On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
God may have spoken to his creatures . But surely no maxim is less countenanced b y experience , or even by the practice of unbelievers themselves , in every thing not connected with religion . Mr . Bentham , in another place , * speaks in terms of contempt of a p hysician who rejected as incredible the first report of the freezing of quicksilver . The contempt was merited , but it is not easy to see how it is to be reconciled with the author ' s principles . A fact which is relatively impossible , is to be rejected because it is opposed to the ordinary course of nature . This course of nature is
established and ascertained by the general experience of mankind ; but with reference to each individual it is not even founded upon any direct testimony ; it is nothing more than general notoriety—a vague report not investigated with any degree of scrupulous suspicion , and derived from an indefinite number of individuals , into whose separate claims to credibility we have neither the means nor the inclination to examine . It is scarcely necessary to observe , that this is a species of evidence to which a captious sceptic
would find it peculiarly easy to propose objections , and yet it is upon evidence such as this that we proceed without hesitation or difficulty in nearly all the most important transactions of life . It is because such facts as appear to be contrary to the usual course of nature are opposed by this indefinite , but , in his estimation , overwhelming mass of counter-testimony , that our author conceives himself entitled to reject them . " Take for example a case of witchcraft . An old woman has travelled through the air on a broomstick . This is affirmed ; I refuse to believe it . because it would be
in contradiction to the laws of nature . One of these laws is , that no body can be put iri motion without a moving force sufficient to overcome the attraction of gravity , " &c . f But the believer in the reality of this event might , perhaps , reply , that no contradiction to this law was alleged or supposed to exist in the case . It was not pretended that the motion was produced without an adequate force sufficiently powerful to overcome the attraction of gravity , but by the intervention of some supernatural agent
I also reject the fact in question , but not exactly for the reason stated by Mr . Bentham . I see no contradiction , and consequently no absolute impossibility , in the supposition of a person being conveyed throu gh the air on a broomstick . If , therefore , the same kind and degree of evidence were brought forward to prove it which we can adduce in support of the Scripture miracles , I should not hesitate to believe it . My reason for not
believing it is simply that no evidence of this sort , or any thing approaching to it , has ever been produced . Shew me a final cause for such a departure from the ordinary course of Providence equally important with that which is assigned for the miracles of the gospel , and then bring me ten or a dozen witnesses as unexceptionable as the apostles and evangelists , and upon such testimony I will pledge myself to receive this or any other fact which does not involve a positive contradiction *
Mr . Bentham tells us , that a partizan of magic might say much to weaken our confidence in the argument against his assertions drawn from their inconsistency with the ordinary course of nature . " But , " he adds , " there is one fatal point on which all his argument would fail , namely , the comparative weakness of the direct proof or special testimony by which he proposes to establish their reality . He would be strong when arguing on our ignorance of the resources of nature , but he would be utterl y weak in attempting to prove some particular fact which appears , or which he himself considers , to
* P . 175 . t P . 208 .
Untitled Article
Evidence for Improbable and Supernatural Facts . 397
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 397, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/5/
-