376 INDUCTION. 



must abandon the law. And since the law was received on what 

 seemed a complete induction, it can only be rejected on evidence 

 equivalent ; namely, as being inconsistent not with any numbei- of ap- 

 proximate generalizations, but with some other and better established 

 law of nature. This extreme case, of a conflict between two supposed 

 laws of nature, has probably never actually occurred where, in the 

 process of investigating both the laws, the true canons of scientific in- 

 duction had been kept in view ; but if it did occur, it must terminate 

 in the total rejection of one of the supposed laws. It would prove 

 that there must be a flaw in the logical process by which either one or 

 the other was established ; and if there be so, that supposed general 

 truth is no truth at all. We cannot admit a proposition as a law of 

 nature, and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it. We must dis- 

 believe the alleged fact, or believe that we were mistaken in admitting 

 the supposed law. 



But 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, for that would be no imcommon 

 occurrence ; but that this happened in the absence of any adequate 

 counteracting cause. Now in the case of an alleged miracle, the asser- 

 tion 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, whoso will having 

 originally endowed all the causes with the powers by which they pro- 

 duce their effects, may well be supposed able to counteract them. A 

 miracle (as was justly remarked by Brown*) is no contradiction to the 

 law of cause and effect ; it is a new effi?ct, supposed to be produced by 

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

 exist, there can be no doubt ; and the ouly antecedent improbability 

 which can be ascribed to the miracle, is the improbability that any such 

 cause had existence in the case. 



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

 sidered to have made out, is, that no evidence can be sufficient to prove 

 a miracle to any one who did not previously believe the existence of a 

 being or beings with supernatural power ; or who believed himself to 

 have full jjroof that the character of the Being whom he recognizes, is 

 inconsistent with his having seen fit to interfere on the occasion in 

 question. The truth of this (however fatal to a school of theology 

 which has recently been revived in this country, and which has the 

 weakness to rest all the evidences of religion upon tradition and tes- 

 timony) may be, and is, admitted by all defenders of revelation who 

 have made much figure as such during the present century. It is now 

 acknowledged by nearly all the ablest writers on the subject, that 

 natural religion is the necessary basis of revealed; that the proofs of 

 Christianity presuppose the being and moral attributes of God; and 

 that it is the conformity of a religion to those attributes which de- 

 termines whether credence ought to be given to its external evi- 

 dences; that (as the proposition is sometimes expressed) the doctrine 

 must prove the miracles, not the miracles the doctrine. It is hardly 

 necessary to point out the complete accordance of these views with 



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

 tion of Cause and Effect. 



