The argument of those who assert the possibility and reality of miracles
generally takes the shape of an attack, more or less direct, upon our
knowledge of the order of nature. To establish an exception they
contest the rule. Dr. Mozley, however, is not content with the ordinary
objections advanced by apologists but, boldly entering into the mazes
of a delicate philosophical problem, he adopts sceptical arguments and
seeks to turn the flank of the enemy upon his own ground. He conducts
his attack with unusual force and ability. "Whatever difficulty there
is in believing in miracles in general," he says, "arises from the
circumstance that they are in contradiction to or unlike the order of
nature. To estimate the force of this difficulty, then, we must first
understand what kind of belief it is which we have in the order of
nature; for the weight of the objection to the miraculous must depend
on the nature of the belief to which the miraculous is opposed."(1)
Dr. Mozley defines the meaning of the phrase, "order of nature" as
the _connection_ of that part of the order of nature of which we are
ignorant with that part of it which we know, the former being expected
to be such and such, _because_ the latter is. But how do we justify this
expectation of
{56}
_likeness?_ We cannot do so, and all our arguments are mere statements
of the belief itself, he affirms, and not reasons to account for it.
It may be said, e.g., that when a fact of nature has gone on repeating
itself a certain time, such repetition shows that there is a permanent
cause at work, and that a permanent cause produces permanently recurring
effects. But what is there to show the existence of a permanent cause?
Nothing. The effects which have taken place show a cause at work to the
extent of these effects, but not further. That this cause is of a more
permanent nature we have no evidence. Why then do we expect the further
continuance of these effects.(2) We can only say: because we believe
the future will be like the past. After a physical phenomenon has even
occurred every day for years we have nothing but the past repetition to
justify our certain expectation of its future repetition.(3) Do we think
it giving a reason for our confidence in the future to say that,
though no man has had experience of what is future, every man has had
experience of what was future? It is true that what is future becomes at
every step of our advance what was future, but that which is now
still future is not the least altered by that circumstance; it is
as invisible, as unknown, and as unexplored as if it were the very
beginning and the very starting-point of nature. At this starting-point
of nature what would a man know of its future course? Nothing. At this
moment he knows no more.(4) What ground of reason, then, can we assign
for our expectation that any part of the course of nature will the next
moment be like what it has been up to this moment, i.e., for our belief
{57}
in the uniformity of nature? None. It is without a reason. It rests upon
no rational ground, and can be traced to no rational principle.(1) The
belief in the order of nature being thus an "unintelligent impulse" of
which we cannot give any rational account, Dr. Mozley concludes, the
ground is gone upon which it could be maintained that miracles, as
opposed to the order of nature, were opposed to reason. A miracle in
being opposed to our experience is not only not opposed to necessary
reasoning, but to any reasoning.(2) We need not further follow the
Bampton Lecturer, as with clearness and ability he applies this
reasoning to the argument of "Experience," until he pauses triumphantly
to exclaim: "Thus step by step has philosophy loosened the connection
of the order of nature with the ground of reason, befriending, in exact
proportion as it has done this, the principle of miracles."(3)
We need not here enter upon any abstract argument regarding the
permanence or otherwise of cause: it will be sufficient to deal with
these objections in a simpler and more direct way. Dr. Mozley, of
course, acknowledges that the principle of the argument from experience
is that "which makes human life practicable; which utilizes all our
knowledge; which makes the past anything more than an irrelevant picture
to us; for of what use is the experience of the past to us unless we
believe the future will be like it?'(4) Our knowledge in all things is
relative, and there are sharp and narrow limits to human thought. It is
therefore evident that, in the absence of absolute knowledge, our belief
must be accorded to that of which we have
{58}
more full cognizance rather than to that which is contradicted by all
that we do know. It may be "irrational" to feel entire confidence that
the sun will "rise" tomorrow, or that the moon will continue to wax and
wane as in the past, but we shall without doubt retain this belief, and
reject any assertion, however positive, that the earth will stand still
to-morrow, or that it did so some thousands of years ago. Evidence must
take its relative place in the finite scale of knowledge and thought,
and if we do not absolutely know anything whatever, so long as one thing
is more fully established than another, we must hold to that which rests
upon the more certain basis. Our belief in the invariability of the
order of nature, therefore, being based upon more certain grounds than
any other human opinion, we must of necessity refuse credence to
a statement supported by infinitely less complete testimony, and
contradicted by universal experience, that phenomena subversive of that
order occurred many years ago, or we must cease to believe anything at
all. If belief based upon unvarying experience be irrational, how much
more irrational must belief be which is opposed to that experience.
