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certainly the eyes , ears and other senses of men are equally capable of judging concerning all things , which they are equally capable of perceiving . " All miracles are facts , of a nature cognizable by the ordinary faculties and suited to the common apprehension of mankind : indeed if they were not
So , to no purpose would they have been performed . Those recorded in the Christian Scriptures have a peculiar efficacy in this view , since they do not depend upon a priori arguments and recondite speculations for proof ; but uniformly referring to plain facts , and addressed to the common sense of
mankind , the most illiterate as well as the most learned could equally judge of their truth . Like other facts , therefore , which are not miraculous , they may be established by testimony , the
persons recording them affirming only the experience of their own senses , and that of others , in a plain and simple case , namely , that certain effects were repeatedly produced m the presence of considerable numbers , and of which ,
too , they themselves had a personal knowledge . Mr . Hume , in Note K of his Essay , informs us , " That a miracle may be discoverable by man or not ; this alters not its nature and essence . " A more positive admission of the existence of miracles could not have been made ,
since whatever has a nature and essence must necessarily exist . And that a miracle is discoverable by man , Mr . Hume has furnished vis undeniableevidence in his own example ; for if not so , how could he have known , and affirmed of it , that its nature and essence would not have been altered by the circumstances alluded to in the
quotation ? That a miracle is in itself possible , and capable of being proved by the senses , is certain ; and farther , that it may also be satisfactorily proved to others by testimony , Mr . Hume acknowledges when he remarks , that our observation of the veracity of human
testimony constrains our assent to the belief of ordinary facts , even although they have never immediately fallen under the cognizance of our own senses . Just so is it with miracles ,
which , although undoubtedly facts of an extraordinary nature ^ are not on that account the less discoverable by ns , when , as in the case of ordinary facts , they have been submitted to our im-
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mediate and personal obserration , or t 6 that of others , who have recorded them to us . To assert , then , that a fact cannot be proved , when already admitted to have been fully proved , is an absolute contradiction , the very absurdity charged upon the abettors of miracles . A miracle , then , we must
admit , in the first instance , is capable of being proved by the senses ; and the subsequent establishment of its proof by testimony is no contradiction : indeed , why its being registered and recorded as a testimony of its truth to others should alter its nature , and as it
were by enchantment annihilate its previous capacity of proof , a wiser head than even Mr . Hume ' s is requisite to determine . It must be conceded , however , that the veracity of testimony is not uniform ; and here it is that we meet the difficulty in its fullest force ,
and freely admit that miracles require a stronger testimony than common facts , but deny that the nature and capacity of testimony is on that account any zvays altered or impaired , which by the objector is strenuously contended to be the case . Had he confined himself to
this single point , his objection would have had considerable weight , though it would by no means have been insuperable 3 but by blending with it the utter incapacity of testimony to prove at all , he has effectually defeated his own purpose . A testimony that proves nothing cannot lie .
A more than reiterated experience in proof of miracles is not wanting . If all occurrences , and all must be comprehended under the idea of an uniform experience , were to be brought about by means of particular interpositions
( which is the notion of a miracle ) , every practical benefit to result from them would be lost , and to us they would no longer be miracles : an unceasing series of miraculous interventionswould in effect be the same as an
established law . The efficacy of a reasonable experience in judging of them is not denied : but the futility and unreasonableness of an uniform experience is manifest . Moreover , our competency to judge of the existence of any fact ,
whether of an ordinary or of an extraordinary nature , does not depend upon its constant recurrence , nor is it altered by our ignorance of what produced it ; since the mode in which the operation of the usual course of the laws of-ri » -
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1 d An Examination of Mr . Hume ' s Objection to Miracles .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1817, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2460/page/18/
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