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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 39

Notes

Notes.

(1) Plutarch, in vita Catonis Min. 19.

(2) No Indian, it is evident, could have experience that water did not freeze in cold climates. This is placing nature in a situation quite unknown to him, and it is impossible for him to tell à priori what will result from it. It is making a new experiment, the consequence of which is always uncertain. One may sometimes conjecture from analogy what will follow; but still this is but conjecture. And it must be confessed, that in the present case of freezing, the event follows contrary to page 19 the rules of analogy, and is such as a rational Indian would not look for. The operations of cold upon water are not gradual according to the degrees of cold, but whenever it comes to the freezing point the water passes in a moment from the utmost liquidity to perfect hardness. Such an event therefore may be denominated extraordinary, and requires a pretty strong testimony to render it credible to people in a warm climate; but still it is not miraculous, nor contrary to uniform experience of the course of nature in cases where all the circumstances are the same. The inhabitants of Sumatra have always seen water fluid in their own climate, and the freezing of their rivers ought to be deemed a prodigy: but they never saw water in Muscovy during the winter; and therefore they cannot reasonably be positive what would there be the consequence.

(3) Sometimes an event may not, in itself, seem to be contrary to the laws of nature, and yet, if it were real, it might, by reason of some circumstances, be denominated a miracle, because, in fact, it is contrary to these laws. Thus if a person, claiming a divine authority, should command a sick person to be well, a healthful man to fall down dead, the clouds to pour rain, the winds to blow—in short, should order many natural events which immediately follow upon his command;—these might justly be esteemed miracles, because they are really, in this case, contrary to the laws of nature. For if any suspicion remain that the event and command concurred by accident there is no miracle and no transgression of the laws of nature. If this suspicion be removed, there is evidently a miracle, and a transgression of these laws; because nothing can be more contrary to nature than that the voice or command of a man should have such an influence. A miracle may be accurately defined, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent. A miracle may either be discoverable by men or not. This alters not its nature and essence. The raising of a house or ship into the air is a visible miracle. The raising of a feather, when the wind wants ever so little of a force requisite for that purpose, is as real a miracle, though not so sensible with regard to us.

(4) The many instances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary evidence, or which detect themselves by their absurdity, mark sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and the marvellous, and ought reasonably to beget a suspicion against all relations of this kind. This is our natural way of thinking, even with regard to the most common and most credible events. For instance, there is no kind of report which rises so easily and spreads so quickly, especially in country places and provincial towns, as page 20 those concerning marriages; insomuch that two young persons of equal condition never see each other twice, but the whole neighborhood immediately join them together. The pleasure of telling a piece of news so interesting, of propagating it, and of being the first reporters of it, spreads the intelligence. And this is so well known that no man of sense gives attention to these reports till he finds them confirmed by some greater evidence. Do not the same passions, and others still stronger, incline the generality of mankind to the believing and reporting with the greatest vehemence and assurance all religious miracles?

(5) It may here perhaps be objected that I proceed rashly, and form my notions of Alexander merely from the account given of him by Lucian, a professed enemy. It were indeed to be wished that some of the accounts published by his followers and accomplices had remained. The opposition and contrast between the character and conduct of the same man as drawn by a friend or an enemy is as strong, even in common life, much more in these religious matters, as that betwixt any two men in the world—betwixt Alexander and St. Paul, for instance. See a letter to Gilbert West, Esq., on the conversion and apostleship of St. Paul.

(6) Hist., lib. 5, cap. viii. Suetonius gives nearly the same account in vita Vesp.

(7) This book was written by Mons. de Montgeron, counsellor or judge of the Parliament of Paris, a man of figure and character, who was also a martyr to the cause, and is now said to be somewhere in a dungeon on account of his book.

There is another book, in three volumes (called "Recueil des Miracles de l'Abbé Paris"), giving an account of many of these miracles and accompanied with prefatory discourses, which are very well written. There runs, however, through the whole of these a ridiculous comparison between the miracles of our Savior and those of the Abbé, wherein it is asserted that the evidence for the latter is equal to that for the former : As if the testimony of men could ever be put in the balance with that of God himself, who conducted the pen of the inspired writers. If these writers, indeed, were to be considered merely as human testimony, the French author is very moderate in his comparison, since he might, with some appearance of reason, pretend that the Jansenist miracles much surpass the others in evidence and authority. The following circumstances are drawn from authentic papers inserted in the above-mentioned book.