According to Dr. Mozley, it is quite irrational to believe that a stone
dropped from the hand, for instance, will fall to the ground. It is true
that all the stones we ourselves have ever dropped, or seen dropped,
have so fallen, and equally true that all stones so dropped as far back
as historic records, and those still more authentic and ancient records
of earth's crust itself go, have done the same, but that does not
justify our belief, upon any grounds of reason, that the next stone we
drop will do so. If we be told, however, that upon one occasion a stone
so dropped, instead of falling to the ground, rose
{59}
up into the air and continued there, we have only two courses open to
us: either to disbelieve the fact, and attribute the statement to error
of observation, or to reduce the past to a mere irrelevant picture,
and the mind to a blank page equally devoid of all belief and of all
intelligent reasoning.
Dr. Mozley's argument, however, is fatal to his own cause. It is
admitted that miracles, "or visible suspensions of the order
of nature,"(1) cannot have any evidential force unless they be
supernatural, and out of the natural sequence of ordinary phenomena.
Now, unless there be an actual order of nature, how can there be any
exception to it? If our belief in it be not based upon any ground of
reason,--as Dr. Mozley maintains, in order to assert that miracles or
visible suspensions of that order are not contrary to reason,--how can
it be asserted that miracles are supernatural? If we have no rational
ground for believing that the future will be like the past, what
rational ground can we have for thinking that anything which happens is
exceptional, and out of the common course of nature? Because it has not
happened before? That is no reason whatever; because the fact that a
thing has happened ten millions of times is no rational justification of
our expectation that it will happen again. If the reverse of that which
had happened previously took place on the ten million and first time we
should have no rational ground for surprise, and no reason for affirming
that it did not occur in the most natural manner. Because we cannot
explain its cause? We cannot explain the cause of anything. Our belief
that there is any permanent cause is a mere unintelligent impulse. We
can only say that there is a cause
{60}
sufficient to produce an isolated effect, but we do not know the nature
of that cause, and it is a mere irrational instinct to suppose that any
cause produces continuous effects, or is more than momentary. A miracle,
consequently, becomes a mere isolated effect from an unknown cause, in
the midst of other merely isolated phenomena from unknown causes, and it
is as irrational to wonder
at the occurrence of what is new, as to expect the recurrence of what
is old. In fact, an order of nature is at once necessary, and fatal, to
miracles. If there be no order of nature, miracles cannot be considered
supernatural occurrences, and have no evidential value; if there be an
order of nature, the evidence for its immutability must consequently
exceed the evidence for these isolated deviations from it. If we are
unable rationally to form expectations of the future from unvarying
experience in the past, it is still more irrational to call that
supernatural which is merely different from our past experience. Take,
for instance, the case of supposed exemption from the action of the law
of gravitation, which Archbishop Trench calls "a lost prerogative of our
race:"(1) we cannot rationally affirm that next week we may not be able
to walk on the sea, or ascend bodily into the air. To deny this because
we have not hitherto been able to do so is unreasonable; for, as Dr.
Mozley maintains, it is a mere irrational impulse which expects that
which has hitherto happened, when we have made such attempts, to happen
again next week. If we cannot rationally deny the possibility, however,
that we may be able at some future time to walk on the sea or ascend
into the air, the statement that these phenomena have already occurred
loses all its force, and such occurrences
{61}
cease to be in any way supernatural. If, on the other hand, it would
be irrational to affirm that we may next week become exempt from the
operation of the law of gravitation, it can only be so by the
admission that unvarying experience forbids the entertainment of such a
hypothesis, and in that case it equally forbids belief in the statement
that such acts ever actually took place. If we deny the future
possibility on any ground of reason, we admit that we have grounds
of reason for expecting the future to be like the past, and therefore
contradict Dr. Mozley's conclusion; and if we cannot deny it upon any
ground of reason, we extinguish the claim of such occurrences in the
past to any supernatural character. Any argument which could destroy
faith in the order of nature would be equally destructive to miracles.
