(5.) A conviction that every event must have a cause, and a cause adequate to the effect. (6.) A confidence in the uniformity of the operations of nature; or that the same cause, acting in the same circumstances, will always be followed by the same effect. These first or instinctive principles of belief will be referred to in a more particular manner when we come to speak of the use of reason in the investigation of truth. They are usually called First Truths, and will be seen to occupy a most important place as the foundation of all reasoning. Many ingenious but fallacious arguments were at one time wasted in attempts to establish them by processes of reasoning. These again were assailed by sophistical and skeptical writers, who easily succeeded in showing the fallacy. of these arguments, and thus assumed the credit of undermining the authority of the truths themselves. All this species of sophistical warfare is now gone by; and the most important era in the modern science of reasoning was, when it was distinctly shown that these first truths admit of no other evidence than the conviction which forces itself upon the understanding of all classes of men. Since that period it has been generally allowed that they admit of no proof by processes of reasoning; and, on the other hand, that they are entirely unaffected by the arguments by which all such reasoning was shown to be fallacious. SECTION III. OF TESTIMONY. A VERY small portion of our knowledge of external things is obtained through our own senses; by far the greater part is procured through other men, and this is received by us on the evidence of testimony. But, in receiving facts in this manner, we usually proceed with more Controversies respecting First Truths. Proper view of these controversies? Evi dence of testimony, why necessary? caution than when they come to us by our personal observation. We are much influenced, in the first place, by our confidence in the veracity of the narrator, and our knowledge of the opportunities which he has had of ascertaining the facts he professes to relate. Thus, if he be a person on whose testimony we have formerly received important statements, which have turned out to be correct, we are the more ready to receive his testimony again; if he be a stranger to us, we receive it with greater caution; if he has formerly misled us, we view it with suspicion, or reject it altogether. But there is another principle of very extensive application in such cases, and which is independent in a great measure of the character of the narrator. In receiving facts upon testimony, we are much influenced by their accordance with facts with which we are already acquainted. This is what, in common language, we call their probability; and statements which are probable, that is, in accor dance with facts which we already know, are received upon a lower degree of evidence than those which are not in such accordance, or which, in other words, appear to us in the present state of our knowledge to be improbable. Now this is a sound and salutary caution, but we should beware of allowing it to influence us beyond its proper sphere. It should lead us to examine carefully the evidence upon which we receive facts not in accordance with those which we have already acquired; but we should beware of allowing it to engender skepticism. For, while an unbounded credulity is the part of a weak mind, which never thinks or reasons at all, an unlimited skepticism is the part of a contracted mind, which reasons upon imperfect data, or makes its own knowledge and extent of observation the standard and test of probability. An ignorant peasant may reject the testimony of a philosopher in regard to the size of the moon, because he thinks he has the evidence of his senses that it is only a foot in diameter; and a person, holding a respectable rank in society, is said to have received with contempt the doctrine of the revolution Conditions of confidence in testimony? What is meant by probability? Its influ ence? Caution in regard to its influence Examples; reasoning in regard to the moon? In regard to the revolution of the earth? of the earth on its axis, because he was perfectly satisfied that his house was never known to turn with its front to the north. When the king of Siam was told by a Dutch traveller that in Holland, at certain seasons of the year, water becomes so solid that an elephant might walk over it, he replied, "I have believed many extraordinary things which you have told me, because I took you for a man of truth and veracity, but now I am convinced that you lie." This confidence in one's own experience, as the test of probability, characterizes a mind which is confined in its views and limited in its acquirements; and the tendency of it would be the rejection of all knowledge for which we have not the evidence of our senses. Had the king of Siam once seen water in a frozen state, he would not only have been put right in regard to this fact, but his confidence would have been shaken in his own experience as the test of probability in other things; and he would have been more disposed for the further reception of truth upon the evidence of testimony. Thus, progress in knowledge is not confined in its results to the mere facts which we acquire, but has also an extensive influence in enlarging the mind for the further reception of truth, and setting it free from many of those prejudices which influence men who are limited by a narrow field of observation. There may even be cases in which, without any regard to the veracity of the narrator, a cultivated mind perceives the elements of truth in a statement which is rejected by inferior minds as altogether incredible. An ingenious writer supposes a traveller of