GROUNDS OF DISBELIEF. lOG 



remarked by Brown*) is no contradiction to the law of cause 

 and effect ; it is a new effect, supposed to be produced by the 

 introduction of a new cause. Of the adequacy of that cause, if 

 present, there can be no doubt ; and the only antecedent im- 

 probability which can be ascribed to the miracle, is the impro- 

 bability that any such cause existed. 



All, therefore, which Hume has made out, and this he must 

 be considered to have made out, is, that (at least in the imper- 

 fect 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 recog- 

 nises, is inconsistent with his having seen fit to interfere on the 

 occasion in question. 



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 satisfac- 

 torily 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, how- 

 ever, 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 impor- 

 tant element of the question will be the conformity of the 

 result to the laws of the supposed agent, that is, to the cha- 

 racter of the Deity as they conceive it. But, with the know- 

 ledge 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 



* See the two remarkable notes (A) and (F), appended to his Inquiry into 

 the Relation of Cause and Effect. 



