Chapter XII: Section VII

OF THE ARGUMENT AS AFFECTED BY THE PARTICULAR WORKER OF THE MIRACLES.

This is the last 'moment,' to use the language of Mechanics, which we shall notice in this discussion. And here there is a remarkable _petitio principii_ in Hume's management of his argument. He says, roundly, that it makes no difference at all if God were connected with the question as the author of the supposed miracles. And why? Because, says he, we know God only by experience--meaning as involved in nature--and, therefore, that in so far as miracles transcend our experience of nature, they transcend by implication our experience of God. But the very question under discussion is--whether God did, or did not, manifest himself to human experience in the miracles of the New Testament. But at all events, the idea of God in itself already includes the notion of a _power_ to work miracles, whether that power were over exercised or not; and as Sir Isaac Newton thought that space might be the sensorium of God, so may we (and with much more philosophical propriety) affirm that the miraculous and the transcendent is the very nature of God. God being assumed, it is as easy to believe in a miracle issuing from him as in any operation according to the laws of nature (which, after all, is possibly in many points only the nature of our planet): it is as easy, because either mode of action is indifferent to him. Doubtless this argument, when addressed to an Atheist, loses its force; because he refuses to assume a God. But then, on the other hand, it must be remembered that Hume's argument itself does not stand on the footing of Atheism. He supposes it binding on a Theist. Now a Theist, in starting from the idea of God, grants, of necessity, the plenary power of miracles as greater and more awful than man could even comprehend. All he wants is a sufficient motive for such transcendent agencies; but this is supplied in excess (as regards what we have called the _constituent_ miracles of Christianity) by the case of a religion that was to revolutionize the moral nature of man. The moral nature--the kingdom of the will--is esentially opposed to the kingdom of nature even by the confession of irreligious philosophers; and, therefore, being itself a supersensual field, it seems more reasonably adapted to agencies supernatural than such as are natural.

GENERAL RECAPITULATION.

In Hume's argument,--_x_, which expresses the resistance to credibility in a miracle, is valued as of necessity equal to the veiy maximum or ideal of human testimony; which, under the very best circumstances, might be equal to +_x,_ in no case more, and in all known cases less. We, on the other hand, have endeavored to show--

1. That, because Hume contemplates only the case of a single witness, it will happen that the case _Beta_ [of Sect. II.] where a multitude of witnesses exist, may greatly exceed +_x;_ and with a sufficient multitude must exceed _x_.

2. That in the case of internal miracles--operations of divine agency within the mind and conscience of the individual--Hume's argument is necessarily set aside: the evidence, the +_x_, is perfect for the individual, and the miraculous agency is meant for him only.

3. That, in the case of one primary miracle, viz. the first organization of man on this planet, the evidence greatly transcends _x:_ because here it is an evidence not derived from experience at all, but from the reflecting reason: and the miracle has the same advantage over facts of experience, that a mathematical truth has over the truths which rest on induction. It is the difference between _must be_ and _is_--between the inevitable and the merely actual.

4. That, in the case of another order of miracles, viz. prophecies, Hume's argument is again overruled; because the +_x_ in this case, the affirmative evidence, is not derived froms human testimony. Some prophecies are obscure; they may be fulfilled possibly without men's being aware of the fulfilment. But others, as that about the fate of Babylon--about the fate of the Arabs (the children of Ishmael)--about the fate of the Jews--are not of a nature to be misunderstood; and the evidence which attends them is not alien, but is intrinsic, and developed by themselves in successive stages from age to age.

5. That, because the primary miracle in No. 3, argues at least a _power_ competent to the working of a miracle, for any after miracle we have only to seek a sufficient _motive_. Now, the objects of the Christian revelation were equal at the least to those of the original creation. In fact, Christianity may be considered as a second creation; and the justifying cause for the _constituent_ miracles of Christianity is even to us as apparent as any which could have operated at the primary creation. The _epigenesis_ was, at least, as grand an occasion as the _genesis_. Indeed, it is evident, for example, that Christianity itself could not have existed without the constituent miracle of the Resurrection; because without that there would have been no conquest over death. And here, as in No. 3, +_x_ is derived--not from any experience, and therefore cannot be controlled by that sort of hostile experience which Hume's argument relies on; but is derived from the reason which transcends all experience.

CASUISTRY.

[1839.]