I could sit and read, (having a book in my pocket) and pass the time agreeably till the tide turned; I there fore prevailed with the captain to put me ashore. Being landed, I found the greatest part of my meadow was really a marsh, in crossing which, to come at my tree, I was up to my knees in mire: and I had not placed myself under its shade five minutes before the muskitoes in swarms found me out, attacked my legs, hands, and face, and made my reading and my rest impossible; so that I returned to the beach, and called for the boat to come and take me on board again, where I was obliged to bear the heat I had strove to quit, and also the laugh of the company. Similar cases in the affairs of life have since frequently fallen under my observation. I have had thoughts of a college for him in America; I know no one who might be more useful to the public in the institution of youth. But there are possible unpleasantnesses in that situation: it cannot be obtained but by a too hazardous voyage at this time for a family: and the time for experiments would be all otherwise engaged. TO DOCTOR PRICE. Passy, October 9, 1780. DEAR SIR, BESIDES the pleasure of their company, I had the great satisfaction of hearing by your two valuable friends, and learning from your letter, that you enjoy a good state of health. May God continue it as well for the good of mankind as for your comfort. I thank you much for the second edition of your excellent pamphlet: I forwarded that you sent to Mr. Dana, he being in Holland. I wish also to see the piece you have written, (as Mr. Jones tells me) on toleration: I do not expect that your new parliament will be either wiser or honester than the last. All projects to procure an honest one, by place bills, &c. appear to me vain and impracticable. The true cure I imagine is to be found only in rendering all places unprofitable, and the king too poor to give bribes and pensions. Till this is done, which can only be by a revolution, and I think you have not virtue enough left to procure one, your nation will always be plundered; and obliged to pay by taxes the plun derers for plundering and ruining. Adieu, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FROM A LETTER TO PRESIDENT of my Philadelphia, March 9, 1790. : You desire to know something religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed: I believe in One God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is like to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do Hot dogmatise upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm however in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the believers, in his government of the world, with any peculiar marks of his displeasure. I shall only add respecting myself, that having experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness. My sentiments on this head you will see in the copy of an old letter inclosed, which I wrote in answer to one from an old religionist whom I had relieved in a paralitic case by electricity, and who being afraid I should grow proud upon it, sent me his serions, though rather impertinent caution. I send you also the copy of another letter, which will shew something of my disposition relating to religion. With great and sincere esteem and affection, I am, &c. P. S. Had not your College some present of books from the King of France. Please to let me know if you had an expectation given you of more, and the nature of that expectation? I have a reason for the inquiry. I confide that you will not expose me to criticisms and censures by publishing any part of this communí cation to you. I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable or even absurd. All sects here, and we have a great variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with subscriptions for the building their new places of worship; and as I have never opposed any of their doctrines, I hope to go out of the world in peace with them all. Το DEAR SIR, (Without date). I HAVE read your manuscript with some attention. By the argument it contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a general Providence, you strike at the foundations of all religion. For without the belief of a Providence that takes cognizance of guards and guides, and may favour particular persons, there is no motive to worship a Deity, to fear its displeasure, or to pray for its protection. I will not enter into any discussion of your principles, though you seem to desire it. At present I shall only give you my opinion, that though your reasonings are subtle, and may prevail with some readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general sentiments of mankind on that subject, and the consequence of printing this piece will be, a great deal of odium drawn upon yourself, mischief to you, and no benefit to others. He that spits against the wind, spits in his own face. But were you to succeed, do you imagine any good would be done by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous life without the assistance afforded by religion; you having a clear percep tion of the advantages of virtue, and the disadvantages of vice, and possessing a strength of resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common temptations. But think how great a portion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great point for its security. And perhaps you are indebted to her originally, that is to your religious education, for the habits of virtue upon which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain a rank with our most distinguished authors. For among us it is not necessary as among the Hottentots, that a youth to be raised into the company of men should prove his manhood by beating his mother. I would