6 6 of the scripture or of tradition, is founded merely on the testimony of the apostles, who were eye-witnesses to those miracles of our Saviour, by which he proved his divine mission. Our ' evidence then for the truth of the Christian religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses; because even in the 'first authors of our religion it was no greater; and it is evi• dent, it must diminish in passing from them to their disciples; nor can any one be so certain of the truth of their testimony, as of the immediate objects of his senses. But a weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger; and therefore, were the 'doctrine of the real presence ever so clearly revealed in scripture, it were directly contrary to the rules of just reasoning to give our assent to it. It contradicts sense, though both the scripture and tradition, on which it is supposed to be built, carry not such evidence with them as sense, when they are con'sidered merely as external evidences, and are not brought home 'to every one's breast by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit *. That the evidence of testimony is less than the evidence of sense, is undeniable.- -Sense is the source of that evidence, which is first transferred to the memory of the individual, as to a general reservoir, and thence transmitted to others by the channel of testimony. That the original evidence can never gain any thing, but must lose, by the transmission, is beyond dispute. What has been rightly perceived may be misremembered; what is rightly remembered may, through incapacity, or through ill intention, be misreported; and what is rightly reported may be misunderstood. In any of these four ways therefore, either by defect of memory, of elocution, or of veracity in the relater, or by misapprehension in the hearer, there is a chance, that the truth received by the information of the senses, may be misrepresented or mistaken; now every such chance, occasions a real diminution of the evidence. That the sacramental elements are bread and wine, not flesh and blood, our sight and touch and taste and smell concur in testifying. If these senses are not to be credited, the apostles themselves could not have evidence of the mission of their master, For the greatest external evidence they had, or could have, of his mission, was that which their senses gave them, of the reality * Fage 173, 174. of his miracles. But whatever strength there is in this argument, with regard to the apostles, the argument, with regard to us, who, for those miracles, have only the evidence, not of our own senses, but of their testimony, is incomparably stronger. In their case, it is sense contradicting sense; in ours, it is sense contradicting testimony. But what relation has this to the author's argument? None at all. Testimony, it is acknowledged, is a weaker evidence than sense. But it has been already evinced, that its evidence for particular facts is infinitely stronger than that which the general conclusions from experience can afford us. Testimony holds directly of memory and sense. Whatever is duly attested must be remembered by the witness; whatever is duly remembered must once have been perceived. But nothing similar takes place with regard to experience, nor can testimony, with any appearance of meaning, be said to hold of it. THUS I have shown, as I proposed, that the author's reasoning proceeds on a false hypothesis.-It supposes testimony to derive its evidence solely from experience, which is false.→→ It supposes by consequence, that contrary observations have a weight in opposing testimony, which the first and most acknowledged principles of human reason, or, if you like the term better, common sense, evidently shows that they have not.-It assigns a rule for discovering the superiority of contrary evidences, which, in the latitude there given it, tends to mislead the judg ment, and which it is impossible, by any explication, to render of real use. SECTION II. Mr. Hume charged with some fallacies in his way of managing the argument. IN the essay there is frequent mention of the word experience, and much use made of it. It is strange that the author has not favoured us with the definition of a term of so much moment to his argument. This defect I shall endeavour to supply; and the rather, as the word appears to be equivocal, and to be used by the essayist in two very different senses. The first and most proper signification of the word, which, for distinction's sake, I shall call personal experience, is that given in the preceding section. It is,' as was observed, founded in memory, and consists solely of the general maxims or conclusions that • each individual hath formed from the comparison of the parti'cular facts remembered by him.' In the other signification, in which the word is sometimes taken, and which I shall distinguish by the term derived, it may be thus defined. It is founded in testimony, and consists not only of all the experiences of others, which have, through that channel, been communi'cated to us, but of all the general maxims or conclusions we have formed, from the comparison of particular facts attested.' In proposing his argument, the author would surely be understood to mean only personal experience; otherwise, his making testimony derive its light from an experience which derives its light from testimony, would be introducing what