deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in literature."
His subsequent letters show that he proceeded in the first instance to Paris, where he remained for a short time. Not long before his arrival there, some occurrences had taken place which were afterwards prominently referred to in his philosophical writings. A Jansenist, distinguished by his sanctity and the wide circle of his charities—the Abbé Paris, having died, a tomb was erected over his remains in the cemetery of St. Médard. Thither the poor, whom the good man had succoured in life, repaired to bless his memory and pray for the state of his soul. But it was discovered that this devotion was speedily rewarded; for the sick were cured, the blind saw, all manner of miracles were performed; and the evidence of their genuineness was considered so satisfactory, that the Jesuits were never able to impugn them—an instance which it might be well for every one to recall to mind who is told of phenomena out of the ordinary course of nature being authenticated by the testimony of respectable and enlightened people. At length, this series of miracles became offensive to the government—there was no saying how far the matter might proceed. It was resolved that there should be no more miracles performed at the tomb of the Abbé Paris: the gates of the cemetery were closed, and the miracles necessarily came to an end. This occurred in the year 1732, just two years before Hume's visit; and it will easily be imagined that the references to these wonderful events which he would hear in conversation, suggested many trains of thought to the young philosopher. It was not long afterwards, and probably while all this
was very fresh in his memory, that the principal theory of his Essay on Miracles was suggested to him. In that Essay he says:
"Many of the miracles of Abbé Paris were proved immediately by witnesses before the officialty or bishop's court at Paris, under the eye of Cardinal Noailles, whose character for integrity and capacity was never contested even by his enemies.
"His successor in the archbishopric was an enemy to the Jansenists, and for that reason promoted to the see by the court. Yet twenty-two rectors or curés of Paris, with infinite earnestness, press him to examine those miracles, which they assert to be known to the whole world, and indisputably certain. But he wisely forbore."
And farther on:—
"No less a man than the Duc de Chatillon, a duke and peer of France, of the highest rank and family, gives evidence of a miraculous cure, performed upon a servant of his, who had lived several years in his house with a visible and palpable infirmity.
"I shall conclude with observing, that no clergy are more celebrated for strictness of life and manners than the secular clergy of France, particularly the rectors or curés of Paris, who bear testimony to these impostures."
An illustration of his notice of what was passing around him in Paris, occurs in the following passage in his "Natural History of Religion."
"I lodged once at Paris in the same hotel with an ambassador from Tunis, who, having passed some years at London, was returning home that way. One day I observed his Moorish excellency diverting himself under the porch, with surveying the splendid equipages that drove along; when there chanced to