[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.