logicians term a circle in causes. It would exhibit the same things alternately, as causes and effects of each other. Yet nothing can be more limited, than the sense which is conveyed under the term experience, in the first acceptation. The merest clown or peasant derives incomparably more knowledge from testimony, and the communicated experience of others, than in the longest life he could have amassed out of the treasure of his own memory. Nay, to such a scanty 'portion the savage himself is not confined. If that therefore must be the rule, the only rule, by which every testimony is ultimately to be judged, our belief in matters of fact must have very narrow bounds. No testimony ought to have any weight with us, that does not relate an event, similar at least to some one observation, which we ourselves have made. For example, that there are such people on the earth as negroes, could not, on that hypothesis, be rendered credible to one who had never seen a negro, not even by the most numerous and the most unexceptionable attestations. Against the admission of such testimony, however strong, the whole force of the author's argument evidently operates. But that innumerable absurdities would flow from this principle, I might easily evince, did I not think the task superfluous. The author himself is aware of the consequences; and therefore, in whatever sense he uses the term experience in proposing his argument; in prosecuting it, he, with great dexterity, shifts the sense, and, ere the reader is apprised, insinuates another. It is a miracle,' says he, '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 *. Here the phrase, an uniform experience against an event, in the latter clause, is implicitly defined in the former, not what has never been observed BY US, but (mark his words) what has never been observed in any age OR COUNTRY. Now, what has been observed, and what has not been observed, in all ages and countries, pray how can you, Sir, or I, or any man, come to the knowledge of? Only I suppose by testimony, oral or written. The personal experience of every individual is limited to but a part of one age, and commonly to a narrow spot of one country. If there be any other way of being made acquainted with facts, it is to me, I own, an impenetrable secret; I have no apprehension of it. If there be not any, What shall we make of that cardinal point, on which your argument turns? It is in plain language, Testi'mony is not entitled to the least degree of faith, but as far as it is supported by such an extensive experience, as if we had 'not had a previous and independent faith in testimony, we could never have acquired.' How natural is the transition from one sophism to another! You will soon be convinced of this, if you attend but a little to the strain of the argument. A miracle,' says he, is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable expe'rience hath established these laws, the proof against a miracle is as entire, as any argument from experience can possibly be 'imagined t.' Again, 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 ‡.' I must + Page 180. • Page 181. + Page 181. once ask the author, What is the precise meaning of the words firm, unalterable, uniform? An experience that admits no exception, is surely the only experience, which can with propriety be termed uniform, firm, unalterable. Now since, as was remarked above, the far greater part of this experience, which eomprises every age and every country, must be derived to us from testimony; that the experience may be firm, uniform, unalterable, there must be no contrary testimony whatever. Yet by the author's own hypothesis, the miracles he would thus confute, are supported by testimony. At the same time, to give strength to his argument, he is under a necessity of supposing, that there is no exception from the testimonies against them. Thus he falls into that paralogism, which is called begging the question. What he gives with one hand, he takes with the other. He admits, in opening his design, what in his argument he implicitly denies. 6 6 But that this, if possible, may be still more manifest, let us attend a little to some expressions, which one would imagine he had inadvertently dropt. So long,' says he, as the world 'endures, I presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all profane history *.' Why does he presume so? A man so much attached to experience, can hardly be suspected to have any other reason than this; because such accounts have hitherto been found in all the histories, profane as well as sacred, of times past. But we need not recur to an inference to obtain this acknowledgment. It is often to be met with in the essay. In one place we learn, that the witnesses for miracles are an infinite number+; in another, that all reli→ gious records of whatever kind abound with them ‡. I leave it therefore to the author to explain, with what consistency he can assert, that the laws of nature are established by an uniform experience, (which experience is chiefly the result of testimony) and at the same time allow, that almost all human histories are full of the relations of miracles and prodigies, which are violations of those laws. Here is, by his own confession, testimony against testimony, and very ample on both sides. How then * Page 174. his words are, † Page 190. In the edition of the Essay, 1767, mentioned in the Preface, |