the mind to infer a similar conjunction in time to come. But let it at the same time be remarked, that no man considers this inference as having equal evidence with any one of those past events on which it is founded, and for the belief of which we have had sufficient testimony. Before, then, the method recommended by this author can turn to any account, it will be necessary for him to compute and determine with precision, how many hundreds, how many thousands, I might say how many myriads of instances, will confer such evidence on the conclusion founded on them as will prove an equipoise for the testimony of one ocular witness, a man of probity, in a case of which he is allowed to be a competent judge.

There is in arithmetic a rule called reduction, by which numbers of different denominations are brought to the same denomination. If this ingenious author shall invent a rule in logic, analogous to this, for reducing different classes of evidence to the same class, he will bless the world with a most important discovery. Then, indeed, he will have the honour to establish an everlasting peace in the republic of letters; then we shall have the happiness to see controversy of every kind, theological, historical, philosophical, receive its mortal wound: for though, in every question, we could not even then determine with certainty on which side the truth lay, we could always determine (and that is the utmost the nature of the thing admits) with as much accuracy as geometry and algebra can afford, on which side the probability lay, and in what degree. But till this metaphysical reduction is discovered, it will be impossible, where the evidences are of different orders, to ascertain by subtraction the superior evidence. could not but esteem him a novice in arithmetic, who, being asked whether seven pounds or eleven pence make the greater sum, and what is the difference? should, by attending solely to the numbers, and overlooking the value, conclude that the eleven pence were the greater, and that it exceeded the other by four. Must we not be equal novices in reasoning if we follow the same method? we not fall into as great blunders? Of as little significancy do we find the balance. Is the value of things heterogeneal to be determined merely by weight? Shall silver be weighed against lead, or copper against iron? If in exchange for a piece of gold, I were offered some counters of baser metal, is it not obvious, that till I know the comparative value of the metals, in vain shall I attempt to find what is equivalent, by the assistance either of scales or of arithmetic?

We

Must

It is an excellent observation, and much to the purpose, which the late learned and pious Bishop of Durham, in his admirable perfor

mance on the Analogy of Religion to the course of nature, has made on this subject. "There is a very strong presumption," says he, "against the most ordinary facts, before the proof of them, which yet is overcome by almost any proof. There is a presumption of millions to one against the story of Cæsar, or of any other man. For suppose a number of common facts, so and so circumstanced, of which one had no kind of proof, should happen to come into one's thoughts, every one would, without any possible doubt, conclude them to be false. The like may be said of a single common fact." What then, I may subjoin, shall be said of an uncommon fact? And that an uncommon fact may be proved by testimony, has not yet been made a question. But, in order to illustrate the observation above cited, suppose, first, one at random mentions, that at such an hour, of such a day, in such a part of the heavens, a comet will appear; the conclusion from experience would not be as millions, but as infinite to one, that the proposition is false. Instead of this, suppose you have the testimony of but one ocular witness, a man of integrity, and skilled in astronomy, that at such an hour, of such a day, in such a part of the heavens, a comet did appear; you will not hesitate one moment to give him credit. Yet all the presumption that was against the truth of the first supposition, though almost as strong evidence as experience can afford, was also against the truth of the second, before it was thus attested.

Is it necessary to urge farther, in support of this doctrine, that as the water in the canal cannot be made to rise higher than the fountain whence it flows, so it is impossible that the evidence of testimony, if it proceeded from experience, should ever exceed that of experience, which is its source? Yet that it greatly exceeds this evidence, appears not only from what has been observed already, but still more, from what I shall have occasion to observe in the sequel. One may safely affirm, that no conceivable conclusion from experience can possess stronger evidence, than that which ascertains us of the regular succession and duration of day and night. The reason is, the instances on which this experience is founded, are both without number and without exception. Yet even this conclusion, the author admits, as we shall see in the third section, may, in a particular instance, not only be surmounted, but even annihilated by testimony.

Lastly, let it be observed, that the immediate conclusion from experience is always general, and runs thus :- This is the ordinary course of nature." "Such an event may reasonably be expected, where all the circumstances are entirely similar." But when we descend to particulars, the conclusion becomes

2 Part 2, chap. 2, sect. 3.

weaker, being more indirect. For though all the known circumstances be similar, all the actual circumstances may not be similar: nor is it possible in any case to be assured (our knowledge of things being at best but superficial,) that all the actual circumstances are known to us. On the contrary, the direct conclusion from testimony is always particular, and runs thus :-" This is the fact in such an individual instance." The remark now made will serve both to throw light on some of the preceding observations, and to indicate the proper sphere of each species of evidence. Experience of the past is the only rule whereby we can judge concerning the future: and as when the sun is below the horizon, we must do the best we can by the light of the moon, or even of the stars; so in all cases where we have no testimony, we are under a necessity of recurring to experience, and of balancing or numbering contrary observations.3 But the evidence resulting hence, even in the clearest cases, is acknowledged to be so weak, compared with that which results from testimony, that the strongest conviction, built merely on the former, may be overturned by the slightest proof exhibted by the latter. Accordingly, the future has, in all ages and nations, been denominated the province of conjecture and uncertainty.

