§ 23. So far our path is plain. Up to this point disciples of very different schools may advance together; for in laying down the above doctrine we have carefully abstained from implying or admitting that it contains the whole truth. But from this point two paths branch out before us, paths as different from each other in their character, origin, and direction, as can well be conceived. As this enquiry is only a digression, we may confine ourselves to stating briefly what seem to be the characteristics of each, without attempting to give the arguments which might be used in their support.
(I.) On the one hand, we may assume that this principle of causation is the ultimate one. By so terming it, we do not mean that it is one from which we consciously start in our investigations, as we do from the axioms of geometry, but rather that it is the final result towards which we find ourselves drawn by a study of nature. Finding that, throughout the scope of our enquiries, event follows event in never-failing uniformity, and finding moreover (some might add) that this experience is supported or even demanded by a tendency or law of our nature (it does not matter here how we describe it), we may come to regard this as the one fundamental principle on which all our enquiries should rest.
(II.) Or, on the other hand, we may admit a class of principles of a very different kind. Allowing that there is this uniformity so far as our experience extends, we may yet admit what can hardly be otherwise described than by calling it a Superintending Providence, that is, a Scheme or Order, in reference to which Design may be predicated without using merely metaphorical language. To adopt an aptly chosen distinction, it is not to be understood as over-ruling events, but rather as underlying them.
§ 24. Now it is quite clear that according as we come to the discussion of any particular miracle or extraordinary story under one or other of these prepossessions, the question of its credibility will assume a very different aspect. It is sometimes overlooked that although a difference about facts is one of the conditions of a bonâ fide argument, a difference which reaches to ultimate principles is fatal to all argument. The possibility of present conflict is banished in such a case as absolutely as that of future concord. A large amount of popular literature on the subject of miracles seems to labour under this defect. Arguments are stated and examined for and against the credibility of miraculous stories without the disputants appearing to have any adequate conception of the chasm which separates one side from the other.
§ 25. The following illustration may serve in some degree to show the sort of inconsistency of which we are speaking. A sailor reports that in some remote coral island of the Pacific, on which he had landed by himself, he had found a number of stones on the beach disposed in the exact form of a cross. Now if we conceive a debate to arise about the truth of his story, in which it is attempted to decide the matter simply by considerations about the validity of testimony, without introducing the question of the existence of inhabitants, and the nature of their customs, we shall have some notion of the unsatisfactory nature of many of the current arguments about miracles. All illustrations of this subject are imperfect, but a case like this, in which a supposed trace of human agency is detected interfering with the orderly sequence of other and non-intelligent natural causes, is as much to the point as any illustration can be. The thing omitted here from the discussion is clearly the one important thing. If we suppose that there is no inhabitant, we shall probably disbelieve the story, or consider it to be grossly exaggerated. If we suppose that there are inhabitants, the question is at once resolved into a different and somewhat more intricate one. The credibility of the witness is not the only element, but we should necessarily have to take into consideration the character of the supposed inhabitants, and the object of such an action on their part.
§ 26. Considerations of this character are doubtless often introduced into the discussion, but it appears to me that they are introduced to a very inadequate extent. It is often urged, after Paley, ‘Once believe in a God, and miracles are not incredible.’ Such an admission surely demands some modification and extension. It should rather be stated thus, Believe in a God whose working may be traced throughout the whole moral and physical world. It amounts, in fact, to this;—Admit that there may be a design which we can trace somehow or other in the course of things; admit that we are not wholly confined to tracing the connection of events, or following out their effects, but that we can form some idea, feeble and imperfect though it be, of a scheme.[10] Paley's advice sounds too much like saying, Admit that there are fairies, and we can account for our cups being cracked. The admission is not to be made in so off-hand a manner. To any one labouring under the difficulty we are speaking of, this belief in a God almost out of any constant relation to nature, whom we then imagine to occasionally manifest himself in a perhaps irregular manner, is altogether impossible. The only form under which belief in the Deity can gain entrance into his mind is as the controlling Spirit of an infinite and orderly system. In fact, it appears to me, paradoxical as the suggestion may appear, that it might even be more easy for a person thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Inductive science, though an atheist, to believe in a miracle which formed a part of a vast system, than for such a person, as a theist, to accept an isolated miracle.
§ 27. It is therefore with great prudence that Hume, and others after him, have practically insisted on commencing with a discussion of the credibility of the single miracle, treating the question as though the Christian Revelation could be adequately regarded as a succession of such events. As well might one consider the living body to be represented by the aggregate of the limbs which compose it. What is to be complained of in so many popular discussions on the subject is the entire absence of any recognition of the different ground on which the attackers and defenders of miracles are so often really standing. Proofs and illustrations are produced in endless number, which involving, as they almost all do in the mind of the disputants on one side at least, that very principle of causation, the absence of which in the case in question they are intended to establish, they fail in the single essential point. To attempt to induce any one to disbelieve in the existence of physical causation, in a given instance, by means of illustrations which to him seem only additional examples of the principle in question, is like trying to make a dam, in order to stop the flow of a river, by shovelling in snow. Such illustrations are plentiful in times of controversy, but being in reality only modified forms of that which they are applied to counteract, they change their shape at their first contact with the disbeliever's mind, and only help to swell the flood which they were intended to check.
[1] Reasons were given in the last chapter against the propriety of applying the rules of Probability with any strictness to such examples as these. But although all approach to numerical accuracy is unattainable, we do undoubtedly recognize in ordinary life a distinction between the credibility of one witness and another; such a rough practical distinction will be quite sufficient for the purposes of this chapter. For convenience, and to illustrate the theory, the examples are best stated in a numerical form, but it is not intended thereby to imply that any such accuracy is really attainable in practice.
[2] I must plead guilty to this charge myself, in the first edition of this work. The result was to make the treatment of this part of the subject obscure and imperfect, and in some respects erroneous.