esh and blood,'
the alleged phenomena contradict his senses; and that as the information
of his senses as much comes from God as the doctrines of Scripture
(and even the miracles of Scripture appeal to nothing stronger), he must
believe his senses in this case in preference to the assertions of the
priest. Hume then goes on quietly to take it for granted that the
miracles to which consent is asked in like manner contradict the
testimony of the senses of him to whom they appeal is made; whereas,
in fact, the assertor of the miracles does not pretend that he who
denies them has ever seen them, or had the opportunity of seeing them.
To make the argument analogous, it ought to be shown that the objector,
having been a spectator of the pretended miracles, when and where they
were affirmed to have been wrought, had then and there the testimony
of his senses that no such events had taken place. It is mere juggling
with words to say that never to have seen a like event is the same
argument of an event's never having occurred, as never to have seen
that event when it was alleged to have taken place under our very
eyes!"

"I give up the reasoning on this point," said Fellowes, "but how,
I should like to know, do you retort the argument upon him?"

"Thus; you see that we maintain that a miracle is incredible per se,
because impossible; not to be believed, therefore, on any evidence."

"Certainly."

"If, then, we saw what seemed a miracle, we should distrust our senses;
we should say that it was most likely that they deceived us. Hear what
Voltaire says in one of his letters to D'Alembert: 'Je persiste a
penser que cent mille hommes qui ont vu ressusciter un mort, pourraient
bien etre cent mille hommes qui auraient la berlue.' And what he says
of their bad eyes, there is no doubt he would say of his own, if he had
been one of the hundred thousand."

"I think so, certainly."

"And Strauss, and Hume, and Voltaire, and you and I, and all who hold
a miracle impossible, would distrust our senses, and fall back upon
that testimony from the general experience of others, which alone could
correct our own halting and ambiguous experience."

"Certainly."

"It appears, then, my good fellow, that the position of those who
deny and those who assert miracles is exactly the reverse of Hume's
statement. The man who believes 'Transubstantiation' distrusts his
senses, and rather believes testimony: and even so would he who has
fully made