From what has been said, the attentive reader will easily discover, that the author's argument against miracles has not the least affinity to the argument used by Dr Tillotson against transubstantiation, with which Mr Hume has introduced his subject. Let us hear the argument, as it is related in the essay, from the writings of the Archbishop." It is acknowledged on all hands," says that learned prelate, "that the authority either of the Scripture or of tradition is founded merely on the testimony of the apostles who were eye

3 Wherever such balancing or numbering can take place, the opposite evidences must be entirely similar. It will rarely assist us in judging of facts supported by testimony; for even where contradictory testimonies come to be considered, you will hardly find that the characters of the witnesses on the opposite sides are so precisely equal as that an arithmetical operation will evolve the credibility. In matters of pure experience it has often place. Hence the computations that have been made of the value of annuities, insurances, and several other commercial articles. In calculations concerning chances, the degree of probability may be determined with mathematical exactness. I shall here take the liberty, though the matter be not essential to the design of this tract, to correct an oversight in the essayist, who always supposes that where contrary evidences must be balanced, the probability lies in the remainder or surplus when the less number is subtracted from the greater. The probability does not consist in the surplus, but in the ratio or geometrical proportion which the numbers on the opposite sides bear to each other. I explain myself thus: In favour of one supposed event there are 100 similar instances, against it 50. In another case under consideration the favourable instances are 60, and only 10 unfavourable. Though the difference or arithmetical proportion, which is 50, be the same in both cases, the probability is by no means equal, as the author's way of reasoning implies. The probability of the first event is as 100 to 50, or 2 to 1. The probability of the second is as 60 to 10, or 6 to 1. Consequently, on comparing the different examples, though both be probable, the second is thrice as probable as the first. I am sensible that the precise degree of probability is not entirely determined even by the ratio. There are other circumstances to be considered where the utmost accuracy is requisite ; but it does not appear necessary, in the present inquiry, to enter deeper into the subject. See Dr Price's Dissertation, Sect. ii.

witnesses to those miracles of our Saviour by which he proved his divine mission. Our evidence, then, for the truth of the Christian religion, is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses; because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and it is evident it must diminish in passing from them to their disciples; nor can any one be so certain of the truth of their testimony, as of the immediate objects of his senses. But a weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger; and therefore, were the doctrine of the real presence ever so clearly revealed in Scripture, it were directly contrary to the rules of just reasoning to give our assent to it. It contradicts sense, though both the Scripture and tradition, on which it is supposed to be built, carry not such evidence with them as sense, when they are considered merely as external evidences, and are not brought home to every one's breast, by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit." That the evidence of testimony is less than the evidence of sense, is undeniable. Sense is the source of that evidence, which is first transferred to the memory of the individual, as to a general reservoir, and thence transmitted to others by the channel of testimony. That the original evidence can never gain any thing, but must lose, by the transmission, is beyond dispute. What has been rightly perceived may be misremembered; what is rightly remembered may, through incapacity, or through ill intention, be misreported; and what is rightly reported may be misunderstood. In any of these four ways, therefore, either by defect of memory, of elocution, or of veracity in the relater, or by misapprehension in the hearer, there is a chance that the truth received by the information of the sense may be misrepresented or mistaken. Now, every such chance occasions a real diminution of the evidence. That the sacramental elements are bread and wine, not flesh and blood, our sight, and touch, and taste, and smell, concur in testifying. If these senses are not to be credited, the apostles themselves could not have evidence of the mission of their Master. For the greatest external evidence they had, or could have, of his mission, was that which their senses gave them of the reality of his miracles. But whatever strength there is in this argument with regard to the apostles, the argument with regard to us, who for those miracles have only the evidence, not of our own senses, but of their testimony, is incomparably stronger. In their case it is sense contradicting sense. In ours, it is sense contradicting testimony. But what relation has this to the author's argument? None at all. Testimony, it is acknowledged, is a weaker evidence than sense. But it has been already evinced, that its evidence for particular facts is infinitely stronger than that which the

general conclusions from experience can afford us. Testimony holds directly of memory and sense. Whatever is duly attested must be remembered by the witness; whatever is duly remembered must once have been perceived. But nothing similar takes place with regard to experience, nor can testimony, with any appearance of meaning, be said to hold of it.

Thus I have shewn, as I proposed, that the author's reasoning proceeds on a false hypothesis. It supposes testimony to derive its evidence solely from experience, which is false. It supposes, by consequence, that contrary observations have a weight in opposing testimony, which the first and most acknowledged principles of human reason, or, if you like the term better, common sense, evidently shews that they have not. It assigns a rule for discovering the superiority of contrary evidences, which, in the latitude there given it, tends to mislead the judgment, and which it is impossible, by any explication, to render of real use.

