such instruments yields the probability of a thousand -of three no less than a million-till the number of distinct and independent testimonies be so great as to make the superiority of evidence quite overwhelming, and to afford practically the force of an absolute moral certainty on the side of an anomalous low-water. Or, instead of an anomalous if it be called a miraculous low-water-this is only lengthening out the experience that we have had of Nature's regularity in this department of observation. Instead of one deviation in a thousand instances of observed constancy, the event in question may be the only deviation that has taken place in the regular succession of tides since the commencement of the world. To meet this we have just to imagine a tide-index that was never known to give forth a false intimation; and to overmatch this, we have just to imagine so many distinct and separate intimations from a certain number of such indices. The falsity of the instrument may be as great an anomaly or if you will as great a miracle as the phenomenon of which it tells -and the concurrence of a few such miracles may establish for the truth of the miracle deponed to as overwhelming a superiority of evidence as before. It remains to be seen how much or how little can be done in this way by living witnesses-but it seems very clear to us on the strength of the above reasoning, that at the mouth of two or three inanimate witnesses the truth of a miracle may be established.

CHAPTER III.

On the Sufficiency of human Testimony for the Proof of Miracles.

MR. HUME'S OBJECTION TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES.

SECTION I. On the Origin of our Belief in
Testimony.

1. THE following is Dr. Campbell's abstract of Hume's argument on the subject of miracles:

Experience is our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact. Experience is in some things variable, in some things uniform. A variable experience gives rise only to probability; an uniform experience amounts to a proof. Probability always supposes an opposition of experiments and observations, where the one side is found to overbalance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence proportioned to the superiority. In such cases we must balance the opposite experiments, and deduct the lesser number from the greater, in order to know the exact force of the superior evidence. Our belief or assurance of fact from the report of eye-witnesses, is derived from no other principle than experience; that is, our observation of the veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the report of witnesses. Now if the fact attested partakes of the marvellous, if it is such as has

any

seldom fallen under our observation, here 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. The very same principle of experience, which gives us a certain degree of assurance, in the testimony of witnesses, gives us also, in this case, another degree of assurance, against the fact which they endeavour to establish, from which contradiction, there necessarily arises a counterpoise, and mutual destruction of belief and authority. Further, if the fact affirmed by the witnesses, instead of being only marvellous, is really miraculous; if besides, the testimony considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof; in that case there is proof against proof, of 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 undeniable consequence, that it cannot be surmounted by any proof whatever from testimony. A miracle, therefore, however attested, can never be rendered credible, even in the lowest degree."

2. And the following is the outset of Dr. Campbell's reply-" 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 incon testable a truth, as he supposes it; that on the contrary, testimony hath 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 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 unexperienced, is credulous; age on the contrary is distrustful. Exactly the reverse would be the case, were this author's doctrine just."

3. Such is the opening of the controversy between Hume and Campbell on the subject of miracles-and wherewith the latter ushers in his celebrated reply to the argument of the former. We have long stood in doubt of the validity of that reply-notwithstanding the singular acumen and dexterity and power of expression by which it is characterized. We still hold it to be neither a clear nor a conclusive one-and do therefore feel an insecurity and a want of completeness in the christian defence, whenever this sceptical reasoning of Mr. Hume is again advanced by any of those more recent writers who have succeeded him on the side of infidelity.

4. We, in the first place, doubt whether he is

right in the theory which he proposes respecting the origin of our faith in testimony. In opposition to Hume who grounds it on experience, he makes it a principle sui generis in the mental constitution, or an aboriginal instinct of the understanding. We shall in the course of the following discussion have to remark on certain phenomena of our belief in testimony which incline us to resolve it, with Mr. Hume, into our faith in the constancy of nature. But we are anxious to have it understood that the refutation, which we shall venture to propose, neither requires nor presupposes any absolute deliverance upon this question. We undertake to prove his conclusion to be wrong, not because but although, his premises should be right. We are inclined to think them right. But though we should be in error here, this is not an error by which our counter-argument to Mr. Hume is in the least affected. It is of no consequence, whether we affirm with him the truth of his own principle respecting the origin of our faith in testimony. There is a difference between affirming it and allowing it. The latter is what we certainly do; and a refutation should be held all the more decisive if it can afford to an adversary those very assumptions on which his argument is built.

5. But Secondly, Though Dr. Campbell were right, in the view he gave, respecting the origin of our faith in testimony, we do not see that this is of decisive avail, on his side of the controversy. Even though experience were not the source of our belief in testimony, it may still be the measure by which to regulate the degree of confidence that