nsational metaphysics or
of the incipient science of historical criticism.

The inquiry was now becoming more historical on the part both of deists
and Christians. Philosophy was still the cause of religious controversy,
but it had changed in character. It was now criticism weighing the
evidence of religion rather than ethics or metaphysics testing the
materials of it. The question formerly debated had been, how much of the
internal characteristics of scripture can be supported by moral
philosophy; and when the conviction at length grew up, that the mysteries
could not be solved by any analogy, but were unique, it became necessary
to rest on the miraculous evidence for the existence of a revelation, and
make the fact guarantee the contents of it. Inasmuch however as the
revelation is contained in a book, it became necessary to substantiate the
historical evidence of its genuineness and authenticity. Bolingbroke's
attacks are directed against a portion of this literary evidence.

Historical criticism, in its appreciation of literary evidence, may be of
four kinds. It may (1) examine the record from a dogmatic point of view,
pronouncing on it by reference to prepossessions directed against the
facts; or (2) make use of the same method, but direct the attack against
the evidence on which the record rests; or (3) it may examine whether the
record is contemporary with the events narrated; or (4) consider its
internal agreement with itself or with fact.

We have instances of each of these methods in the examination of the
literary evidence on which miracles are believed. The first, the
prepossession concerning the philosophical impossibility of miracles, is
seen in Spinoza; the second, the impossibility of using testimony as a
proof of them, in Hume; the third, the question whether they were attested
by eyewitnesses, is the ground which Bolingbroke touches; the fourth, the
cross-examination of the witnesses, is seen in Woolston. Of these, the
first most nearly resembles the great mass of the deist objections to
revelation, being philosophical rather than critical. The second forms a
transition to the two latter, being philosophy applied to criticism, and
is the form which deism now took. The two latter are those which it
subsequently assumed.(478)

These remarks will explain Hume's position,(479) and show how he forms the
transition between two modes of inquiry; his point of view being critical,
the cause of it philosophic