tablish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a
nature that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which
it endeavours to establish." The term "prodigy" also (which he all
along employs as synonymous with "miracle") is applied to testimony, in
the same manner, immediately after; "In the foregoing reasoning we have
supposed ... that the falsehood of that testimony would be a kind of
_prodigy_." Now had he meant to confine the meaning of "miracle," and
"prodigy," to a violation of the laws of _matter_, the epithet
"_miraculous_," applied even thus hypothetically, to _false testimony_,
would be as unmeaning as the epithets "green" or "square;" the only
possible sense in which we can apply to it, even in imagination, the
term "miraculous," is that of "highly improbable,"--"contrary to those
laws of nature which respect human conduct:" and in this sense he
accordingly uses the word in the very next sentence: "When any one
tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately
consider with myself whether it be more _probable_ that this person
should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which he relates
should really have happened. I weigh the one _miracle_ against the
other."--_Hume's Essay on Miracles_, pp. 176, 177, 12mo; p. 182, 8vo,
1767; p. 115, 8vo, 1817.

See also a passage above quoted from the same essay, where he speaks
of "the _miraculous_ accounts of travellers;" evidently using the word
in this sense.

Perhaps it was superfluous to cite authority for applying the term
"miracle" to whatever is "highly improbable;" but it is important to
the students of Hume, to be fully aware that he uses those two
expressions as synonymous; since otherwise they would mistake the
meaning of that passage which he justly calls "a general maxim worthy
of your attention."

[15] "Events may be so extraordinary that they can hardly be
established by testimony. We would not give credit to a man who would
affirm that he saw a hundred dice thrown in the air, and that they all
fell on the same faces."--_Edin. Review_, Sept. 1814, p. 327.

Let it be observed, that the instance here given is _miraculous_ in no
other sense but that of being highly _improbable_.

[16] "If the spirit of religion join itself to the love of wonder,
there is an end of common sense; and human testimony in these
circumstances loses all pretensions to authority."--_Hume's Essay on
Miracles_, p. 179, 12mo; p. 185, 8vo, 1767