diminishes its potency against miracles; and he does not call that proposition "harmless" in reference to its bearing on miracles, as Dr. Farrar evidently supposes, but merely in opposition to the character of a recondite and "dangerous heresy" assigned by dismayed theologians to so obvious and simple a principle. The proposition, however, whilst it reduces Hume's doctrine in the abstract to more technical terms, does not altogether represent his argument. Without asserting that experience is an absolutely infallible guide, Hume maintains that—" A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. In such conclusions as are founded on an infallible experience, he expects the event with the last degree of assurance, and regards his past experience as a full proof of the future existence of that event. In other cases he proceeds with more caution, he weighs the opposite experiments: he considers which side is supported by the greater number of experiments: to that side he inclines with doubt and hesitation; and when at last he fixes his judgment, the evidence exceeds not what we properly call probability. All probability, then, supposes an opposition of experiments and observations, where the one side is found to overbalance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence proportioned to the superiority. "(l) After elaborating this proposition, Hume continues: "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable that all men must die; that lead
cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or, in other words, a miracle, to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man seemingly in good health should die on a sudden; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be an uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof which is superior. The plain consequence is, (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish: and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains after deducting the inferior.' 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; and according to the superiority which 1 discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."(1)
The ground upon which Mr. Mill admits that a miracle may not be contradictory to complete induction is that it is not an assertion that a certain cause was not followed by a certain effect, but an allegation of the interference of an adequate counteracting cause. This does not, however, by his own showing, remove a miracle from the action of Hume's principle, but simply modifies the nature of the antecedent improbability. Mr. Mill qualifies his admission regarding the effect of the alleged counteracting cause, by the all-important words "if present;" for, in order to be valid, the reality of the alleged counteracting cause must be established, which is impossible, therefore the allegations fall to the ground. No one knows better than Mr. Mill that the assertion of a Personal Deity working miracles, upon which a miracle is allowed for a moment to come into court, cannot be proved, and, therefore, that it cannot stand in opposition to complete induction which Hume takes as his standard.
In admitting that Hume has made out, that no evidence can prove a miracle to any one who does not previously believe in a being of supernatural power willing to work miracles, Mr. Mill concedes everything to Hume, for his only limitation is based upon a supposition of mere personal belief in something which is not capable of proof, and which belief, therefore, is not
more valid than any other purely imaginary hypothesis. The belief may seem substantial to the individual entertaining it, but, not being capable of proof, it cannot have weight with others, or in any way affect the Value of evidence in the abstract. That mere individual belief, apart from proof, should thus be advanced in limitation of a logical principle, seems to us most unwarranted, and at the most it can only be received as a statement of what practically takes place amongst illogical reason ers.
The assumption of a Personal Deity working miracles is, in fact, excluded by Hume's argument, and, although Mr. Mill apparently overlooks the fact, Hume has not only anticipated but refuted the reasoning which is based upon it. In the succeeding chapter on a Particular Providence and a Future State, he directly disposes of such an assumption, but he does so with equal effect also in the Essay which we are discussing. Taking an imaginary miracle as an illustration, he argues: "Though the being to whom the miracle is ascribed be in this case Almighty, it does not, upon that account, become a whit more probable; since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions in the usual course of nature. This still reduces us to past observation, and obliges us to compare the instances of the violation of truth in the testimony of men, with those of the violation of the laws of nature by miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. As the violations of truth are more common in the testimony concerning religious miracles than in that concerning any other matter of fact, this must diminish very much the authority of the former testimony, and