An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume [online e book reader TXT] 📗

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him more powerfully than on the rest of mankind in any other

circumstances; and self-interest with equal force. His auditors may not

have, and commonly have not, sufficient judgement to canvass his

evidence: what judgement they have, they renounce by principle, in these

sublime and mysterious subjects: or if they were ever so willing to

employ it, passion and a heated imagination disturb the regularity of

its operations. Their credulity increases his impudence: and his

impudence overpowers their credulity.

 

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or

reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the

affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their

understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully

or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian

audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can

perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by

touching such gross and vulgar passions.

 

The many instances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural

events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary

evidence, or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove

sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and

the marvellous, and ought reasonably to beget a suspicion against all

relations of this kind. This is our natural way of thinking, even with

regard to the most common and most credible events. For instance: There

is no kind of report which rises so easily, and spreads so quickly,

especially in country places and provincial towns, as those concerning

marriages; insomuch that two young persons of equal condition never see

each other twice, but the whole neighbourhood immediately join them

together. The pleasure of telling a piece of news so interesting, of

propagating it, and of being the first reporters of it, spreads the

intelligence. And this is so well known, that no man of sense gives

attention to these reports, till he find them confirmed by some greater

evidence. Do not the same passions, and others still stronger, incline

the generality of mankind to believe and report, with the greatest

vehemence and assurance, all religious miracles?

 

94. Thirdly. It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural

and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among

ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given

admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received

them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors, who transmitted them with

that inviolable sanction and authority, which always attend received

opinions. When we peruse the first histories of all nations, we are apt

to imagine ourselves transported into some new world; where the whole

frame of nature is disjointed, and every element performs its operations

in a different manner, from what it does at present. Battles,

revolutions, pestilence, famine and death, are never the effect of those

natural causes, which we experience. Prodigies, omens, oracles,

judgements, quite obscure the few natural events, that are intermingled

with them. But as the former grow thinner every page, in proportion as

we advance nearer the enlightened ages, we soon learn, that there is

nothing mysterious or supernatural in the case, but that all proceeds

from the usual propensity of mankind towards the marvellous, and that,

though this inclination may at intervals receive a check from sense and

learning, it can never be thoroughly extirpated from human nature.

 

It is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say, upon the perusal of

these wonderful historians, that such prodigious _events never happen

in our days_. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in

all ages. You must surely have seen instances enough of that frailty.

You have yourself heard many such marvellous relations started, which,

being treated with scorn by all the wise and judicious, have at last

been abandoned even by the vulgar. Be assured, that those renowned lies,

which have spread and flourished to such a monstrous height, arose from

like beginnings; but being sown in a more proper soil, shot up at last

into prodigies almost equal to those which they relate.

 

It was a wise policy in that false prophet, Alexander, who though now

forgotten, was once so famous, to lay the first scene of his impostures

in Paphlagonia, where, as Lucian tells us, the people were extremely

ignorant and stupid, and ready to swallow even the grossest delusion.

People at a distance, who are weak enough to think the matter at all

worth enquiry, have no opportunity of receiving better information. The

stories come magnified to them by a hundred circumstances. Fools are

industrious in propagating the imposture; while the wise and learned are

contented, in general, to deride its absurdity, without informing

themselves of the particular facts, by which it may be distinctly

refuted. And thus the impostor above mentioned was enabled to proceed,

from his ignorant Paphlagonians, to the enlisting of votaries, even

among the Grecian philosophers, and men of the most eminent rank and

distinction in Rome: nay, could engage the attention of that sage

emperor Marcus Aurelius; so far as to make him trust the success of a

military expedition to his delusive prophecies.

 

The advantages are so great, of starting an imposture among an ignorant

people, that, even though the delusion should be too gross to impose on

the generality of them (_which, though seldom, is sometimes the case_)

it has a much better chance for succeeding in remote countries, than if

the first scene had been laid in a city renowned for arts and

knowledge. The most ignorant and barbarous of these barbarians carry

the report abroad. None of their countrymen have a large correspondence,

or sufficient credit and authority to contradict and beat down the

delusion. Men’s inclination to the marvellous has full opportunity to

display itself. And thus a story, which is universally exploded in the

place where it was first started, shall pass for certain at a thousand

miles distance. But had Alexander fixed his residence at Athens, the

philosophers of that renowned mart of learning had immediately spread,

throughout the whole Roman empire, their sense of the matter; which,

being supported by so great authority, and displayed by all the force of

reason and eloquence, had entirely opened the eyes of mankind. It is

true; Lucian, passing by chance through Paphlagonia, had an opportunity

of performing this good office. But, though much to be wished, it does

not always happen, that every Alexander meets with a Lucian, ready to

expose and detect his impostures.

