An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (good e books to read TXT) 📖
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judgement, which they can employ, find themselves often at a loss to
distinguish between truth and falsehood in the most recent actions. But
the matter never comes to any issue, if trusted to the common method of
altercations and debate and flying rumours; especially when men’s
passions have taken part on either side.
In the infancy of new religions, the wise and learned commonly esteem
the matter too inconsiderable to deserve their attention or regard. And
when afterwards they would willingly detect the cheat, in order to
undeceive the deluded multitude, the season is now past, and the records
and witnesses, which might clear up the matter, have perished
beyond recovery.
No means of detection remain, but those which must be drawn from the
very testimony itself of the reporters: and these, though always
sufficient with the judicious and knowing, are commonly too fine to fall
under the comprehension of the vulgar.
98. Upon the whole, then, it appears, that no testimony for any kind of
miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof; and
that, even supposing it amounted to a proof, it would be opposed by
another proof; derived from the very nature of the fact, which it would
endeavour to establish. It is experience only, which gives authority to
human testimony; and it is the same experience, which assures us of the
laws of nature. When, therefore, these two kinds of experience are
contrary, we have nothing to do but substract the one from the other,
and embrace an opinion, either on one side or the other, with that
assurance which arises from the remainder. But according to the
principle here explained, this substraction, with regard to all popular
religions, amounts to an entire annihilation; and therefore we may
establish it as a maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as
to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system
of religion.
99. I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say, that a
miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of
religion. For I own, that otherwise, there may possibly be miracles, or
violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of
proof from human testimony; though, perhaps, it will be impossible to
find any such in all the records of history. Thus, suppose, all authors,
in all languages, agree, that, from the first of January 1600, there was
a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days: suppose that the
tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among
the people: that all travellers, who return from foreign countries,
bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or
contradiction: it is evident, that our present philosophers, instead of
doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search
for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, corruption, and
dissolution of nature, is an event rendered probable by so many
analogies, that any phenomenon, which seems to have a tendency towards
that catastrophe, comes within the reach of human testimony, if that
testimony be very extensive and uniform.
But suppose, that all the historians who treat of England, should agree,
that, on the first of January 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; that both
before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole
court, as is usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was
acknowledged and proclaimed by the parliament; and that, after being
interred a month, she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed
England for three years: I must confess that I should be surprised at
the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the
least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. I should not doubt
of her pretended death, and of those other public circumstances that
followed it: I should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it
neither was, nor possibly could be real. You would in vain object to me
the difficulty, and almost impossibility of deceiving the world in an
affair of such consequence; the wisdom and solid judgement of that
renowned queen; with the little or no advantage which she could reap
from so poor an artifice: All this might astonish me; but I would still
reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that
I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from
their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws
of nature.
But should this miracle be ascribed to any new system of religion; men,
in all ages, have been so much imposed on by ridiculous stories of that
kind, that this very circumstance would be a full proof of a cheat, and
sufficient, with all men of sense, not only to make them reject the
fact, but even reject it without farther examination. 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
make us form a general resolution, never to lend any attention to it,
with whatever specious pretence it may be covered.
Lord Bacon seems to have embraced the same principles of reasoning. ‘We
ought,’ says he, ‘to make a collection or particular history of all
monsters and prodigious births or productions, and in a word of every
thing new, rare, and extraordinary in nature. But this must be done with
the most severe scrutiny, lest we depart from truth. Above all, every
relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree
upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, every thing
that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchimy, or such
authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for
falsehood and fable[26].’
[26] Nov. Org. lib. ii. aph. 29.
100. I am the better pleased with the method of reasoning here
delivered, as I think it may serve to confound those dangerous friends
or disguised enemies to the Christian Religion, who have undertaken to
defend it by the principles of human reason. Our most holy religion is
founded on Faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing
it to put it to such a trial as it is, by no means, fitted to endure. To
make this more evident, let us examine those miracles, related in
scripture; and not to lose ourselves in too wide a field, let us confine
ourselves to such as we find in the Pentateuch, which we shall
examine, according to the principles of these pretended Christians, not
as the word or testimony of God himself, but as the production of a mere
human writer and historian. Here then we are first to consider a book,
presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age
when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after
the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and
resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its
origin. Upon reading this book, we find it full of prodigies and
miracles. It gives an account of a state of the world and of human
nature entirely different from the present: Of our fall from that state:
Of the age of man, extended to near a thousand years: Of the destruction
of the world by a deluge: Of the arbitrary choice of one people, as the
favourites of heaven; and that people the countrymen of the author: Of
their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing
imaginable: I desire any one to lay his hand upon his heart, and after a
serious consideration declare, whether he thinks that the falsehood of
such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary
and miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however,
necessary to make it be received, according to the measures of
probability above established.
101. What we have said of miracles may be applied, without any
variation, to prophecies; and indeed, all prophecies are real miracles,
and as such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. If it did
not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it
would be absurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine
mission or authority from heaven. So that, upon the whole, we may
conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended
with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable
person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its
veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious
of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the
principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to
believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.
SECTION XI.
OF A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE AND OF A FUTURE STATE.
102. I was lately engaged in conversation with a friend who loves
sceptical paradoxes; where, though he advanced many principles, of which
I can by no means approve, yet as they seem to be curious, and to bear
some relation to the chain of reasoning carried on throughout this
enquiry, I shall here copy them from my memory as accurately as I can,
in order to submit them to the judgement of the reader.
Our conversation began with my admiring the singular good fortune of
philosophy, which, as it requires entire liberty above all other
privileges, and chiefly flourishes from the free opposition of
sentiments and argumentation, received its first birth in an age and
country of freedom and toleration, and was never cramped, even in its
most extravagant principles, by any creeds, concessions, or penal
statutes. For, except the banishment of Protagoras, and the death of
Socrates, which last event proceeded partly from other motives, there
are scarcely any instances to be met with, in ancient history, of this
bigotted jealousy, with which the present age is so much infested.
Epicurus lived at Athens to an advanced age, in peace and tranquillity:
Epicureans[27] were even admitted to receive the sacerdotal character,
and to officiate at the altar, in the most sacred rites of the
established religion: And the public encouragement[28] of pensions and
salaries was afforded equally, by the wisest of all the Roman
emperors[29], to the professors of every sect of philosophy. How
requisite such kind of treatment was to philosophy, in her early youth,
will easily be conceived, if we reflect, that, even at present, when she
may be supposed more hardy and robust, she bears with much difficulty
the inclemency of the seasons, and those harsh winds of calumny and
persecution, which blow upon her.
[27] Luciani [Greek: symp. ae Lapithai].
[28] Luciani [Greek: eunouchos].
[29] Luciani and Dio.
You admire, says my friend, as the singular good fortune of philosophy,
what seems to result from the
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