But mere probability, however great, always includes some doubt as to
its own correctness, some suspicion that its opposite may possibly be
correct. How much soever, therefore, uniform experience may vouch for
the inviolability of natural laws, it always remains possible for those
laws to be violated, and, as miracles are nothing else but violations of
natural laws, it always remains possible for miracles to happen. But
since miracles are possible, testimony to their occurrence may, with
equal possibility, be true, and no further refutation can, I submit, be
needed for an argument which insists that all such testimony should be
set aside without enquiry as self-evidently false.

Had Hume been content to insist that testimony in favour of miracles
should never be received without extreme doubt and hesitation, his
lesson might well have passed without further objection than that of its
being superfluous for any one with sense enough to profit by it. Nor
might it have been easy to discover a flaw in his logic, although he had
gone so far as to maintain that no one of the miracles as yet on record
is either adequately attested, or would, even if it had undoubtedly
occurred, afford sufficient evidence of any religious truth. The best
and only adequate evidence for any religious creed is the satisfaction
which it affords to the soul's cravings and promises to the soul's
aspirations; and no rational Christian would be at all the more disposed
to turn Mussulman, even though it should be demonstrated to his entire
conviction that Christ did not raise Lazarus from the dead, and that
Mahomet did turn the hill Safa into gold, instead of prudently confining
himself to boasting that he could have effected the transmutation if he
had thought proper. But for the purpose which Hume had in view, it was
necessary to establish, not merely the doubtfulness, but the absolute
falsehood of the miracular testimony on which, in his opinion, 'our holy
religion' rests, in order that the character of the superstructure being
inferred from that of the foundation, both might be condemned together.
There is, however, an irreligious as well as a religious fanaticism,
and, though it is difficult, while looking at Hume's portrait, to credit
the owner of that plump, good-humoured face with feeling of any sort
warm enough to be termed fanatical, it is humiliating to note from his
example into what strange inconsistency the coolest and calmest judgment
may b