FOOTNOTES:
[3] "A report is spread, (says Voltaire in one of his works,) that there is, in some country or other, a giant as big as a mountain; and men presently fall to hot disputing concerning the precise length of his nose, the breadth of his thumb, and other particulars, and anathematize each other for heterodoxy of belief concerning them. In the midst of all, if some bold sceptic ventures to hint a doubt as to the existence of this giant, all are ready to join against him, and tear him to pieces." This looks almost like a prophetic allegory relating to the gigantic Napoleon.
[4] Οὕτως ἀταλαίπωρος τοῖς πολλοῖς ἡ ζήτησις τῆς ἀληθείας, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ ἕτοιμα μᾶλλον τρέπονται. Thucyd. b.i.c. 20.
[5] "With what greediness are the miraculous accounts of travellers received, their descriptions of sea and land monsters, their relations of wonderful adventures, strange men, and uncouth manners!"—Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 179, 12mo; p. 185, 8vo, 1767; p. 117, 8vo, 1817.
N.B.—In order to give every possible facility of reference, three editions of Hume's Essays have been generally employed: a 12mo, London, 1756, and two 8vo editions.
[6] "Suppose a fact to be transmitted through twenty persons; the first communicating it to the second, the second to the third, &c., and let the probability of each testimony be expressed by nine-tenths, (that is, suppose that of ten reports made by each witness, nine only are true,) then, at every time the story passes from one witness to another, the evidence is reduced to nine-tenths of what it was before. Thus, after it has passed through the whole twenty, the evidence will be found to be less than one-eighth."—La Place, Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités.
That is, the chances for the fact thus attested being true, will be, according to this distinguished calculator, less than one in eight. Very few of the common newspaper-stories, however, relating to foreign countries, could be traced, if the matter were carefully investigated, up to an actual eye-witness, even through twenty intermediate witnesses; and many of the steps of our ladder, would, I fear, prove but rotten; few of the reporters would deserve to have one in ten fixed as the proportion of their false accounts.
[7] "I did not mention the difficulty of detecting a falsehood in any private or even public history, at the time and place where it is said to happen; much more where the scene is removed to ever so small a distance.... But the matter never comes to any issue, if trusted to the common method of altercation and debate and flying rumours."—Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 195, 12mo; pp. 200, 201, 8vo, 1767; p. 127, 8vo, 1817.
[8] See the third Postscript appended to this edition.
[9] "We entertain a suspicion concerning any matter of fact, when the witnesses contradict each other; when they are of a suspicious character; when they have an interest in what they affirm."—Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 172, 12mo; p. 176, 8vo, 1767; p. 113, 8vo. 1817.
[10] "That testimony itself derives all its force from experience, seems very certain.... The first author, we believe, who stated fairly the connexion between the evidence of testimony and the evidence of experience, was Hume, in his Essay on Miracles, a work ... abounding in maxims of great use in the conduct of life."—Edin. Review, Sept. 1814, p. 328.
[11] "Suppose, for instance, that the fact which the testimony endeavours to establish partakes of the extraordinary and the marvellous; in that case, the evidence resulting from the testimony receives a diminution, greater or less in proportion as the fact is more or less unusual."—Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 173, 12mo; p. 176, 8vo, 1767; p. 113, 8vo, 1817.
[12] "The ultimate standard by which we determine all disputes that may arise is always derived from experience and observation."—Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 172, 12mo; p. 175, 8vo, 1767; p. 112, 8vo, 1817.
Ἠ θαύματα πολλά.
Καὶ τού τι καὶ βροτῶν φρένας
ὙΠΕΡ ΤΟΝ ΑΛΗΘΗ ΛΟΓΟΝ
Δεδειδαλμένοι ψεύδεσι ποικίλοις
Ἐξαπατῶντι μῦθοι.—Pind. Olymp. 1
[14] This doctrine, though hardly needing confirmation from authority, is supported by that of Hume; his eighth essay is, throughout, an argument for the doctrine of "Philosophical necessity," drawn entirely from the general uniformity, observable in the course of nature with respect to the principles of human conduct, as well as those of the material universe; from which uniformity, he observes, it is that we are enabled in both cases, to form our judgment by means of Experience: "and if," says he, "we would explode any forgery in history, we cannot make use of a more convincing argument, than to prove that the actions ascribed to any person, are directly contrary to the course of nature....