If we have no right to believe in a rule, there can be no right to
speak of exceptions. The result in any case is this, that whether
the principle of the order of nature be established or refuted, the
supernatural pretensions of miracles are disallowed.
More than this, however, must inevitably be deduced from Dr. Mozley's
reasoning. In denying, as he does, the doctrine of a permanent cause,
Dr. Mozley must equally renounce, as without foundation in reason,
the assumption of a permanent agent working miracles. Not only do the
supposed miracles, in the complete isolation of all effects, cease to
be supernatural or even exceptional, but as it cannot be affirmed that
there is any cause of a nature more permanent than its existing or known
effects, it is obvious that miracles cannot be traced to an eternal
Being of permanent omnipotence. If Dr. Mozley, therefore, be understood
to adopt this reasoning as his own, he has involved himself, in the
{62}
necessary abandonment both of miracles as supernatural occurrences, and
of a permanent and unlimited cause of miracles. If, on the other hand,
he has merely snatched the sword of an adversary to turn it against him,
he has unfortunately impaled himself upon the borrowed weapon.
2.
Throughout the whole of his argument against the rationality of
belief in the order of nature, the rigorous precision which Dr. Mozley
unrelentingly demands from his antagonists is remarkable. They are not
permitted to deviate by a hair's breadth from the line of strict logic,
and the most absolute exactness of demonstration is required. Anything
like an assumption or argument from analogy is excluded; induction is
allowed to add no reason to bare and isolated facts; and the belief that
the sun will rise to-morrow morning is, with pitiless severity, written
down as mere unintelligent impulse. Belief in the return of day, based
upon the unvarying experience of all past time, is declared to be
without any ground of reason. We find anything but fault with strictness
of argument; but it is fair that equal precision should be observed by
those who assert miracles, and that assumption and inaccuracy should be
excluded. Hitherto, as we have frequently pointed out, we have met
with very little or nothing but assumption in support of miracles; but,
encouraged by the inflexible spirit of Dr. Mozley's attack upon the
argument from experience, we may look for similar precision from
himself.
{63}
Proceeding, however, from his argument against the rationality of belief
in the order of nature to his more direct argument for miracles, we are
astonished to find a total abandonment of the rigorous exactness imposed
upon his antagonists, and a complete relapse into assumptions. Dr.
Mozley does not conceal the fact. "The peculiarity of the argument
of miracles," he frankly admits, "is, that it begins and ends with an
assumption; I mean relatively to that argument."(1) Such an argument
is no argument at all; it is a mere _petitio principii_, incapable of
proving anything. The nature of the assumptions obviously does not
in the slightest degree affect this conclusion. It is true that the
statement of the particular assumptions may constitute an appeal to
belief otherwise derived, and evolve feelings which may render the calm
exercise of judgment more difficult, but the fact remains absolute,
that an argument which "begins and ends with an assumption" is totally
impotent. It remains an assumption, and is not an argument at all.
{64}
Notwithstanding this unfortunate and disqualifying "peculiarity" we may
examine the argument. It is as follows: "We assume the existence of a
Personal Deity prior to the proof of miracles in the religious sense;
but with this assumption the question of miracles is at an end; because
such a Being has necessarily the power to suspend those laws of nature
which He has Himself enacted."(1) The "question of miracles," which Dr.
Mozley here asserts to be at an end on the assumption of a "Personal
Deity," is of course merely that of the _possibility_ of miracles; but
it is obvious that, even with the precise definition of Deity which
is assumed, instead of the real "question" being at an end, it only
commences. The power to suspend the laws of nature being assumed, the
will to suspend them has to be demonstrated, and the actual occurrence
of any such suspension, which, it has already been shown, is contrary
to reason. The subject is, moreover, complicated by the occurrence of
Satanic as well as Divine suspensions of the order of nature, and by the
necessity of assuming a Personal Devil as well as a Personal Deity,
and his power to usurp that control over the laws of nature, which is
assumed as the prerogative of the Deity, and to suspend them in direct
opposition to God. The express ascription of miracles to the special
intervention of a Personal God is also, as we have seen, excluded by the
Scriptural admission that there are other supernatural beings capable of
performing them. Even Dr. Newman has recognized this, and, in a passage
already quoted, he says: "For the cogency of the argument from Miracles
depends on the assumption, that interruptions in the course of nature
must ultimately proceed from God; which is not true, if they may be
{65}
effected by other beings without His sanction."(1) The first assumption,
in fact, leads to nothing but assumptions connected with the unseen,
unknown and supernatural, which are beyond the limits of reason.
