An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (good e books to read TXT) 📖
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him more powerfully than on the rest of mankind in any other
circumstances; and self-interest with equal force. His auditors may not
have, and commonly have not, sufficient judgement to canvass his
evidence: what judgement they have, they renounce by principle, in these
sublime and mysterious subjects: or if they were ever so willing to
employ it, passion and a heated imagination disturb the regularity of
its operations. Their credulity increases his impudence: and his
impudence overpowers their credulity.
Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or
reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the
affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their
understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully
or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian
audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can
perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by
touching such gross and vulgar passions.
The many instances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural
events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary
evidence, or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove
sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and
the marvellous, and ought reasonably to beget a suspicion against all
relations of this kind. This is our natural way of thinking, even with
regard to the most common and most credible events. For instance: There
is no kind of report which rises so easily, and spreads so quickly,
especially in country places and provincial towns, as those concerning
marriages; insomuch that two young persons of equal condition never see
each other twice, but the whole neighbourhood immediately join them
together. The pleasure of telling a piece of news so interesting, of
propagating it, and of being the first reporters of it, spreads the
intelligence. And this is so well known, that no man of sense gives
attention to these reports, till he find them confirmed by some greater
evidence. Do not the same passions, and others still stronger, incline
the generality of mankind to believe and report, with the greatest
vehemence and assurance, all religious miracles?
94. Thirdly. It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural
and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among
ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given
admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received
them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors, who transmitted them with
that inviolable sanction and authority, which always attend received
opinions. When we peruse the first histories of all nations, we are apt
to imagine ourselves transported into some new world; where the whole
frame of nature is disjointed, and every element performs its operations
in a different manner, from what it does at present. Battles,
revolutions, pestilence, famine and death, are never the effect of those
natural causes, which we experience. Prodigies, omens, oracles,
judgements, quite obscure the few natural events, that are intermingled
with them. But as the former grow thinner every page, in proportion as
we advance nearer the enlightened ages, we soon learn, that there is
nothing mysterious or supernatural in the case, but that all proceeds
from the usual propensity of mankind towards the marvellous, and that,
though this inclination may at intervals receive a check from sense and
learning, it can never be thoroughly extirpated from human nature.
It is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say, upon the perusal of
these wonderful historians, that such prodigious _events never happen
in our days_. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in
all ages. You must surely have seen instances enough of that frailty.
You have yourself heard many such marvellous relations started, which,
being treated with scorn by all the wise and judicious, have at last
been abandoned even by the vulgar. Be assured, that those renowned lies,
which have spread and flourished to such a monstrous height, arose from
like beginnings; but being sown in a more proper soil, shot up at last
into prodigies almost equal to those which they relate.
It was a wise policy in that false prophet, Alexander, who though now
forgotten, was once so famous, to lay the first scene of his impostures
in Paphlagonia, where, as Lucian tells us, the people were extremely
ignorant and stupid, and ready to swallow even the grossest delusion.
People at a distance, who are weak enough to think the matter at all
worth enquiry, have no opportunity of receiving better information. The
stories come magnified to them by a hundred circumstances. Fools are
industrious in propagating the imposture; while the wise and learned are
contented, in general, to deride its absurdity, without informing
themselves of the particular facts, by which it may be distinctly
refuted. And thus the impostor above mentioned was enabled to proceed,
from his ignorant Paphlagonians, to the enlisting of votaries, even
among the Grecian philosophers, and men of the most eminent rank and
distinction in Rome: nay, could engage the attention of that sage
emperor Marcus Aurelius; so far as to make him trust the success of a
military expedition to his delusive prophecies.
The advantages are so great, of starting an imposture among an ignorant
people, that, even though the delusion should be too gross to impose on
the generality of them (_which, though seldom, is sometimes the case_)
it has a much better chance for succeeding in remote countries, than if
the first scene had been laid in a city renowned for arts and
knowledge. The most ignorant and barbarous of these barbarians carry
the report abroad. None of their countrymen have a large correspondence,
or sufficient credit and authority to contradict and beat down the
delusion. Men’s inclination to the marvellous has full opportunity to
display itself. And thus a story, which is universally exploded in the
place where it was first started, shall pass for certain at a thousand
miles distance. But had Alexander fixed his residence at Athens, the
philosophers of that renowned mart of learning had immediately spread,
throughout the whole Roman empire, their sense of the matter; which,
being supported by so great authority, and displayed by all the force of
reason and eloquence, had entirely opened the eyes of mankind. It is
true; Lucian, passing by chance through Paphlagonia, had an opportunity
of performing this good office. But, though much to be wished, it does
not always happen, that every Alexander meets with a Lucian, ready to
expose and detect his impostures.
