this could be accomplished by increasing the refractory power 
of the atmosphere, or by producing a kind of mirage, such as 
is frequently occasioned by natural causes, and by means of 
which objects below the horizon are occasionally seen as if at 
a considerable altitude above it. 
20. A few words must be said in reference to Hume’s argu- 
ment against miracles, and Paley’s reply to it, although the 
members of this Society must be familiar with both. Hume’s 
argument is this : It is contrary to experience that a miracle 
should be true, but not contrary to experience that testimony 
should be false ; whence he infers that no human testimony 
can in any case render a miracle credible. Upon this Paley 
observes that there is an ambiguity in the expression, con- 
trary to experience,” which is calculated to mislead. “ Strictly 
speaking,” he says, the narrative of a fact is then only con- 
trary to experience when the fact is I’elated to have existed at 
a time and place, at which time and place we, being present, 
did not perceive it to exist. . . . Here the assertion is con- 
trary to experience properly so-called ; and this is a contrariety 
which no evidence can surmount. It matters nothing whether 
the fact be of a miraculous nature or not.” He means, of 
course, that this makes no difference in the case just sujiposerl, 
because any fact, whether miraculous or of an ordinary kind, 
would, in that case, be absolutely incredible. He then con- 
tinues : And short of this (i.e., of such a contrariety to 
experience as he has just described), I know no intelligible 
signification which can be affixed to the term ^ contrary to 
experience,’ but one, namely, that of not having ourselves 
experienced anything similar to the thing related, or such 
things nob being generally experienced by others. I say ^not 
generally,’ for to state concerning the fact in question that no 
such thing was ever experienced, or that universal experience 
is against it, is to assume the subject of the controversy.” 
The remainder of Paley’s remarks may be thus condensed : 
If the objection to the credibility of a miracle be founded on 
its non-conformity (for contrariety ” is not the proper term) 
to generaJ, as distinguished from universal, experience, there 
can be no reason, granting the existence of a God, to reject it. 
For ‘^^the force of experience, as an objection to miracles, is 
founded on the presumption, either that the course of nature 
is invariable, or that if it be ever varied, variations will be 
frequent and general.” Whoever believes that there is a God 
will admit that the course of nature is the agency of an intelli- 
gent Being. Let it, then, be so called, and it might be 
expected that such a Being, on occasions of peculiar import- 
ance, should interrupt the order which He had appointed, and 