Dr. Mozley is well aware that his assumption of a "Personal" Deity is
not susceptible of proof;(2) indeed, this is admitted in the statement
that the definition is an "assumption." He quotes the obvious reply
which may be made regarding this assumption:--"Everybody must collect
from the harmony of the physical universe the existence of a God, but
in acknowledging a God, we do not thereby acknowledge this peculiar
doctrinal conception of a God. We see in the structure of nature
a mind--a universal mind--but still a mind which only operates and
expresses itself by law. Nature only does and only can inform us of mind
_in_ nature, the partner and correlative of organized matter. Nature,
therefore, can speak to the existence of a God in this sense, and can
speak to the omnipotence of God in a sense coinciding with the actual
facts of nature; but in no other sense does nature witness to the
existence of an Omnipotent Supreme Being. Of a universal Mind out
of nature, nature says nothing, and of an Omnipotence which does not
possess an inherent limit in nature, she says nothing either. And,
therefore, that conception of a Supreme Being which represents him as a
Spirit
{66}
independent of the physical universe, and able from a standing-place
external to nature to interrupt its order, is a conception of God for
which we must go elsewhere. That conception is obtained from revelation
which is asserted to be proved by miracles. But that being the case,
this doctrine of Theism rests itself upon miracles, and, therefore,
miracles cannot rest upon this doctrine of Theism."(1) With his usual
fairness, Dr. Mozley, while questioning the correctness of the premiss
of this argument, admits that, if established, the consequence stated
would follow, "and more, for miracles being thrown back upon the same
ground on which Theism is, the whole evidence of revelation becomes a
vicious circle, and the fabric is left suspended in space, revelation
resting on miracles and miracles resting on revelation."(2) He not only
recognizes, however, that the conception of a Person al" Deity cannot
be proved, but he distinctly confesses that it was obtained from
revelation,(3) and from nowhere else, and these necessary admissions
obviously establish the correctness of the premiss, and involve the
consequence pointed out, that the evidence of revelation is a mere
vicious circle. Dr. Mozley attempts to argue that, although the idea was
first obtained through this channel, "the truth once possessed is seen
to rest upon grounds of natural reason."(4) Why, then, does he call
it an assumption? The argument by which he seeks to show that the
conception is seen to rest upon grounds of natural reason is: "We
naturally attribute to the design of a Personal Being a contrivance
which is directed to the existence of a Personal Being.... From
personality
{67}
at one end I infer personality at the other." Dr. Mozley's own sense of
the weakness of his argument, however, and his natural honesty of
mind oblige him continually to confess the absence of evidence. A few
paragraphs further on he admits:--"Not, however, that the existence of
a God is so clearly seen by reason as to dispense with faith;"(1) but he
endeavours to convince us that faith is reason, only reason acting under
peculiar circumstances: when reason draws conclusions which are not
backed by experience, reason is then called faith.(2) The issue of the
argument, he contends, is so amazing, that if we do not tremble for its
safety it must be on account of a practical principle, which makes us
confide and trust in reasons, and that principle is faith. We are not
aware that conviction can be arrived at regarding any matter otherwise
than by confidence in the correctness of the reasons, and what Dr.
Mozley really means by faith, here, is confidence and trust in a
conclusion for which there are no reasons.
It is almost incredible that the same person who had just been denying
grounds of reason to conclusions from unvarying experience, and
excluding from them the results of inductive reasoning--who had
denounced as unintelligent impulse and irrational instinct the faith
that the sun, which has risen without fail every morning since time
began, will rise again to-morrow, could thus argue. In fact, from
the very commencement of the direct plea for miracles, calm logical
reasoning is abandoned, and the argument becomes entirely _ad hominem_.
