Supernatural Religion Volume I Part 13

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error in the observer, a law of nature is established; and so long as this law is received as such, the a.s.sertion that on any particular occasion the cause A took place and yet the effect B did not follow, _without any counteracting cause_, must be disbelieved. In fact, as he winds up this part of the argument by saying: "We cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature, and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it. We must disbelieve the alleged fact, or believe that we were mistaken in admitting the supposed law."(1) Mr. Mill points out, however, that, in order that any alleged fact should be contradictory to a law of causation, the allegation must be not simply that the cause existed without being followed by the effect, but that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. "Now, in the case of an alleged miracle, the a.s.sertion is the exact opposite of this. It is, that the effect was defeated, not in the absence, but in consequence of a counteracting cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some being who has power over nature; and in particular of a Being, whose will being a.s.sumed to have endowed all the causes with the powers by which they produce their effects, may well be supposed able to counteract them."(2) A miracle, then, is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect; it is merely a new effect supposed to be introduced by the introduction of a new cause; "of the adequacy of that cause _if present,_(3) there can be no doubt; and the only antecedent improbability which can be ascribed to the miracle is the improbability that any such cause existed." Mr. Mill then continues, resuming his criticism on Hume's argument:

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"All, therefore, which Hume has made out, and this he must be considered to have made out, is that (at least in the imperfect state of our knowledge of natural agencies, which leaves it always possible that some of the physical antecedents may have been hidden from us,) no evidence can prove a miracle to any one who did not previously believe the existence of a being or beings with supernatural power; or who believes himself to have full proof that the character of the Being whom he recognizes is inconsistent with his having seen fit to interfere on the occasion in question." Mr. Mill proceeds to enlarge on this conclusion.

"If we do not already believe in supernatural agencies, no miracle can prove to us their existence. The miracle itself, considered merely as an extraordinary fact, may be satisfactorily certified by our senses or by testimony; but nothing can ever prove that it is a miracle: there is still another possible hypothesis, that of its being the result of some unknown natural cause: and this possibility cannot be so completely shut out as to leave no alternative but that of admitting the existence and intervention of a being superior to nature. Those, however, who already believe in such a being have two hypotheses to choose from, a supernatural, and an unknown natural agency; and they have to judge which of the two is the most probable in the particular case. In forming this judgment, an important element of the question will be the conformity of the result to the laws of the supposed agent; that is, to the character of the Deity as they conceive it. But, with the knowledge which we now possess of the general uniformity of the course of nature, religion, following in the wake of science, has been compelled to acknowledge the government of the universe as

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being on the whole carried on by general laws, and not by special interpositions. To whoever holds this belief, there is a general presumption against any supposition of divine agency not operating through general laws, or, in other words, there is an antecedent improbability in every miracle, which, in order to outweigh it, requires an extraordinary strength of antecedent probability derived from the special circ.u.mstances of the case."(1) Mr. Mill rightly considers that it is not more difficult to estimate this than in the case of other probabilities. "We are seldom, therefore, without the means (when the circ.u.mstances of the case are at all known to us) of judging how far it is likely that such a cause should have existed at that time and place without manifesting its presence by some other marks, and (in the case of an unknown cause) without having hitherto manifested its existence in any other instance. According as this circ.u.mstance, or the falsity of the testimony, appears more improbable, that is, conflicts with an approximate generalization of a higher order, we believe the testimony, or disbelieve it; with a stronger or weaker degree of conviction, according to the preponderance: at least until we have sifted the matter further."(2) This is precisely Hume's argument weakened by the introduction of reservations which have no cogency.

"We have wished to avoid interrupting Mr. Mill's train of reasoning by any remarks of our own, and have, therefore, deferred till now the following observations regarding his criticism on Hume's argument.

In reducing Hume's celebrated doctrine to the very plain proposition that whatever is contradictory to a complete induction is incredible, Mr. Mill in no way

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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" a.s.signed 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 a.s.serting 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 a.s.surance, 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

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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 a.s.surance 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

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other; and according to the superiority which 1 discover, I p.r.o.nounce 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 a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sertion 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

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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 a.s.sumption 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 a.s.sumption, but he does so with equal effect also in the Essay which we are discussing.

Taking an imaginary miracle as an ill.u.s.tration, 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

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make us form a general resolution never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretence it may be covered."(1) A person who believes anything contradictory to a complete induction merely on the strength of an a.s.sumption which is incapable of proof is simply credulous, but such an a.s.sumption cannot affect the real evidence for that thing.

