216 EEV. H. C. M. WATSON 



saw Him approach a dead body_, — a body that had been 

 recently drawn out of the water in which it had been im- 

 mersed for some hours^ — that we saw him lay his hand upon 

 it and speak to it, and that immediately tbe person, of whose 

 death we were previously assured, sat up and began to speak, 

 gave indubitable proofs of life, — should we not instinctively 

 and at once conclude that he who had achieved this great 

 work was what he claimed to be, — a teacher sent from 

 God? 



Undoubtedly we should so conclude. So that the reply to 

 the first objection of Hume is. That testimony can depose to 

 the external phenomena involved in a miracle; and that the 

 event is miraculous is an inference which we are constrained, 

 by the very constitution of our minds, to draw ; that such 

 inference would be drawn by the objectors themselves. Testi- 

 mony can therefore, in the sense explained, reach to the super- 

 natural ; that is, a supernatural event is not beyond the reach 

 of testimony. 



3. Hume's Second Objection, — That the Falsehood of Testimony is 

 onore probable than a Miraculous Occurrence. 



Hume's second objection is, that it is more likely that testi- 

 mony will be false than that a miracle will be true. This 

 proposition contains a fallacy which has been exposed by 

 Archbishop Whately and others, and its removal renders the 

 objection not merely harmless, but absolutely valuable. If 

 the proposition means that it is more likely that all testimony 

 will be false than that a miracle will be true, then no person, 

 except one who regards a miracle as absolutely impossible, 

 will accept it. 



To put an extreme case, which illustrates the objection, 

 literally accepted. Suppose a miraculous event to be deposed 

 to by some thousands of persons, all intelhgent, honest people, 

 who were present when "the alleged event occurred, and had 

 used the opportunity of investigating the particulars of the 

 fact of which they were witnesses, according to Hume's objec- 

 tion it is more likely that these thousands of competent 

 witnesses were deceived, and their testimony, therefore, false, 

 than that the fact to which they deposed happened. If the 

 unanimous testimony of a thousand scientific men is to be 

 rejected because it testified to the existence of an event, whose 

 existence was regarded as highly improbable, then nothing 