Mere feeling is substituted for thought, and in the inability to be
precise and logical, the lecturer appeals
{68}
to the generally prevailing inaccuracy of thought.(1) "Faith, then," he
concludes, "is _unverified_ reason; reason which has not yet received
the verification of the final test, but is still expectant." In science
this, at the best, would be called mere "hypothesis," but accuracy can
scarcely be expected where the argument continues: "Indeed, does not
our heart bear witness to the fact that to believe in a God"--i. e., a
Personal God --"is an exercise of faith?" &c.(2)
It does not help Dr. Mozley that Butler, Paley, and all other divines
have equally been obliged to commence with the same assumption; and,
indeed, as we have already remarked, Dr. Mozley honestly admits the
difficulty of the case, and while naturally making the most of his
own views, he does not disguise the insecurity of the position. He
deprecates that school which maintains that any average man, taken out
of a crowd, who has sufficient common sense to manage his own affairs,
is a fit judge, and such a judge as was originally contemplated, of the
Christian evidences;(3) and he says: "It is not, indeed, consistent
with truth, nor would it conduce to the real defence of Christianity,
to underrate the difficulties of the Christian evidence; or to disguise
this characteristic of it, that the very facts which constitute
the evidence of revelation have to be accepted by an act of faith
themselves, before they can operate as a proof of that further
truth."(4) Such evidence is manifestly worthless. After all his
assumptions, Dr. Mozley is reduced to the necessity of pleading: "A
probable fact is a probable evidence. I may, therefore, use a miracle as
evidence of a revelation, though
{69}
I have only probable evidence for the miracle."(1) The probability of
the miracle, however, is precisely what is denied, as opposed to reason
and experience, and incompatible with the order of nature. A cause is,
indeed, weak when so able an advocate is reduced to such reasoning.
The deduction which is drawn from the assumption of a "Personal" Deity
is, as we have seen, merely the possibility of miracles. "Paley's
criticism," said the late Dean of St. Paul's, "is, after all, the
true one--'once believe that there is a God, and miracles are not
incredible.'"(2) The assumption, therefore, although of vital importance
in the event of its rejection, does not very materially advance
the cause of miracles if established. We have already seen that the
assumption is avowedly incapable of proof, but it may be well to examine
it a little more closely in connection with the inferences supposed
to be derivable from it. We must, however, in doing so carefully avoid
being led into a metaphysical argument, which would be foreign to the
purpose of this inquiry.
In his Bampton Lectures on "The Limit of Religious Thought," delivered
in 1858, Dr. Mansel, the very able editor and disciple of Sir William
Hamilton, discussed this subject with great minuteness, and although
we cannot pretend here to follow him through the whole of his
singular argument--a theological application of Sir William Hamilton's
philosophy--we must sufficiently represent it. Dr. Mansel argues: We are
absolutely incapable of conceiving or proving the existence of God as he
is; and so far is human reason from being able to
{70}
construct a theology independent of revelation that it cannot even
read the alphabet out of which that theology must be formed.(1) We are
compelled, by the constitution of our minds, to believe in the existence
of an Absolute and Infinite Being; but the instant we attempt to
analyse, we are involved in inextricable confusion.(2) Our moral
consciousness demands that we should conceive him as a Personality, but
personality, as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation; to speak
of an Absolute and Infinite Person is simply to use language to which no
mode of human thought can possibly attach itself.(3) This amounts
simply to an admission that our knowledge of God does not satisfy the
conditions of speculative philosophy, and is incapable of reduction to
an ultimate and absolute truth.(4) It is, therefore, reasonable that
we should expect to find that the revealed manifestation of the Divine
nature and attributes should likewise carry the marks of subordination
to some higher truth, of which it indicates the existence, but does
not make known the substance; and that our apprehension of the revealed
Deity should involve mysteries inscrutable, and
{71}
doubts insoluble by our present faculties, while at the same time
it inculcates the true spirit in which doubt should be dealt with by
warning us that our knowledge of God, though revealed by himself, is
revealed in relation to human faculties, and subject to the limitations
and imperfections inseparable from the constitution of the human
mind.(1) We need not, of course, point out that the reality of
revelation is here assumed. Elsewhere, Dr. Mansel maintains that
philosophy, by its own incongruities, has no claim to be accepted as a
competent witness; and, on the other hand, human personality cannot be
assumed as an exact copy of the Divine, but only as that which is most
nearly analogous to it among finite things.(2) As we are, therefore,
incapable on the one hand of a clear conception of the Divine Being, and
have only analogy to guide us in conceiving his attributes, we have no
criterion of religious truth or falsehood, enabling us to judge of the
ways of God, represented by revelation,(3) and have no right to judge of
his justice, or mercy, or goodness, by the standard of human morality.