advise you therefore not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. An Examination of Mr. Hume's R. HUME, in rion by which to prove or judge of the existence of miracles. The credit due to them, it is admitted, rests entirely MREssay Me, R, his celebrated upon testimony; In the above quotation, Mr. Hume assumes the utter incapacity of testimony to prove a miracle. That the assump tion is specious, will not be denied: and unhappily, considerable numbers have been imposed upon by it. In reality, however, a more gratuitous one hath never been made, as will be fully exemplified by an investigation of the grounds upon which he has attempted to defend it. The corner-stone of his building is another assumption of a still more extraordinary nature, but which, if correct, would undoubtedly silence all oppugners, namely, that a greater miracle must be wrought to prove the existence of a lesser one, or in other words, that a miracle is the only crite "If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then, and not till then, ean he pretend to command my belief or opinion."-ESSAY. jection to it, from the supposed incom petency of human testimony, is invalid, and at most a mere begging of the question. Nevertheless, it must be remembered, that the failure of an ingenious sophister to prove a negative by no means establishes the converse, an affirmative. On the present occasion, therefore, it will not be irrelevant, and, perhaps, the only satisfactory reply to an objection of this sort, not merely to silence the negation, but also to attempt upon adequate evidence to substantiate the affirmative. (The minor support attempted to be derived from the subsequent sophisms contained in the Essay, such as the notion of an hypothetical array of conflicting testimonies, the want of an uniform experience, &c. &c. will in due time be adverted to, but not much enlarged upon, volumes having already been ably written, amply refuting them.) My first and principal endeavour, then, will be to ascertain and prove the competency of human testimony, to establish and record the existence of any fact, whether of an ordinary or extraordinary kind, even although it were "A transgression of a law of nature, by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of an Invisible Agent," which is Mr. Hume's definition of a miracle. "The evidence, that the course of nature has been departed from, is the very same by which we judge when it is not departed from, and must be equally competent in both cases. For certainly the eyes, ears and other senses of men are equally capable of judging concerning all things, which they are equally capable of perceiving." All miracles are facts, of a nature cognizable by the ordinary faculties and suited to the common apprehension of mankind indeed if they were not so, to no purpose would they have been performed. Those recorded in the Christian Scriptures have a peculiar efficacy in this view, since they do not depend upon à priori arguments and recondite speculations for proof; but uniformly referring to plain facts, and addressed to the common sense of mankind, the most illiterate as well as the most learned could equally judge of their truth. Like other facts, therefore, which are not miraculous, they may be established by testimony, the persons recording them affirming only the experience of their own senses, and that of others, in a plain and simple case, namely, that certain effects were repeatedly produced in the presence of considerable numbers, and of which, too, they themselves had a personal knowledge. Mr. Hume, in Note K of his Essay, informs us, That a miracle may be discoverable by man or not; this alters not its nature and essence.' A more positive admission of the existence of miracles could not have been made, since whatever has a nature and essence must necessarily exist. And that a miracle is discoverable by man, Mr. Hume has furnished us undeniable evidence in his own example; for if not so, how could he have known, and affirmed of it, that its nature and essence would not have been altered by the circumstances alluded to in the quotation? That a miracle is in itself possible, and capable of being proved by the senses, is certain; and farther, that it may also be satisfactorily proved to others by testimony, Mr. Hume acknowledges when he remarks, that our observation of the veracity of human testimony constrains our assent to the belief of ordinary facts, even although they have never immediately fallen under the cognizance of our senses. own Just so is it with niracles, which, although undoubtedly facts of an extraordinary nature, are not on that account the less discoverable by us, when, as in the case of ordinary facts, they have been submitted to our im mediate and personal observation, or to that of others, who have recorded them to us. To assert, then, that a fact cannot be proved, when already admitted to have been fully proved, is an absolute contradiction, the very absurdity charged upon the abettors of miracles. A miracle, then, we must admit, in the first instance, is capable of being proved by the senses; and the subsequent establishment of its proof by testimony is no contradiction: indeed, why its being registered and recorded as a testimony of its truth to others should alter its nature, and as it were by enchantment annihilate its previous capacity of proof, a wiser head than even Mr. Hume's is requisite to determine. It must be conceded, however, that the veracity of testimony is not uniform; and here it is that we meet the difficulty in its fullest force, and freely admit that miracles require a stronger testimony than common facts, but deny that the nature and capacity of testimony is on that account any