the same fact and should the evidence of the one that has failed twenty times be added to the two former, the testimony of all the three would have the force of no less than a million to one for any indifferent thing, or of a thousand to one for the anomalous deviation which is the subject of our argument.

21. On the subject of the amount of evidence that lies in the concurrence of two or more such notices as we are now specifying, it must be observed that these notices should be independent of each other. For example, when the tide-index B announces a low-water, it must not be because the tide-index A announces the same thing. Each by being similarly related to the waters of the sea is subject to a common influence from it-but neither should have any influence the one upon the other. It is easy to perceive that in the present instance they stand so disjoined, as to give us the advantage of all the united strength that lies in separate and independent testimonies. It is not because A gives a right deposition that B gives the same. B is sometimes wrong when A is rightand beside each would operate precisely as it does though the other were removed or taken down.

22. By the concurrence of independent notices on the subject, the amount of evidence for an anomalous low-water may become indefinitely great. There may be other tide-indices, and that too of the best sort, in other houses beside our own and each of which has never been known to present a false indication in the whole course of human experience. The concurrent testimony of two

such instruments yields the probability of a thousand. -of three no less than a million--till the number of distinct and independent testimonies be so great as to make the superiority of evidence quite overwhelming, and to afford practically the force of an absolute moral certainty on the side of an anomalous low-water. Or, instead of an anomalous if it be called a miraculous low-water-this is only lengthening out the experience that we have had of Nature's regularity in this department of observation. Instead of one deviation in a thousand instances of observed constancy, the event in question may be the only deviation that has taken place in the regular succession of tides since the commencement of the world. To meet this we have just to imagine a tide-index that was never known to give forth a false intimation; and to overmatch this, we have just to imagine so many distinct and separate intimations from a certain number of such indices. The falsity of the instrument may be as great an anomaly or if you will as great a miracle as the phenomenon of which it tells -and the concurrence of a few such miracles may establish for the truth of the miracle deponed to as overwhelming a superiority of evidence as before. It remains to be seen how much or how little can be done in this way by living witnesses-but it seems very clear to us on the strength of the abové reasoning, that at the mouth of two or three inanimate witnesses the truth of a miracle may be established.

CHAPTER III.

On the Sufficiency of human Testimony for the Proof of Miracles.

MR. HUME'S OBJECTION TO THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES.

SECTION I. On the Origin of our Belief in
Testimony.

1. THE following is Dr. Campbell's abstract of Hume's argument on the subject of miracles:

Experience is our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact. Experience is in some things variable, in some things uniform. A variable experience gives rise only to probability; an uniform experience amounts to a proof. Probability always 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. In such cases we must balance the opposite experiments, and deduct the lesser number from the greater, in order to know the exact force of the superior evidence. Our belief or assurance of any fact from the report of eye-witnesses, is derived from no other principle than experience; that is, our observation of the veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the report of witnesses. Now if the fact attested partakes of the marvellous, if it is such as has

seldom fallen under our observation, here is a contest of two opposite experiences, of which the one destroys the other, as far as its force goes, and the superior can only operate on the mind by the force which remains. The very same principle of experience, which gives us a certain degree of assurance, in the testimony of witnesses, gives us also, in this case, another degree of assurance, against the fact which they endeavour to establish, from which contradiction, there necessarily arises a counterpoise, and mutual destruction of belief and authority. Further, if the fact affirmed by the witnesses, instead of being only marvellous, is really, miraculous; if besides, the testimony considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof; in that case there is proof against proof, of which the strongest must prevail, but still with a diminution of its force, in proportion to that of its antagonist. 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. And if so, it is an undeniable consequence, that it cannot be surmounted by any proof whatever from testimony. A miracle, therefore, however attested, can never be rendered credible, even in the lowest degree."

2. And the following is the outset of Dr. Campbell's reply" In answer to this, I propose first to prove, that the whole is built upon a false hypothesis. That the evidence of testimony is derived solely from experience, which seems to be

an axiom of this writer, is at least not so incontestable a truth, as he supposes it; that on the contrary, testimony hath a natural and original influence on belief, antecedent to experience, will, I imagine, easily be evinced. For this purpose, let it be remarked, that the earliest assent which is given to testimony by children, and which is previous to all experience, is in fact the most unlimited; that by a gradual experience of mankind, it is gradually contracted, and reduced to narrower bounds. To say, therefore, that our diffidence in testimony is the result of experience, is more philosophical, because more consonant to truth, than to say that our faith in testimony has this foundation. Accordingly, youth, which is unexperienced, is credulous; age on the contrary is distrustful. Exactly the reverse would be the case, were this author's doctrine just.”

3. Such is the opening of the controversy between Hume and Campbell on the subject of miracles-and wherewith the latter ushers in his celebrated reply to the argument of the former. We have long stood in doubt of the validity of that reply-notwithstanding the singular acumen and dexterity and power of expression by which it is characterized. We still hold it to be neither a clear nor a conclusive one-and do therefore feel an insecurity and a want of completeness in the christian defence, whenever this sceptical reasoning of Mr. Hume is again advanced by any of those more recent writers who have succeeded him on the side of infidelity.

4. We, in the first place, doubt whether he is