even this guide is far from
infallible, and liable at any moment to lead us into errors. In judging
how far a testimony is to be depended upon, we must balance the opposite
circumstances, which may create any doubt or uncertainty. The evidence
from testimony may be destroyed either by the contrariety and opposition
of the testimony, or by the consideration of the nature of the facts
themselves. When the facts partake of the marvelous there are two
opposite experiences with regard to them, and that which is most
credible is to be preferred. Now the uniform experience of men is
against miracles. We should not, therefore, believe any testimony
concerning a miracle, unless the falsehood of that testimony should be
more miraculous than the miracle it is designed to establish. Besides,
as we cannot know the attributes or actions of God otherwise than by our
experience of them, we cannot be sure that he can effect miracles; for
they are contrary to our own experience and the course of nature.
Therefore, it is impossible to prove miracles by any evidence.

The second part of the _Essay on Miracles_ is intended to show that,
supposing a miracle capable of being proved by sufficient testimony, no
miraculous event in history has ever been established on such evidence.
The witnesses of a miracle should be of such unquestionable good sense,
education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in
themselves. They should also be of such undoubted integrity as to place
them beyond all suspicion of design to deceive others. Then they should
be of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have a
great deal to lose if detected in any falsehood. Last of all, the facts
attested by the witnesses should be performed in such a public manner,
and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render detection
unavoidable.[138]

Now, according to Hume, these requisitions are not met in the supposed
witnesses of the miracles of Christ. Consequently, we are no more
obliged to believe their accounts than the reports of miracles alleged
to have been wrought at the tomb of the Abbe de Paris. All must be
rejected together.

Hume's _History of England_ met with a cold reception on its first
appearance. But he lived to see the day when, as he egotistically said,
"it became circulated like the newspapers." Yet he wrote that work not
as an end, but as a means. Historical writing was then the medium in
which it was common to couch t