It is impossible to conceive an argument more vicious, or more obviously
warped to favour already accepted
{72}
conclusions of revelation:--As finite beings we are not only incapable
of proving the existence of God, but even of conceiving him as he is;
therefore we may conceive him as he is not. To attribute personality to
him is a limitation totally incompatible with the idea of an Absolute
and Infinite Being, in which "we are compelled by the constitution of
our minds to believe;" and to speak of him as a personality is "to use
language to which no mode of human thought can possibly attach
itself;" but, nevertheless, to satisfy supposed demands of our moral
consciousness, we are to conceive him as a personality. Although we
must define the Supreme Being as a personality to satisfy our
moral consciousness, we must not, we are told, make the same moral
consciousness the criterion of the attributes of that personality. We
must not suppose him to be endowed, for instance, with the perfection
of morality according to our ideas of it; but, on the contrary, we must
hold that his moral perfections are at best only analogous, and often
contradictory, to our standard of morality.1 As soon as we conceive a
Personal Deity to satisfy our moral consciousness, we have to abandon
the personality which satisfies that consciousness, in order to accept
the characteristics of a supposed Revelation, to reconcile certain
statements of which we must admit that we have no criterion of truth or
falsehood enabling us to judge of the ways of God.
Now, in reference to the assumption of a Personal Deity as a preliminary
to the proof of miracles, it must be clearly remembered that the
contents of the revelation which miracles are to authenticate cannot
{73}
have any weight. Antecedently, then, it is admitted that personality
is a limitation which is absolutely excluded by the ideas of the Deity,
which, it is asserted, the constitution of our minds compete us to
form. It cannot, therefore, be rationally assumed. To admit that such a
conception is false, and then to base conclusions upon it, as though
it were true, is absurd. It is child's play to satisfy our feeling and
imagination by the conscious sacrifice of our reason. Moreover, Dr.
Mansel admits that the conception of a Personal Deity is really derived
from the revelation, which has to be rendered credible by miracles;
therefore the consequence already pointed out ensues, that the
assumption cannot be used to prove miracles. "It must be allowed that it
is not through reasoning that men obtain the first intimation of their
relation to the Deity; and that, had they been left to the guidance
of their intellectual faculties alone, it is possible that no such
intimation might have taken place; or at best, that it would have been
but as one guess, out of many equally plausible and equally natural."(1)
The vicious circle of the argument is here again apparent, and the
singular reasoning by which the late Dean of St. Paul's seeks to drive
us into an acceptance of Revelation is really the strongest argument
against it. The impossibility of conceiving God as he is,(2) which is
insisted upon, instead of being a
{74}
reason for assuming his personality, or for accepting Jewish conceptions
of him, totally excludes such an assumption.
