ON THE ARGUMENT OF HUME AS AFFECTED BY MATTERS OF FACT.
It is a very important axiom of the schoolmen in this case--that,
_a posse ad esse non valet consequentia_, you can draw no
inference from the possibility of a thing to its reality, but that,
in the reverse order, _ab esse ad posse_, the inference is
inevitable: if it is, or if it ever has been--then of necessity
it can be. Hume himself would have admitted, that the proof of
any one miracle, beyond all possibility of doubt, at once lowered
the--_x_ of his argument (_i.e._ the value of the resistance
to our faith) so as to affect the whole force of that argument, as
applying to all other miracles whatever having a rational and an
adequate purpose. Now it happens that we have two cases of miracles
which can be urged in this view: one _a posteriori_, derived
from our historical experience, and the other _a priori_. We
will take them separately.
1. The _a priori_ miracle we call such--not (as the unphilosophic
may suppose) because it occurred previously to our own period,
or from any consideration of time whatever, but in the logical
meaning, as having been derived from our reason in opposition to
our experience. This order of miracle it is manifest that Hume
overlooked altogether, because he says expressly that we have
nothing to appeal to in this dispute except our human experience.
But it happens that we have; and precisely where the possibilities
of experience desert us. We know nothing through experience
(whether physical or historical) of what preceded or accompanied
the first introduction of man upon this earth. But in the absence
of all experience, our reason informs us--that he must have been
introduced by a supernatural agency. Thus far we are sure. For
the sole alternative is one which would be equally mysterious, and
besides, contradictory to the marks of change--of transition--and
of perishableness in our planet itself,--viz. the hypothesis of
an eternal unoriginated race: and that is more confounding to the
human intellect than any miracle whatever: so that, even tried
merely as one probability against another, the miracle would have
the advantage. The miracle supposes a supersensual and transcendent
cause. The opposite hypothesis supposes effects without any cause.
In short, upon any hypothesis, we are driven to suppose--and
compelled to suppose--a miraculous state as introductory to the
earliest state of nature. The planet, indeed, might form itself
by mechanical laws of motion, repulsion, attraction, and central
forces. But man could not. Life could not. Organization, even
animal organization, might perhaps be explained out of mechanical
causes. But life could not. Life is itself a great miracle. Suppose the
nostrils formed by mechanic agency; still the breath of life could
not enter them without a supernatural force. And _a fortiori_,
man, with his intellectual and moral capacities, could not arise
upon this planet without a higher agency than any lodged in that
nature which is the object of our present experience. This kind of
miracle, as deduced by our reason, and not witnessed experimentally,
or drawn from any past records, we call an _a priori miracle.
2. But there is another kind of miracle, which Hume ought not to
have overlooked, but which he has, however, overlooked: he himself
observes, very justly, that PROPHECY is a distinct species of the
miraculous; and, no doubt, he neglected the Scriptural Prophecies,
as supposing them all of doubtful interpretation, or believing with
Porphyry, that such as are not doubtful, must have been posterior
to the event which they point to. It happens, however, that there
are some prophecies which cannot be evaded or 'refused,' some to
which neither objection will apply. One, we will here cite, by
way of example:--The prophecy of Isaiah, describing the desolation
of Babylon, was delivered about seven centuries before Christ. A
century or so _after_ Christ, comes Porphyry, and insinuates,
that all the prophecies alike might be comparatively recent forgeries!
Well, for a moment suppose it: but, at least, they existed in the
days of Porphyry. Now, it happens, that more than two centuries
after Porphyry, we have good evidence, as to Babylon, that it had
not yet reached the stage of utter desolation predicted by Isaiah.
Four centuries after Christ, we learn from a Father of the Christian
Church, who had good personal information as to its condition, that
it was then become a solitude, but a solitude in good preservation
as a royal park. The vast city had disppeared, and the murmur
of myriads: but as yet there were no signs whatever of ruin or
desolation. Not until our own nineteenth century was the picture
of Isaiah seen in full realization--then lay the lion basking at
noonday--then crawled the serpents from their holes; and at night
the whole region echoed with the wild cries peculiar to arid
wildernesses. The transformations, therefore, of Babylon, have been
going on slowly through a vast number of centuries until the perfect
accomplishment of Isaiah's picture. Perhaps they have travelled
through a course of much more than two thousand years: and from
the glimpses we gain of Babylon at intervals, we know for certain
that Isaiah had been dead for many centuries before his vision
could have even _begun_ to realize itself. But then, says an
objector, the final ruins of great empires and cities may be safely
assumed on general grounds of observation. Hardly, however, if they
happen to be seated in a region so fertile as Mesopotamia, and on
a great river like the Euphrates. But allow this possibility--allow
the natural disappearance of Babylon in a long course of centuries.
In other cases the disappearance is gradual, and at length perfect.
No traces can now be found of Carthage; none of Memphis; or, if you
suppose something peculiar to Mesopotamia, no traces can be found
of Nineveh, or on the other side of that region: none of other great
cities--Roman, Parthian, Persian, Median, in that same region or
adjacent regions. Babylon only is circumstantially described by
Jewish prophecy as long surviving itself in a state of visible and
audible desolation: and to Babylon only such a description applies.
Other prophecies might be cited with the same result. But this is
enough. And here is an _a posteriori_ miracle.
Now, observe: these two orders of miracle, by their very nature,
absolutely evade the argument of Hume. The incommunicability
disappears altogether. The value of--_x_ absolutely vanishes
and becomes = 0. The human reason being immutable, suggests to
every age, renews and regenerates for ever, the necessary inference
of a miraculous state antecedent to the natural state. And, for
the miracles of prophecy, these require no evidence and depend upon
none: they carry their own evidence along with them; they utter
their own testimonies, and they are continually reinforcing them;
for, probably, every successive period of time reproduces fresh
cases of prophecy completed. But even one, like that of Babylon,
realizes the case of Beta (Sect. II.) in its most perfect form.
History, which attests it, is the voice of every generation, checked
and countersigned in effect by all the men who compose it.