EARLY COMMENTARIES ON HUME'S WRITINGS "Hume on Miracles" from William Warburton a. 1749 5/1/95 Copyright 1995, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu). See end note for details on copyright and editing conventions. This is a working draft; please report errors.[1] Editor's note: William Warburton (1698-1779) was bishop of Gloucester and was known for his editions of Shakespeare and Pope, his attack on deism in the .... (1737-1741), and his involvement in numerous controversies. Warburton's primary attack on Hume is in his , 1757 (see the Hume Archives edition of that work). Mossner argues that Warburton may have been the anonymous reviewer of Hume's in the ; however, Robert M. Ryley ably refutes this view in "Did Warburton Review Hume's ?" in , 1976, Vol. 23, pp. 354-355. Warburton's first acquaintance with Hume, then, is indicated in a 1749 letter to Richard Hurd: I am strongly tempted too to have a stroke at Hume in parting. He is the author of a little book called "Philosophical Essays," in one part of which he argues against the being of a God, and in another, (very needlessly you will say,) against the possibility of miracles. He has crowned the liberty of the press. And yet he has a considerable post under the Government. I have a great mind to do justice on his arguments against miracles, which I think might be done in a few words. But does he deserve notice? Is he known amongst you? Pray answer me these questions. For if his own weight keeps him down, I should be sorry to contribute to his advancement to any place but the pillory. (William Warburton, , Boston: 1806 p. 10). Warburton did write his brief attack on Hume's discussion of miracles, although it remained unpublished for almost 100 years. The essay is reproduced here as it appears in Francis Kilvert's (London: John Bowyer Nichols and Son, 1841), pp. 311-315. * * * * A SELECTION FROM UNPUBLISHED PAPERS OF WILLIAM WARBURTON {311} A late writer, who entitles his book Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding, printed for A. Millar, 1748, has a Discourse on Miracles, in which he endeavours to show that there is no probable evidence of the truth of such facts. His reasoning is summed up in what he calls "a general worthy our attention, that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be than the fact which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains after deducting the inferior." Now, to pass at present the jargon of his , and to suppose he may mean a testimony whose falsehood implies a miracle, I answer, that in order to render the miraculous fact related the object of our belief, it is not necessary that the falsehood of the relator should imply a miracle; and for this plain reason, because that testimony whose falsehood implies a miracle makes the fact attested not , but ; for the falsehood of no testimony but the implies a miracle. Now, what the senses inform us of we call certain. If they deceive us, it must be by God's altering the established order of things, which this author agrees to be a true definition of a miracle; so that we see he mistakes the very nature of the evidence in question. But would you know why he uses his nonsense of , instead of , it is to insinuate that is no sufficient proof of a miracle; for he confesses that the degree of evidence, in the case here put, is only the of his , when the quantity in his has been ; so the if the falsehood of the testimony and the fact testified were equally miraculous, from thence, we see, no proof would arise; i.e. we ought not to own the truth of a miraculous fact when it makes its appeal to the senses. But if this man's reasoning cannot verify his own maxim, his passions will at least verify that of our Heavenly Master, who long ago pronounced that "He who will not believe Moses and the Prophets will not believe though one arose from the dead." But the unhappy man would exclude all miracles, because at all hazards he will exclude Christianity, as appears from another of his maxims, for he is not a dealer in small truths: "We may establish it as a maxim (says he), that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any system of religion," i.e. no possible proof can be given of miracles to establish any revelation or popular religion, as he just before expresses it; for he himself, forsooth, is of the religion of the philosophers. Yet, when, he has said this, with an impartiality becoming the most of his tribe, he adds the following corrective; that in miracles, where religion has nothing to do, we may safely believe a miracle: If (says he) all authors agree that from 1st Jan. 1600 there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days, it is evident our present philosophers ought to receive it for a certain fact; but, should all the historians who treat of England agree that 1st Jan. 1600 Queen Elizabeth died, (who here, you are to observe, stands for Christ,) that she afterwards rose again, took possession of the throne, and governed publicly for three years, this you are to reject as an arrant fable. His spite, we see, is not against miracles, but only against the workers of them; for why, I pray you, are we to make this distinction? Are not the two facts equally attested by the concurrent evidence of all concerned? Are they not equally miraculous? for the absence of the sun eight days together from the globe of the earth is surely as to the common course of nature as the resurrection of one from the dead. If he believes that, from the beginning, none ever rose from the dead, he believes, too, that there never was a total darkness for eight days together. Here, then, the , as he calls it, is, in both cases, the same; yet we must believe the one, and not the other. Here spoke the true sense, as well as spirit, of modern infidelity; -- we must reject miracle, for whose working, by the interposition of God, we give a reasonable account, and embrace that for which there is . But this circumstance of the of working the miracles recorded in Scripture, so worthy the exertion of the Divine power, is always, either for want of sense or honesty, omitted by this author, when he comes to balance what he calls his opposed proofs, on which all his jargon turns. And well would it be for our if this was the only one omitted; but every collateral circumstance that affords internal evidence of the truth of the Evangelic testimony, such as the state of the world that follows, and which must have been that very state consequent on miracles, had miracles been really performed; such again as the accomplishment of predictions recorded in books, as well known to be written after the facts, as that Julius Caesar's Commentaries was written before the time of Henry VIII.; -- none of these, I say, are ever brought into the balance of this fair accountant. Very suitably, therefore, is his reasoning supported on each hand, and of a piece with the modesty of his and the decency of his . Thus he begins: "I flatter myself that I have an argument, which, if just, will with the wise and learned be an to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and, consequently, will be ." Thus he ends: -- "Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of the veracity of the Christian religion; and whoever is moved by to assent to it, is conscious of a continued in his own person, which , and gives him a demonstration to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience." Who, after this, will scruple to own that is the source of our greatest blessings, and that the liberty of the press is the only means of conveying and preserving them pure and unpolluted to our posterity!!! [1][COPYRIGHT: (c) 1995, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu), all rights reserved. Unaltered copies of this computer text file may be freely distribute for personal and classroom use. Alterations to this file are permitted only for purposes of computer printouts, although altered computer text files may not circulate. Except to cover nominal distribution costs, this file cannot be sold without written permission from the copyright holder. 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