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'which the strongest must prevail, but still with a ⚫ diminution of its force, in proportion to that of its antagonist. A miracle is a violation of the laws ' of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as ' entire, as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined *. And if so, it is an undeni⚫able consequence, that it cannot be surmounted by

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any proof whatever from testimony. A miracle therefore, however attested, can never be rendered 'credible, even in the lowest degree.' This, in my apprehension, is the sum of the argument, on which my ingenious opponent rests the strength of his

cause.

In answer to this I propose first to prove, that the whole is built upon a false hypothesis. That the evidence of testimony is derived solely from experience, which seems to be an axiom of this writer, is at least not so incontestible a truth as he supposes it; that, on the contrary, testimony has a natural and original influence on belief, antecedent to experience, will, I imagine, easily be evinced. For this purpose let it be remarked, that the earliest assent, which is given to testimony by children, and which is previous to all experience, is in fact

* Page 180.

the most unlimited; that, by a gradual experience of mankind, it is gradually contracted, and reduced to narrower bounds. To say therefore that our diffidence in testimony is the result of experience, is more philosophical, because more consonant to truth, than to say that our faith in testimony has this foundation. Accordingly youth, which is inexperienced, is credulous; age, on the contrary, is distrustful. Exactly the reverse would be the case, were this author's doctrine just.

Perhaps it will be said, If experience is allowed to be the only measure of a logical or reasonable faith in testimony, the question, Whether the influence of testimony on belief, be original or derived? if it be not entirely verbal, is at least of no importance in the present controversy. But I maintain it is of the greatest importance. The difference between us is by no means so inconsiderable, as to a careless view it may appear. According to his philosophy, the presumption is against the testimony, or (which amounts to the same thing) there is not the smallest presumption in its favour, till properly supported by experience. According to the explication given above, there is the strongest presumption in favour of the testimony, till properly refuted by experience.

If it be objected by the author, that such a faith in testimony as is prior to experience, must be unreasonable and unphilosophical, because unaccountable; I should reply,-that there are, and must

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be, in human nature, some original grounds of belief, beyond which our researches cannot proceed, and of which therefore it is vain to attempt a rational account. I should desire the objector to give a reasonable account of his faith in this principle, that similar causes always produce similar effects; or in this, that the course of nature will be the same to-morrow, that it was yesterday, and is today: Principles, which he himself acknowledges, are neither intuitively evident, nor deduced from premisses; and which nevertheless we are under a necessity of presupposing, in all our reasoning from experience*. I should desire him to give a reasonable account of his faith in the clearest informations of his memory, which he will find it alike impossible either to doubt, or to explain. Indeed memory bears nearly the same relation to experience, that testimony does. Certain it is that the defects and misrepresentations of memory are often corrected by experience. Yet should any person hence infer, that memory derives all its evidence from experience, he would fall into a manifest absurdity. For, on the contrary, experience derives its origin solely from memory, and is nothing else but the general maxims or conclusions, we have formed, from the comparison of particular facts remembered. If we had not previously given an implicit faith to memory, we had never been able to acquire experience.

* Sceptical Doubts, Part 2.

When therefore we say that memory, which gives birth to experience, may nevertheless, in some instances, be corrected by experience, no more is implied, but that the inferences, formed from the most lively and perspicuous reports of memory, sometimes serve to rectify the mistakes which arise from such reports of this faculty, as are most languid and confused. Thus memory, in these instances, may be said to correct itself. The case is often much the same with experience and testimony, as will appear more clearly in the second section, where I shall consider the ambiguity of the word experience, as used by this author.

BUT how, says Mr Hume, is testimony then 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 of the 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 un

commonness 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*? The 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.

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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,

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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

*

Page 184.

+ Page 179.

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