This "great religious assumption"(1) is not suggested by any antecedent
considerations, but is required to account for miracles, and is derived
from the very Revelation which miracles are to attest. "In nature and
from nature," to quote Words of Professor Baden Powell, "by science
and by reason, we neither have nor can possibly have any evidence of a
_Deity working_ miracles;--for that we must go out of nature and beyond
science. If we could have any such evidence _from nature_, it could only
prove extraordinary _natural_ effects, which would not be _miracles_ in
the old theological sense, as isolated, unrelated, and uncaused; whereas
no _physical_ fact can be conceived as unique, or without analogy and
relation to others, and to the whole system of natural causes."(2)
Being, therefore, limited to Reason for any feeble conception of a
Divine Being of which we may be capable, and Reason being totally
opposed to the idea of an order of nature so imperfect as to require or
permit repeated interference, and rejecting the supposition of arbitrary
{75}
suspensions of Law, such a conception of a Deity as is proposed
by theologians must be pronounced irrational and derogatory. It is
impossible for us to conceive a Supreme Being acting otherwise than
we actually see in nature, and if we recognize in the universe the
operation of infinite wisdom and power, it is in the immutable order and
regularity of all phenomena, and in the eternal prevalence of Law, that
we see their highest manifestation. This is no conception based merely
upon observation of law and order in the material world, as Dr. Mansel
insinuates,(1) but it is likewise the result of the highest exercise of
mind. Dr. Mansel "does not hesitate to affirm with Sir William Hamilton
"that the class of phenomena which requires that kind of cause we
denominate a Deity is exclusively given in the phenomena of mind;
that the phenomena of matter, taken by themselves, do not warrant any
inference to the existence of a God."(2) After declaring a Supreme
Being, from every point of view, inconceivable by our finite minds, it
is singular to find him thrusting upon us, in consequence, a conception
of that Being which almost makes us exclaim with Bacon: "It were better
to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy
of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely."(3) Dr. Mansel
asks: "Is matter or mind the truer image of God?"(4) But both matter
and mind unite in repudiating so unworthy a conception of a God, and in
rejecting the idea of suspensions of Law. In the words of Spinoza: "From
miracles
{76}
we can neither infer the nature, the existence, nor the providence of
God, but, on the contrary, these may be much better comprehended
from the fixed and immutable order of nature;"(1) indeed, as he adds,
miracles, as contrary to the order of nature, would rather lead us to
doubt the existence of God.(2)
Six centuries before our era, a noble thinker, Xenophanes of Colophon,
whose pure mind soared far above the base anthropomorphic mythologies
of Homer and Hesiod, and anticipated some of the highest results of the
Platonic philosophy, finely said:--
"There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals, Whose
form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature;
But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten, With
human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members;'
So if oxen or lions had hands and could work iu man's fashion, And trace
out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead, Then would horses
depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, Each kind the Divine with
its own form and nature endowing."(4)
He illustrates this profound observation by pointing out that the
Ethiopians represent their deities as black with flat noses, while the
Thracians make them blue-eyed with ruddy complexions, and, similarly,
the Medes and the Persians and Egyptians portray their gods like
{77}
themselves.(1) The Jewish idea of God was equally anthropomorphic; but
their highest conception was certainly that which the least resembled
themselves, and which described the Almighty as "without variableness or
shadow of turning," and as giving a law to the universe which shall not
be broken.(2)
3.
None of the arguments with which we have yet met have succeeded in
making miracles in the least degree antecedently credible. On the
contrary they have been based upon mere assumptions incapable of proof
and devoid of probability. On the other hand there are the strongest
reasons for affirming that such phenomena are antecedently incredible.
Dr. Mozley's attack which we discussed in the first part of this
chapter, and which of course was chiefly based upon Hume's celebrated
argument,
{78}
never seriously grappled the doctrine at all. The principle which
opposes itself to belief in miracles is very simple. Whatever is
contradictory to universal and invariable experience is antecedently
incredible, and as that sequence of phenomena which is called the order
of nature is established by and in accordance with universal experience,
miracles or alleged violations of that order, by whatever name they may
be called, or whatever definition may be given of their characteristics
or object, are antecedently incredible. The preponderance of evidence
for the invariability of the order of nature, in fact, is so enormous
that it is impossible to credit the reality of such variations from
it, and reason and experience concur in attributing the ascription of
a miraculous character to any actual occurrences which may have been
witnessed to imperfect observation, mistaken inference or some other of
the numerous sources of error. Any allegation of the interference of
a new and supernatural agent, upon such an occasion, to account for
results, in contradiction of the known sequence of cause and effect, is
excluded by the very same principle, for invariable experience being as
opposed to the assertion that such interference ever takes place as
it is to the occurrence of miraculous phenomena, the allegation is
necessarily disbelieved.
