Thus, it appears that an event alleged to have taken place may either be one of a kind that is consistent with a person's experience, or it may be consistent with it. But the evidence in support of an event of either description may be precisely the fame in degree and kind ; it may be the evidence of persons of integrity unimpeached, of judg ment approved, and of observation and acuteness unquestioned.
In the two cases supposed, the evidence is precisely the same : the only difference is in the mental state of the person to whom it is addressed. All intention or disposition to deceive, on the part of the witnesses, is by the supposition out of the way, and therefore the case is reduced to that of the receiver of the evidence being an eye-witness, and if he believes the witnesses to have as much penetration and judg ment as himself, their evidence is as good to him as his own experience would have been; and if he thinks the witnesses have more penetration and judgment than himself, it is better. There is then no reason why a man should not, under the circumstances supposed, believe an event which is inconsistent with his own experience, as well as one that is con sistent with it.
The true cause of all the dispute about the reality of events allied miraculous is this :—the estimation of the evidence in the particular instanceor instances, has been confounded with the question of evidence generally. As a matter of evidence, any fact may lie alleged as the fact to be proved, and the possibility of a proof equal in value to the proof derivable from a man's own observation cannot be denied. But whether any nllog.ed fact has been proved or not, is quite a diffirrent question. It is not here said that any supposable fact or event may, by possibi lity, be supported by evidence as strong as that arising from a man being an eye-witness.
The assertion that any alleged event is inconsistent with experience, may mean either the experience of the objector, or the evidence (that is, the experience) of others; or it may mean both. Taken in its widest acceptation, the assertion cannot be properly made of any fact or event alleged to have taken place ; for by the supposition, the event is consistent with the experience of the person who bears evidence to it. If a fact or an event should be told to a person, of which there was no similar event on record, it might be said that experience did not show any similar event ; but though this might be a very good reason for examining the evidence most strictly, it is no reason at all against evidence in support of it which is free from all the objections above enumerated.
But it may be said, what does this lead to I It leads to this,—to the admission that any alleged fact or event is a possibility; and it leads to the proper examination of the evidence by which it is sup ported. Suppose the event to be a shower of stones recorded in Livy.
The investigation is relieved of ono difficulty by the fact of showers of stones being attested by evidence in modern times much more satis factory than that of Livy. A man may therefore commence such inquiry by admitting that the particular eireuinstance recorded by Livy may have taken place ; though, if he had not satisfactory evidence of such a kind of events having taken place before, he could not coin mence his inquiry by making such admission ; for the admission that such an event might have taken place could only be made when the event was proved to have taken place, and would then be useless. Further ; prior to receiving any evidence, we cannot say that the event is one that could not have taken place. Whether a shower of stones, as recorded by Livy, did fall or not, depends for proof exactly on the same principles as other events recorded by him.
Now many of the facts or events which are called miracles are of the kind which may be considered as unlike any other events on record ; the fact, for example, of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, which coo will suppose, for the present purpose, to be the first event of the kind on record. With reference to an event of this kind, Duni° remarks, " In order to increase the probability against the testimony of witnesses, let us suppose that the fact which they affirm, instead of being only marvellous, is really miraculous; and suppose also that 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 prevnil, but still with a diminution of its force, in proportion to that of its nntagonitst." The opposing proof here referred to is what Hume calls experience, a word which he has used in his Essay in a very loose sense. From what has been said in this article, it will be perceived that the view which the writer takes of evidence is altogether different from that of Hume. If the " testimony, considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof," the thing or event is proved, whether it be one kind of thing or another ; and this conclusion is logically con tained in Iiiinte's words. It is however clear that Hume did not mean to say that which his words do mean ; for he urges against this, which would be entire proof if the thing were not miraculous, the objection that it is iniraculous ; and this is the whole of the matter that his Essay in effect contains, which, as it has been well remarked, the principle of belief with the subject-matter to which it is to be applied." (Starkie, On Evidence,' p. 473, note.)* This is the case in the first part of Hume's Essay on Miracles ;' the second part merely professes to show that no miraculous events have ever been established on so full evidence as may amount to entire proof.