vii ORDER OF NATURE: MIRACLES 157 



defensible. For a vast number of miracles have 

 professedly been worked, neither by the Deity, 

 nor by any invisible agent; but by Beelzebub and 

 his compeers, or by very visible men. 



Moreover, not to repeat what has been said 

 respecting the absurdity of supposing that some- 

 thing which occurs is a transgression of laws, our 

 only knowledge of which is derived from the ob- 

 servation of that which occurs; upon what sort 

 of evidence can we be justified in concluding that 

 a given event is the effect of a particular volition 

 of the Deity, or of the interposition of some 

 invisible (that is unperceivable) agent? It may be 

 so, but how is the assertion, that it is so, to be 

 tested? If it be said that the event exceeds the 

 power of natural causes, what can justify such a 

 saying? The day-fly has better grounds for call- 

 ing a thunderstorm supernatural, than has man, 

 with his experience of an infinitesimal fraction of 

 duration, to say that the most astonishing event 

 that can be imagined is beyond the scope of 

 natural causes. 



" Whatever is intelligible and can be distinctly con- 

 ceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved 

 false by any demonstration, argument, or abstract reason- 

 ing a priori" (IV. p. 44.) 



So wrote Hume, with perfect justice, in his 

 " Sceptical Doubts." But a miracle, in the sense of 

 a sudden and complete change in the customary 

 order of nature, is intelligible, can be distinctly 