 

95. I may add as a fourth reason, which diminishes the authority of

prodigies, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have not

been expressly detected, that is not opposed by an infinite number of

witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of

testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. To make this the better

understood, let us consider, that, in matters of religion, whatever is

different is contrary; and that it is impossible the religions of

ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China should, all of them, be

established on any solid foundation. Every miracle, therefore, pretended

to have been wrought in any of these religions (and all of them abound

in miracles), as its direct scope is to establish the particular system

to which it is attributed; so has it the same force, though more

indirectly, to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival

system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles, on which that

system was established; so that all the prodigies of different

religions are to be regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of

these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other.

According to this method of reasoning, when we believe any miracle of

Mahomet or his successors, we have for our warrant the testimony of a

few barbarous Arabians. And on the other hand, we are to regard the

authority of Titus Livius, Plutarch, Tacitus, and, in short, of all the

authors and witnesses, Grecian, Chinese, and Roman Catholic, who have

related any miracle in their particular religion; I say, we are to

regard their testimony in the same light as if they had mentioned that

Mahometan miracle, and had in express terms contradicted it, with the

same certainty as they have for the miracle they relate. This argument

may appear over subtile and refined; but is not in reality different

from the reasoning of a judge, who supposes, that the credit of two

witnesses, maintaining a crime against any one, is destroyed by the

testimony of two others, who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues

distant, at the same instant when the crime is said to have been

committed.

 

96. One of the best attested miracles in all profane history, is that

which Tacitus reports of Vespasian, who cured a blind man in Alexandria,

by means of his spittle, and a lame man by the mere touch of his foot;

in obedience to a vision of the god Serapis, who had enjoined them to

have recourse to the Emperor, for these miraculous cures. The story may

be seen in that fine historian[23]; where every circumstance seems to add

weight to the testimony, and might be displayed at large with all the

force of argument and eloquence, if any one were now concerned to

enforce the evidence of that exploded and idolatrous superstition. The

gravity, solidity, age, and probity of so great an emperor, who, through

the whole course of his life, conversed in a familiar manner with his

friends and courtiers, and never affected those extraordinary airs of

divinity assumed by Alexander and Demetrius. The historian, a

cotemporary writer, noted for candour and veracity, and withal, the

greatest and most penetrating genius, perhaps, of all antiquity; and so

free from any tendency to credulity, that he even lies under the

contrary imputation, of atheism and profaneness: The persons, from whose

authority he related the miracle, of established character for judgement

and veracity, as we may well presume; eyewitnesses of the fact, and

confirming their testimony, after the Flavian family was despoiled of

the empire, and could no longer give any reward, as the price of a lie.

_Utrumque, qui interfuere, nunc quoque memorant, postquam nullum

mendacio pretium_. To which if we add the public nature of the facts, as

related, it will appear, that no evidence can well be supposed stronger

for so gross and so palpable a falsehood.

 

[23] Hist. lib. iv. cap. 81. Suetonius gives nearly the same

account in vita Vesp.

 

There is also a memorable story related by Cardinal de Retz, which may

well deserve our consideration. When that intriguing politician fled

into Spain, to avoid the persecution of his enemies, he passed through

Saragossa, the capital of Arragon, where he was shewn, in the cathedral,

a man, who had served seven years as a door-keeper, and was well known

to every body in town, that had ever paid his devotions at that church.

He had been seen, for so long a time, wanting a leg; but recovered that

limb by the rubbing of holy oil upon the stump; and the cardinal assures

us that he saw him with two legs. This miracle was vouched by all the

canons of the church; and the whole company in town were appealed to for

a confirmation of the fact; whom the cardinal found, by their zealous

devotion, to be thorough believers of the miracle. Here the relater was

also cotemporary to the supposed prodigy, of an incredulous and

libertine character, as well as of great genius; the miracle of so

singular a nature as could scarcely admit of a counterfeit, and the

witnesses very numerous, and all of them, in a manner, spectators of the

fact, to which they gave their testimony. And what adds mightily to the

force of the