"... The Veracity of Quintus Curtius is as suspicious when he describes the supernatural courage of Alexander, by which he was hurried on singly to attack multitudes, as when he describes his supernatural force and activity, by which he was able to resist them. So readily and universally do we acknowledge a uniformity in human motives and actions, as well as in the operations of body."—Eighth Essay, p. 131, 12mo; p. 85, 8vo, 1817.
Accordingly, in the tenth essay, his use of the term "miracle," after having called it "a transgression of a law of nature," plainly shows that he meant to include human nature: "no testimony," says he, "is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a nature that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish." The term "prodigy" also (which he all along employs as synonymous with "miracle") is applied to testimony, in the same manner, immediately after; "In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed ... that the falsehood of that testimony would be a kind of prodigy." Now had he meant to confine the meaning of "miracle," and "prodigy," to a violation of the laws of matter, the epithet "miraculous," applied even thus hypothetically, to false testimony, would be as unmeaning as the epithets "green" or "square;" the only possible sense in which we can apply to it, even in imagination, the term "miraculous," is that of "highly improbable,"—"contrary to those laws of nature which respect human conduct:" and in this sense he accordingly uses the word in the very next sentence: "When any one tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other."—Hume's Essay on Miracles, pp. 176, 177, 12mo; p. 182, 8vo, 1767; p. 115, 8vo, 1817.
See also a passage above quoted from the same essay, where he speaks of "the miraculous accounts of travellers;" evidently using the word in this sense.
Perhaps it was superfluous to cite authority for applying the term "miracle" to whatever is "highly improbable;" but it is important to the students of Hume, to be fully aware that he uses those two expressions as synonymous; since otherwise they would mistake the meaning of that passage which he justly calls "a general maxim worthy of your attention."
[15] "Events may be so extraordinary that they can hardly be established by testimony. We would not give credit to a man who would affirm that he saw a hundred dice thrown in the air, and that they all fell on the same faces."—Edin. Review, Sept. 1814, p. 327.
Let it be observed, that the instance here given is miraculous in no other sense but that of being highly improbable.
[16] "If the spirit of religion join itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense; and human testimony in these circumstances loses all pretensions to authority."—Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 179, 12mo; p. 185, 8vo, 1767; p. 117, 8vo, 1817.
[17] The supposed history from which the above extracts are given, is published entire in the work called Historic Certainties.
[18] "I desire any one to lay his hand upon his heart, and after serious consideration declare whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such testimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates."—Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 200, 12mo; p. 206, 8vo, 1767; p. 131, 8vo, 1817.
Let it be borne in mind that Hume (as I have above remarked) continually employs the term "miracle" and "prodigy" to signify anything that is highly improbable and extraordinary.
[19] "The wise lend a very academic faith to every report which favours the passion of the reporter, whether it magnifies his country, his family, or himself."—Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 144, 12mo; p. 200, 8vo, 1767; p. 126, 8vo, 1817.
[20] "Nothing can be more contrary than such a philosophy (the academic or sceptical) to the supine indolence of the mind, its rash arrogance, its lofty pretensions, and its superstitious credulity."—Fifth Essay, p. 68, 12mo; p. 41, 8vo, 1817.
[21] See Hume's Essay on Miracles, pp. 189, 191, 195, 12mo; pp. 193, 197, 201, 202, 8vo, 1767; pp. 124, 125, 126, 8vo, 1817.
[22] See Edinburgh Review for October, 1842, p. 162.
[23] It is well know with how much learning and ingenuity the Rationalists of the German school have laboured to throw discredit on the literal interpretation of the narratives, both of the Old and the New Testaments; representing them as MYTHS, i.e., fables allegorically describing some physical or moral phænomena—philosophical principles—systems, &c.—under the figure of actions performed by certain ideal personages; these allegories having been, afterwards, through the mistake of the vulgar, believed as history. Thus, the real historical existence of such a person as the supposed founder of the Christian religion, and the acts attributed to him, are denied in the literal sense, and the whole of the evangelical history is explained on the "mythical" theory.
Now it is a remarkable circumstance in reference to the point at present before us, that an eminent authoress of this century has distinctly declared that Napoleon Buonaparte was NOT A MAN, but a SYSTEM.
[24] Germaniæ vocabulum recens et nuper additum; quoniam qui primi Rhenum transgressi Gallos expulerint, ac nunc Tungri, tunc Germani vocati sint: ita nationis nomen in nomen gentis evaluisse paullatim, ut omnes, primum a victore ob metum, mox a seipsis invento nomine, Germani vocarentur.—Tacitus, de Mor. Germ.