Apologists find it much more convenient to evade the simple but
effective arguments of Hume than to answer them, and where it is
possible they dismiss them with a sneer, and hasten on to less dangerous
ground. For instance, a recent Hulsean Lecturer, arguing the antecedent
credibility of the miraculous, makes the following remarks: "Now, as
regards the inadequacy of testimony to establish a miracle, modern
scepticism has not advanced
{79}
one single step beyond the blank assertion. And it is astonishing that
this assertion should still be considered cogent, when its logical
consistency has been shattered to pieces by a host of writers as well
sceptical as Christian (Mill's _Logic_, ii., 157--160). For, as the
greatest of our living logicians has remarked, the supposed recondite
and dangerous formula of Hume--that it is more probable that testimony
should be mistaken than that miracles should be true--reduces itself
to the very harmless proposition that anything is incredible which is
contrary to a complete induction. It is in fact a _flagrant petitio
principii_, used to support a wholly unphilosophical assertion."(1)
It is much more astonishing that so able a man as Dr. Farrar could so
misunderstand Hume's argument and so misinterpret and mis-state Mr.
Mill's remarks upon it. So far from shattering to pieces the logical
consistency of Hume's reasoning, Mr. Mill substantially confirms it, and
pertinently remarks that "it speaks ill for the state of philosophical
speculation on such subjects" that so simple and evident a doctrine
should have been accounted a dangerous heresy. It is, in fact, the
statement of a truth which should have been universally recognized, and
would have been so, but for its unwelcome and destructive bearing upon
popular theology.
Mr. Mill states the evident principle, that--"If an alleged fact be in
contradiction, not to any number of approximate generalizations, but to
a completed generalization grounded on a rigorous induction, it is
said to be impossible, and is to be disbelieved totally." Mr. Mill
continues.: "This last principle, simple and evident as it
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appears, is the doctrine which, on the occasion of an attempt to apply
it to the question of the credibility of miracles, excited so violent a
controversy. Hume's celebrated doctrine, that nothing is credible which
is contradictory to experience or at variance with laws of nature,
is merely this very plain and harmless proposition, that whatever
is contradictory to a complete induction is incredible."(1) He then
proceeds to meet possible objections: "But does not (it may be asked)
the very statement of the proposition imply a contradiction? An alleged
fact according to this theory is not to be believed if it contradict
a complete induction. But it is essential to the completeness of an
induction that it should not contradict any known fact. Is it not, then,
a _petitio principii_ to say, that the fact ought to be disbelieved
because the induction to it is complete? How can we have a right to
declare the induction complete, while facts, supported by credible
evidence, present themselves in opposition to it? I answer, we have that
right whenever the scientific canons of induction give it to us; that
is, whenever the induction can be complete. We have it, for example, in
a case of causation in which there has been an _experimentum cruris_."
It will be remarked that Dr. Farrar adopts Mr. Mill's phraseology in one
of the above questions to affirm the reverse of his opinion. Mr. Mill
decides that the proposition is not a _petitio principii_; Dr. Farrar
says, as in continuation of his reference to Mr. Mill, that it is a
flagrant _petitio principii_. Mr. Mill proceeds to prove his statement,
and he naturally argues that, if observations or experiments have been
repeated so often, and by so many persons, as to exclude all supposition
of
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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 assertion 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 assertion 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 assumed 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
{83}
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 circumstances 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
circumstances 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 circumstance, 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" assigned 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 asserting 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 assurance, 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 assurance 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
{86}
other; and according to the superiority which 1 discover, I pronounce 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 assertion 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 assertion 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
{87}
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 assumption 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 anticipated 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 assumption, but he
does so with equal effect also in the Essay which we are discussing.
Taking an imaginary miracle as an illustration, 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
{88}
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 assumption which is incapable of proof is simply
credulous, but such an assumption cannot affect the real evidence for
that thing.
The argument of Paley against Hume is an illustration 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
assume 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 assert 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 God" (i.e., a Personal God
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
{89}
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 circumstantially
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 assertion 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
{90}
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 assert 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 analogies 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 illustration 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 constitutes the miracle,
is an assumption 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 assertion 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 illustration to the Gospel
miracles, the failure of his analogy 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 proneness to superstition, 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 circumstantial 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 trespassed 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, passed 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 illustrate 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 hitherto proceeded upon the merest
assumption, 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
{94}
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 establishing 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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