GROUNDS OF DISBELIEF. 



469 



repeated so often, and by so many 

 persons, as to exclude all supposition 

 of error in the observer, a law of 

 nature is established ; and so long as 

 this law is received as such, the as- 

 sertion that on any particular occa- 

 sion A took place, and yet B did not 

 follow, without any counteracting cause, 

 must be disbelieved. Such an asser- 

 tion is not to be credited on any less 

 evidence than what would suffice to 

 overturn the law. The general truths, 

 that whatever has a beginning has a 

 cause, and that when none but the 

 same causes exist, the same effects 

 frtllow, rest on the strongest inductive 

 evidence possible ; the proposition 

 that things affirmed by even a crowd 

 of respectable witnesses are true, is 

 but an approximate generalisation ; 

 and — even if we fancy we actually 

 saw or felt the fact which is in con- 

 tradiction to the law — what a human 

 being can see is no more than a set 

 of appearances ; from which the real 

 nature of the phenomenon is merely 

 an inference, and in this inference ap- 

 proximate generalisations usually have 

 a large share. If, therefore, we make 

 our election to hold by the law, no 

 quantity of evidence whatever ought 

 to persuade us that there has occurred 

 anything in contradiction to it. If, 

 indeed, the evidence produced is such 

 that it is more likely that the set of 

 observations and experiments on which 

 the law rests should have been inac- 

 curately performed or incorrectly in- 

 terpreted, than that the evidence in 

 question should be false, we may be- 

 lieve the evidence ; but then we must 

 abandon the law. And since the law 

 was received on what seemed a com- 

 plete induction, it can only be rejec- 

 ted on evidence equivalent ; namely, 

 as being inconsistent not with any 

 number of approximate generalisa- 

 tions, but with some other and better 

 established law of nature. This ex- 

 treme 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 induction 



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 estab- 

 lished ; and if there be so, that sup- 

 posed 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 

 disbelieve 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 uncommon occurrence ; 

 but that this happened in the absence 

 of any adequate counteracting cause. 

 Now in the case of an alleged miracle, 

 the assertion is the exact opposite of 

 this. It is, that the effect was de- 

 feated, 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 whose will being assumed 

 to have endowed all the causes with 

 the powers by which they produce 

 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 effect, sup- 

 posed to be produced by the introduc- 

 tion of a new cause. Of the adequacy 

 of that cause, if present, there can be 

 no doubt ; and the only antecedent 

 improbability which can be ascribed 

 to the miracle is the improbability 

 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 

 imperfect state of our knowledge of 

 natural agencies, which leaves it al- 

 ways possible that some of the physi- 



'* See the two remarkable notes (A) and 

 (F). appended to his Inquiry into the Rela- 

 tion of Cause and Effect. 