rather doubtful veracity bringing into the country of Archimedes an account of the steam-engine. His statement is rejected by his countrymen as altogether incredible. It is entirely at variance with their experience, and they think it much more probable that the traveller should lie, than that such a thing should be. But when he describes to Archimedes the arrangement of the machine, the philosopher perceives the result and, without any consideration of the veracity of the narrator, decides, upon the evidence derived from the relation of the facts themselves, and their accordance Reasoning of the king of Siam? Influence of general knowledge on the belief of estimony? Example, supposition in regard to Archimedes? Ground of Archimedes' belief- what? with principles which are known to him, that the statement is unquestionably true. This illustration leads to a principle of the utmost prac tical importance. In judging of the credibility of a statement, we are not to be influenced simply by our actual experience of similar events; for this would limit our reception of new facts to their accordance with those which we already know. We must extend our views much farther than this, and proceed upon the knowledge which we have derived from other sources, of the powers and properties of the agent to which the event is ascribed. It is on this principle that the account of the steam-engine would have appeared probable to Archimedes, while it was rejected by his countrymen as absolutely incredible; because he would have judged, not according to his experience of similar machinery, but according to his knowledge of the powers and properties of steam. In the same manner, when the king of Siam rejected, as an incredible falsehood, the account of the freezing of water, if there had been at his court a philosopher who had attended to the properties of heat, he would have judged in a different manner, though the actual fact of the freezing of water might have been as new to him as it was to the king. He would have recollected that he had seen various solid bodies rendered fluid by the application of heat; and that, on the abstraction of the additional heat, they again became solid. He would thus have argued the possibility, that, by a further abstraction of heat, bodies might become solid which are fluid in the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere. In this manner, the fact, which was rejected by the king, judging from his own experience, might have been received by the philosopher, judging from his knowledge of the powers and properties of heat-though he had acquired this knowledge from events apparently far removed from that to which he now applied it. The principle here referred to is independent altogether of the direct reliance which we have on testimony, in regard to things which are at variance with our experience, when we are satisfied that the testimony has the characters Important principle. How illustrated by the preceding anecdotes? How should the king of Siam have reasoned of credibility; but, even on these grounds, we may perceive the fallacy of that application of the doctrine of probability which has been employed by some writers, in opposition to the truths of revealed religion, and to the means by which they were promulgated-particularly the miracles of the sacred writings. Miracles, they contend, are deviations from the established course of nature, and are, consequently, contrary to our uniform experience. It accords with our experience that men should lie, and even that several men might concur in propagating the same lie; and, therefore, it is more probable that the narrators lied, than that the statement respecting miracles is true. Mr. Hume even went so far as to maintain, that a miracle is so contrary to what is founded upon firm and unalterable experience, that it cannot be established by any human testimony. Hume's celebrated argument against the resurrection of Christ, and of course against the Christian religion, stated a little more fully, is this: "Twelve witnesses," he says, though not exactly in these words, "I admit, agree in testifying that a man rose from the dead. I am consequently compelled to believe one of two things, either that twelve men agreed to tell a lie, or that a man rose from the dead. Either of these suppositions is, I confess, very extraordinary, but as one or the other must be true, I must admit the one that is least extraordinary. Now it seems to me more probable that men should lie, than that one who had been several days dead should return to life again; for it is a very common thing in this world for men to testify falsely; but it is 'contrary to all experience' that a man should rise from the dead." To this Christian writers reply, in substance, as follows: "We admit the alternative, viz. that we must believe that twelve men have testified falsely, or that one man rose from the dead; and we also admit that we must believe the least improbable of the two. But we deny that the former is the least improbable. For it is not very impro bable that the Creator should wish to make a communication to man kind; and if so, restoring to life the messenger who brought it, would be a very suitable and a very probable mode of authenticating it. But it is contrary to all experience, and all probability, that twelve men, without motive, should conspire to fabricate and disseminate a lie. In regard to the mode by which the Creator would authenticate a message to men, we have no experience; and there is certainly no presumption against the one in question. In regard to men's falsifying their word, Hume's argument, what? argument stated more fully? do Christian writers admit? Extent to which he carried his reasonings? Mr. Hume's |