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    sand times without accident . A person unknowMo me affirms that he has just seen this boat overset . Here , says Dr . C , is a fact improbable in the ratio of two thousand to one , which , nevertheless , is readily believed on the testimony of a single witness . Our author , however , denies the improbability . " No one , says he , " who has seen a heavily laden boat would allow it to be improbable that it should be overset , though it had made the same passage ,

    not two , but ten thousand times in safety . " * The objection appears to me to be groundless . What is supposed to be attested by the witness is not the general proposition that an overloaded boat is liable to be overset , but the fact that on this particular occasion this particular boat was so overloaded , and did meet with such a misfortune . That this is in itself improbable , independently of testimony affirming it , will be evident to any one who considers how he would receive the bare hypothetical statement without any

    testimony at all . Our sense of the previous improbability of an attested fact may arise from a great variety of considerations . In the present instance it arises simply from the number of times that the vessel has made the passage without accident . It may be occasioned by a knowledge of those qualities or circumstances which may be expected to prevent the incident affirmed to have happened . Suppose a life-boat was known to have been carefully constructed on the most approved principles , and it was reported

    that it had been lost on the first trial . Here is an event in a high degree improbable ; but yet if it were affirmed by a number of respectable witnesses who had every opportunity of observing the fact , and no apparent motive for deceiving , I do not see how we could reasonably refuse our assent . "If , " says Mr . B ., " instead of an overloaded boat , the story had been told of a cork boat with nothing in it , there would then , indeed , be an improbability in the fact of its submersion ; an improbability , such that we should

    not believe the report of a thousand witnesses , though they should all declare that it taok place before their eyes . "f The ordinary course of things being supposed , here is an example , not of an improbable , but of an impossible event ; a most important distinction , which , however , is very generally overlooked both by our author and by many other writers upon this subject . But if this limitation is not understood , the event in question is not an

    example of absolute impossibility ; it involves no contradiction , and , where supernatural power is alleged to have bfeen concerned , it is therefore a fit subject of human testimony . If a person , pretending to a commission from heaven in attestation of his authority , had commanded the vessel to sink , and it had sunk accordingly , here would have been a miracle ; but an appearance which the senses are just as competent accurately to observe as any the most ordinary occurrence .

    After having repeatedly affirmed , in the preceding part of this dissertation , that there is an essential and insurmountable deficiency in the particular testimony brought forward to prove any fact which professes to be contrary to the ordinary course of nature , our author proceeds , somewhat inconsistently , to prescribe a course of investigation to which such testimony ought , in his opinion , to be subjected . If it should be found to stand the ordeal here prepared for it , notwithstanding what had before been affirmed , we seem to be left to conclude , that nothing would remain for the most determined sceptic but to surrender his own belief . •* It seems to me that the most incredulous person on the subject of supernatural facts , might safely

    * P . % \ 7 . t P . 2 ^

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    Evidence for Improbable and Supernatural Facts . 39 ( 1

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 398, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/7/