antient and many modern philofophers, remains ftill to be 

 difcovered. 



Page 347. In the fecond part of this effay our author tells 

 us, " he had been much too liberal in fuppofing that the -tefti- 

 " mony upon which a miracle is founded may poflibly amount 

 " to an entire proof, fo that the falfehood of fuch teflimony 

 " would be a kind of prodigy T What fignification he attached 

 to the word prodigy I cannot determine. In its ufual acceptation 

 it denotes fomething produced by nature, but out of its 

 common courfe ; not a manifefl: violation of its known laws, but 

 the refult of unknown laws adling in unknown circumflances : 

 fuch^ the effedls of gunpowder, eledlricity and magnetifm mufl, 

 when firft difcovered, have appeared, or even the elevation of 

 water in a common pump ; and fuch the produdlion of an 

 animal with two heads muft ftill appear. But the moral laws, 

 or motives which can influence men in their fenfes, are per- 

 fedtly known ; and hence a line of condudt incompatible with 

 thefe in known circumflances muft be deemed abfolutely im- 

 poflible. 



Ibid. The circumftances our author thinks requifite, to give 

 us a full aflurance in the teftimony of men, at leaft in cafe of 

 miracles, are fome of them new and extraordinary, being fuch 

 as no jurift ever required. " A .miracle (he tells us) fliould, to 

 " give us this afl\irance, be attcfted by a fufficient number of 

 " men of fuch unqueftioned good fenfe, education, and learning, 



B b 2 "as 