The argument of Paley against Hume is an ill.u.s.tration of the reasoning suggested by Mr. Mill. Paley alleges the interposition of a Personal Deity in explanation of miracles, but he protests that he does not a.s.sume the attributes of the Deity or the existence of a future state in order to _prove_ their reality. "That reality," he admits, "always must be proved by evidence. We a.s.sert only that in miracles adduced in support of revelation there is not such antecedent improbability as no testimony can surmount." His argument culminates in the short statement: "In a word, once believe that there is a G.o.d" (i.e., a Personal G.o.d working miracles), "and miracles are not incredible."(2) We have already quoted Hume's refutation of this reasoning, and we may at once proceed to the final argument by which Paley endeavours to overthrow Hume's doctrine, and upon which he mainly rests his case.

"But the short consideration," he says, "which, independently of every other, convinces me that there is no solid foundation in Mr. Hume's conclusion, is the following: When a theorem is proposed to a mathematician, the first thing he does with it is to try it upon a simple case, and if it produces a false result, he is sure that there

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must be some mistake in the demonstration. Now, to proceed in this way with what may be called Mr. Hume's theorem. If twelve men, whose probity and good sense I had long known, should seriously and circ.u.mstantially relate to me an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes, and in which it was impossible that they should be deceived; if the governor of the country, hearing a rumour of this account, should call these men into his presence, and offer them a short proposal, either to confess the imposture or submit to be tied up to a gibbet; if they should refuse with one voice to acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or imposture in the case; if this threat was communicated to them separately, yet with no different effect; if it was at last executed; if I myself saw them, one after another, consenting to be racked, burned, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account,--still, if Mr. Hume's rule be my guide, I am not to believe them. Now I undertake to say that there exists not a sceptic in the world who would not believe them, or who would defend such incredulity."(1)

It is obvious that this reasoning, besides being purely hypothetical, is utterly without cogency against Hume's doctrine. In the first place, it is clear that no a.s.sertion of any twelve men would be sufficient to overthrow a law of nature, which is the result of a complete induction, and in order to establish the reality of a miracle or the occurrence on one occasion of an unprecedented effect, from any cause, not in accordance with natural law, no smaller amount of evidence would suffice than would serve to refute the complete induction. The allegation of such an intervening cause as a Personal

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Deity working miracles is excluded as opposed to a complete induction.

So long as we maintain the law, we are necessarily compelled to reject any evidence which contradicts it. We cannot at the same time believe the contradictory evidence, and yet a.s.sert the truth of the law.

The specific allegation, moreover, is completely prohibited by the Scriptural admission that miracles are also performed by other supernatural beings in opposition to the Deity. The evidence of the twelve men, however, simply amounts to a statement that they saw, or fancied that they saw, a certain occurrence in contradiction to the law, but that which they actually saw was only an external phenomenon, the real nature of which is a mere inference, and an inference which, from the necessarily isolated position of the miraculous phenomenon, is neither supported by other instances capable of forming a complete counter induction, nor by a.n.a.logies within the order of nature.1 The bare inference from an occurrence supposed to have been witnessed by twelve men is all that is opposed to the law of nature, which is based upon a complete induction, and it is, therefore, incredible.

If we proceed to examine Paley's "simple case" a little more closely, however, we find that not only is it utterly inadmissible as a hypothesis, but that as an ill.u.s.tration of the case of Gospel miracles it is completely devoid of relevancy and argumentative force. The only point which gives a momentary value to the supposed instance is the condition attached to the account of the miracle related by the twelve men, that not only was it wrought before their eyes, but that it was one "in which it was impossible that they should be deceived." Now

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this qualification of infallibility on the part of the twelve witnesses is as incredible as the miracle which they are supposed to attest. The existence of twelve men incapable of error or mistake is as opposed to experience as the hypothesis of a miracle in which it is impossible for the twelve men to be deceived is contradictory to reason. The exclusion of all error in the observation of the actual occurrence and its antecedents and consequences, whose united sum const.i.tutes the miracle, is an a.s.sumption which deprives the argument of all potency. It cannot be entertained. On the other hand, the moment the possibility of error is admitted, the reasoning breaks down, for the probability of error on the part of the observers, either as regards the external phenomena, or the inferences drawn from them, being so infinitely greater than the probability of mistake in the complete induction, we must unquestionably hold by the law and reject the testimony of the twelve men.