ways altered or impaired, which by the objector is strenuously contended to be the case. Had he confined himself to this single point, his objection would have had considerable weight, though it would by no means have been insuperable; but by blending with it the utter incapacity of testimony to prove at all, he has effectually defeated his own purpose. A testimony that proves nothing cannot lie. A more than reiterated experience in proof of miracles is not wanting. If all occurrences, and all must be comprehended under the idea of an uniform experience, were to be brought about by means of particular interpositions (which is the notion of a miracle), every practical benefit to result from them would be lost, and to us they. would no longer be miracles: an unceasing series of miraculous interventions would in effect be the same as an established law. The efficacy of a reasonable experience in judging of them is not denied: but the futility and unreasonableness of an uniform experience is manifest. Moreover, our competency to judge of the existence of any fact, whether of an ordinary or of an extraordinary nature, does not depend upon its constant recurrence, nor is it altered by our ignorance of what produced it; since the mode in which the operation of the usual course of the laws of na ture is effected equally with the supposed deviation from or transgression of them (the case of miracles) is unknown to us. The supposition supported by Mr. Hume of an array of antagonists or opposite proofs between miracles, and testimony as the criterion of them, is so weak and untrue, as to be really unworthy of him. Wherein is exemplified any mutual destruction of arguments? Does the liability to falsehood in testimony, annul or impede its capacity to record truth, even although that truth be of a miraculous nature? Certainly not; both the concessions in the Essay, and numerous other more powerful considerations herein adduced, prove it beyond doubt. Is testimony any other than the record of experience? "the criterion of facts which do not fall immediately under our own observation." What, then, can be more absurd than to oppose the record of positive experience to the absence of an uniform and personal one, or to the liability to error in testimony, designed or undesigned, especially in a case of this kind, where multitudes of living witnesses could have contradicted k? At the time the miracles are recorded to have been performed, they were never denied; the Power only by which they were accomplished was ever called in question. Human nature, too, having been fully admitted to be the same in all ages, the persons living in those days were equally competent with ourselves, not only to ascertain the facts, but also to record to others the experience of their senses: and surely nothing more either has been done, or is wanting to be done, to establish the proof of miracles, since this is the test by which we can alone know them: but such are the minor sophisms adduced in corroboration of this celebrated objection, and maintained to be indispensable by their author. Much stress has been laid by Mr. Hume and others on the natural improbability of miracles, but with little reason. Were it a question of probability only (which, however, it certainly is not), the balance of records in which they are noticed affirming their truth, and the preponderance of veracity in human testimony having been conceded in the Essay, the evidence in their favour, even on this ground, is decisive. By the addition of a single ounce to a pair of well poised, though ordinary scales, you will turn them as completely, and more commodiously too, than by that of a pound; but the addition of hundreds or thousands of ounces, at once, to a pair of sceptical scales, would produce no other effect that I am acquainted with, than the breaking of them: and well would it be for the experimentalist, if he were not materially injured in the general wreck. Improbability, moreover, has no relation to testimony, but only to opinion: where testimony begins, improbability, ends. To give testimony to any event, supposes that we have already ascertained the fact, either directly, by the observation of our own senses, or indirectly, through the medium of the senses of others. In either case, improbability is wholly out of the question. The consideration that the subsequent effects in the Christian world can be accounted for on no other principle, than upon the supposition of the truth of the miracles, with the important end to be answered by them, are arguments that have justly made a forcible impression on numbers. Some have denied experience to be the sole foundation on which to ground our belief in testimony: others, in answer to the objection that miracles are not wrought in our days, have replied to it by saying that they are no longer necessary; information now abounds in the world; mankind are of themselves sufficiently inclined to examine the records of immortality; a præternatural stimulus is no longer wanting; and the Almighty cannot be expected to resort to extraordinary means while ordinary ones are fully adequate; à priori considerations have actuated the researches of a few, who have directed their principal efforts to ascertain the abstract nature of miracles, rather than the subsequent establishment of their proofs. The sum total, however, of these united observations, seem to me to tend more to the refutation of the minor difficulties of the case, than to the subversion of the principal one: and one, more specious than Mr. Hume's, will, I apprehend, be easily admitted to have never been made. The capacity of testimony to record truth, even although that truth be of a miraculous nature, can no longer be |