SECTION II.

MR HUME CHARGED WITH SOME FALLACIES IN HIS WAY OF MANAGING THE ARGUMENT.

IN the essay there is frequent mention of the word experience, and much use made of it. It is strange that the author has not favoured us with the definition of a term of so much moment to his argument. This defect I shall endeavour to supply; and the rather, as the word appears to be equivocal, and to be used by the essayist in two very different senses. The first and most proper signification of the word, which for distinction's sake, I shall call personal experience, is that given in the preceding section. "It is," as was observed, "founded in memory, and consists solely of the general maxims or conclusions, that each individual has formed, from the comparison of the particular facts remembered by him." In the other signification, in which the word is sometimes taken, and which I shall distinguish by the term derived, it may be thus defined :-"It is founded in testimony, and consists not only of all the experiences of others, which have through that channel been communicated to us, but of all the general maxims or conclusions we have formed, from the comparison of particular facts attested."

In proposing his argument, the author would surely be understood to mean only personal experience; otherwise, his making testimony derive its light from an experience which derives its light from testimony, would be introducing what logicians term a circle in causes. It would exhibit the same things alternately as causes and effects of each other. Yet nothing can be more limited than the

sense which is conveyed under the term experience, in the first acceptation. The merest clown or peasant derives incomparably more knowledge from testimony, and the communicated experience of others, than in the longest life he could have amassed out of the treasure of his own memory. Nay, to such a scanty portion the savage himself is not confined. If that therefore must be the rule, the only rule, by which every testimony is ultimately to be judged, our belief in matters of fact must have very narrow bounds. No testimony ought to have any weight with us, that does not relate an event similar at least to some one observation which we ourselves have made. For example, that there are such people on the earth as negroes, could not, on that hypothesis, be rendered credible to one who had never seen a negro, not even by the most numerous and the most unexceptionable attestations. Against the admission of such testimony, however strong, the whole force of the author's argument evidently operates. But that innumerable absurdities would flow from this principle, I might easily evince, did I not think the task superfluous. The author himself is aware of the consequences; and therefore, in whatever sense he uses the term experience in proposing his argument, in prosecuting it he, with great dexterity, shifts the sense, and ere the reader is apprised, insinuates another. miracle," says he, "that a dead man should come to life, because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must therefore be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation." Here the phrase, a uniform experience against an event, in the latter clause, is implicitly defined in the former, not what has never been observed by us, but ( mark his words) what has never been observed in any age or country. Now, what has been observed, and what has not been observed, in all ages and countries, pray how can you, Sir, or I, or any man, come to the knowledge of? Only, I suppose, by testimony, oral or written. The personal experience of every individual is limited to but a part of one age, and commonly to a narrow spot of one country. If there be any other way of being made acquainted with facts, it is to me, I own, an impenetrable secret; I have no apprehension of it. If there be not any, what shall we make of that cardinal point, on which your argument turns? It is in plain language," Testimony is not entitled to the least degree of faith, but as far as it is supported by such an extensive experience, as, if we had not had a previous and independent faith in testimony, we could never have acquired."

"It is a

How natural is the transition from one sophism to another! You will soon be convinced of this, if you attend but a little to the strain

of the argument. "A miracle," says he, "is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined." Again: “As a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle." I must once more ask the author, What is the precise meaning of the words firm, "unalterable, uniform?" An experience that admits no exception, is surely the only experience which can, with propriety, be termed uniform, firm, unalterable. Now since, as was remarked above, the far greater part of this experience, which comprises every age and every country, must be derived to us from testimony; that the experience may be firm, uniform, unalterable, there must be no contrary testimony whatever. Yet, by the author's own hypothesis, the miracles he would thus confute are supported by testimony. At the same time, to give strength to his argument, he is under a necessity of supposing that there is no exception from the testimonies against them. Thus he falls into that paralogism which is called begging the question. What he gives with one hand, he takes with the other. He admits in opening his design, what in his argument he implicitly denies.

But that this, if possible, may be still more manifest, let us attend a little to some expressions, which one would imagine he had inadvertently dropped. "So long," savs

he, "as the world endures, I presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all profane history." Why does he presume so? A man so much attached to experience, can hardly be suspected to have any other reason than this,- because such accounts have hitherto been found in all the histories, profane as well as sacred, of times past. But we need not recur to an inference to obtain this acknowledgment. It is often to be met with in the essay. In one place we learn that the witnesses for miracles are an infinite number; in another, that all religious records, of whatever kind, abound with them. I leave it therefore to the author to explain, with what consistency he can assert, that the laws of nature are established by a uniform experience, (which experience is chiefly the result of testimony,) and at the same time allow that almost all human histories are full of the relations of miracles and prodigies, which are violations of those laws. Here is, by his own confession, testimony against testimony, and very ample on both sides. How then can one side claim a firm, uniform, and unalterable support from testimony?

It will be in vain to object, that the