It need scarcely be said that the a.s.sertion of liability to error on the part of the observers by no means involves any insinuation of wilful "falsehood or imposture in the case." It is quite intelligible that twelve men might witness an occurrence which might seem to them and others miraculous,--but which was susceptible of a perfectly natural explanation,--and truthfully relate what they believed to have seen, and that they might, therefore, refuse "with one voice to acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or imposture in the case," even although the alternative might be death on a gibbet. This, however, would in no way affect the character of the actual occurrence. It would not convert a natural, though by them inexplicable, phenomenon into a miracle. Their constancy in adhering to the account they had

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given would merely bear upon the truth of their own statements, and the fact of seeing them "one after another consenting to be racked, burned, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account," would not in the least justify our believing in a miracle. Even martyrdom cannot transform imaginations into facts. The truth of a narrative is no guarantee for the correctness of an inference. It seems almost incredible that arguments like these should for so many years have been tolerated in the text-book of a University.

As regards the applicability of Paleys ill.u.s.tration to the Gospel miracles, the failure of his a.n.a.logy is complete. We shall presently see the condition of the people amongst whom these miracles are supposed to have occurred, and that, so far from the nature of the phenomena, and the character of the witnesses, supporting the inference that it was impossible that the observers could have been deceived, there is every reason for concluding with certainty that their ignorance of natural laws, their p.r.o.neness to superst.i.tion, their love of the marvellous, and their extreme religious excitement, rendered them peculiarly liable to incorrectness in the observation of the phenomena, and to error in the inferences drawn from them. We shall likewise see that we have no serious and circ.u.mstantial accounts of those miracles from eye-witnesses of whose probity and good sense we have any knowledge, but that, on the contrary, the narratives of them which we possess were composed by unknown persons, who were not eyewitnesses at all, but wrote very long after the events related, and in that mythic period "in which reality melted into fable, and invention unconsciously trespa.s.sed on the province of history." The proposition: "That

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there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, pa.s.sed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of these accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct," is made by Paley the argument of the first nine chapters of his work, as the converse of the proposition, that similar attestation of other miracles cannot be produced, is of the following two. This shows the importance which he attaches to the point; but, notwithstanding, even if he could substantiate this statement, the cause of miracles would not be one whit advanced.

We have freely quoted these arguments in order to ill.u.s.trate the real position of miracles; and no one who has seriously considered the matter can doubt the necessity for very extraordinary evidence, even to render the report of such phenomena worthy of a moment's attention. The argument for miracles, however, has. .h.i.therto proceeded upon the merest a.s.sumption, and, as we shall further see, the utmost that they can do who support miracles, under the fatal disadvantage of being contradictory to uniform experience, is to refer to the alleged contemporaneous nature of the evidence for their occurrence, and to the character of the supposed witnesses. Mr. Mill has ably shown the serious misapprehension of so many writers against Hume's "Essay on Miracles,"

which has led them to what he calls "the extraordinary conclusion, that nothing supported by credible testimony ought ever to be disbelieved."(1) In regard to historical facts, not contradictory to all

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experience, simple and impartial testimony may be sufficient to warrant belief, but even such qualities as these can go but a very small way towards establis.h.i.+ng the reality of an occurrence which is opposed to complete induction.(1) It is admitted that the evidence requisite to establish the reality of a supernatural Divine Revelation of doctrines beyond human reason, and comprising in its very essence such stupendous miracles as the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Ascension, must be miraculous. The evidence for the miraculous evidence, which is scarcely less astounding than the contents of the Revelation itself, must, logically, be miraculous also, for it is not a whit more easy to prove the reality of an evidential miracle than of a dogmatic miracle. It is evident that the resurrection of Lazarus, for instance, is as contradictory to complete induction as the resurrection of Jesus. Both the Supernatural Religion, therefore, and its supernatural evidence labour under the fatal disability of being antecedently incredible.

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CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF MIRACLES

Let us now, however, proceed to examine the evidence for the reality of miracles, and to inquire whether they are supported by such an amount of testimony as can in any degree outweigh the reasons which, antecedently, seem to render them incredible. It is undeniable that belief in the miraculous has gradually been dispelled, and that, as a general rule, the only miracles which are now maintained are limited to brief and distant periods of time. Faith in their reality, once so comprehensive, does not, except amongst a certain cla.s.s, extend beyond the miracles of the New Testament and a few of those of the Old,(1) and the countless myriads of ecclesiastical

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