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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
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