95. I may add as a fourth reason, which diminishes the authority of
prodigies, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have not
been expressly detected, that is not opposed by an infinite number of
witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of
testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. To make this the better
understood, let us consider, that, in matters of religion, whatever is
different is contrary; and that it is impossible the religions of
ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China should, all of them, be
established on any solid foundation. Every miracle, therefore, pretended
to have been wrought in any of these religions (and all of them abound
in miracles), as its direct scope is to establish the particular system
to which it is attributed; so has it the same force, though more
indirectly, to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival
system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles, on which that
system was established; so that all the prodigies of different
religions are to be regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of
these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other.
According to this method of reasoning, when we believe any miracle of
Mahomet or his successors, we have for our warrant the testimony of a
few barbarous Arabians. And on the other hand, we are to regard the
authority of Titus Livius, Plutarch, Tacitus, and, in short, of all the
authors and witnesses, Grecian, Chinese, and Roman Catholic, who have
related any miracle in their particular religion; I say, we are to
regard their testimony in the same light as if they had mentioned that
Mahometan miracle, and had in express terms contradicted it, with the
same certainty as they have for the miracle they relate. This argument
may appear over subtile and refined; but is not in reality different
from the reasoning of a judge, who supposes, that the credit of two
witnesses, maintaining a crime against any one, is destroyed by the
testimony of two others, who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues
distant, at the same instant when the crime is said to have been
committed.
96. One of the best attested miracles in all profane history, is that
which Tacitus reports of Vespasian, who cured a blind man in Alexandria,
by means of his spittle, and a lame man by the mere touch of his foot;
in obedience to a vision of the god Serapis, who had enjoined them to
have recourse to the Emperor, for these miraculous cures. The story may
be seen in that fine historian[23]; where every circumstance seems to add
weight to the testimony, and might be displayed at large with all the
force of argument and eloquence, if any one were now concerned to
enforce the evidence of that exploded and idolatrous superstition. The
gravity, solidity, age, and probity of so great an emperor, who, through
the whole course of his life, conversed in a familiar manner with his
friends and courtiers, and never affected those extraordinary airs of
divinity assumed by Alexander and Demetrius. The historian, a
cotemporary writer, noted for candour and veracity, and withal, the
greatest and most penetrating genius, perhaps, of all antiquity; and so
free from any tendency to credulity, that he even lies under the
contrary imputation, of atheism and profaneness: The persons, from whose
authority he related the miracle, of established character for judgement
and veracity, as we may well presume; eyewitnesses of the fact, and
confirming their testimony, after the Flavian family was despoiled of
the empire, and could no longer give any reward, as the price of a lie.
_Utrumque, qui interfuere, nunc quoque memorant, postquam nullum
mendacio pretium_. To which if we add the public nature of the facts, as
related, it will appear, that no evidence can well be supposed stronger
for so gross and so palpable a falsehood.
[23] Hist. lib. iv. cap. 81. Suetonius gives nearly the same
account in vita Vesp.
There is also a memorable story related by Cardinal de Retz, which may
well deserve our consideration. When that intriguing politician fled
into Spain, to avoid the persecution of his enemies, he passed through
Saragossa, the capital of Arragon, where he was shewn, in the cathedral,
a man, who had served seven years as a door-keeper, and was well known
to every body in town, that had ever paid his devotions at that church.
He had been seen, for so long a time, wanting a leg; but recovered that
limb by the rubbing of holy oil upon the stump; and the cardinal assures
us that he saw him with two legs. This miracle was vouched by all the
canons of the church; and the whole company in town were appealed to for
a confirmation of the fact; whom the cardinal found, by their zealous
devotion, to be thorough believers of the miracle. Here the relater was
also cotemporary to the supposed prodigy, of an incredulous and
libertine character, as well as of great genius; the miracle of so
singular a nature as could scarcely admit of a counterfeit, and the
witnesses very numerous, and all of them, in a manner, spectators of the
fact, to which they gave their testimony. And what adds mightily to the
force of the
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