Many of the miracles of Abbe Paris were proved immediately by witnesses before the officiality or bishop's court at Paris, under the eyes of Cardinal Noailles, whose character for integrity and capacity was never contested even by his enemies.

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His successor in the archbishopric was an enemy to the Jansenists, and for that reason promoted to the see by the Court. Yet twenty-two rectors or cures of Paris, with infinite earnestness, press him to examine those miracles, which they assert to be known to the whole world, and indisputably certain: But he wisely forbore.

The Molinist party had tried to discredit these miracles in one instance, that of Madamoiselle le Franc. But besides that, their proceedings in many respects are the most irregular in the world, particularly in citing only a few of the Jansenist's witnesses, whom they tampered with: Besides this, I say they soon found themselves overwhelmed by a cloud of new witnesses one hundred and twenty in number, most of them persons of credit and substance in Paris, who gave oath for the miracle. This was accompanied with a solemn and earnest appeal to the Parliament. But the Parliament were forbidden by authority to meddle in the affair. It was at last observed that where men are heated by zeal and enthusiasm there is no degree of human testimony so strong as may not be procured for the greatest absurdity : And those who will be so silly as to examine the affair by that medium, and seek particular flaws in the testimony, are almost sure to be confounded. It must be a miserable imposture indeed that does not prevail in that contest.

All who have been in France about that time have heard of the great reputation of Mons. Heraut, the Lieutenant de Police, whose vigilance, penetration, activity and extensive intelligence have been much talked of. This magistrate, who by the nature of his office is almost absolute, was invested with full powers on purpose to suppress or discredit these miracles; and he frequently seized immediately and examined the witnesses and subjects of them; but never could reach anything satisfactory against them.

In the case of Madamoiselle Thibaut he sent the famous de Sylvia to examine her, whose evidence is very curious. The physician declares that it was impossible she could have been so ill as was proved by witnesses, because it was impossible she could in so short a time have recovered so perfectly as he found her. He reasoned like a man of sense from natural causes; but the opposite party told him that the whole was a miracle, and that his evidence was the very best proof of it.

The Molinists were in a sad dilemma. They dared not assert the absolute insufficiency of human evidence to prove a miracle. They were obliged to say that these miracles were wrought by witchcraft and the devil. But they were told that this was the resource of the Jews of old.

No Jansenist was ever embarrassed to account for the cessation of the miracles, when the churchyard was shut up by the king's edict. It was the touch of the tomb which page 22 produced these extraordinary effects; and when no one could approach the tomb, no effects could be expected. God indeed could have thrown down the walls in a moment; but he is master of his own graces and works, and it belongs not to us to account for them. He did not throw down the walls of every city like those of Jericho on the sounding of the rams' horns, nor break up the prison of every apostle like that of St. Paul.

No less a man than the Duc de Chatillon, a duke and peer of France of the highest rank and family, gives evidence of a miraculous cure performed upon a servant of his, who had lived several years in his house with a visible and palpable infirmity.

I shall conclude with observing that no clergy are more celebrated for strictness of life and manners than the secular clergy of France, particularly the rectors or curds of Paris who bear testimony to these impostures.

The learning, genius, and probity of the gentlemen, and the austerity of the nuns of Port Royal, have been much celebrated all over Europe. Yet they all give evidence for a miracle wrought on the niece of the famous Pascal, whose sanctity of life, as well as extraordinary capacity, is well known. The famous Racine gives an account of this miracle in his famous history of Port-Royal, and fortifies it with all the proofs which a multitude of nuns, priests, physicians and men of the world, all of them of undoubted credit, could bestow upon it. Several men of letters, particularly the Bishop of Tournay, thought this miracle so certain, as to employ it in the refutation of Atheists and Freethinkers. The Queen-Regent of France, who was extremely prejudiced against the Port-Royal, sent her own physician to examine the miracle, who returned an absolute convert. In short, the supernatural cure was so uncontestable that it saved for a time that famous monastery from the ruin with which it was threatened by the Jesuits. Had it been a cheat, it had certainly been detected by such sagacious and powerful antagonists and must have hastened the ruin of the contrivers. Our divines who can build up a formidable castle from such despicable materials, what a prodigious fabric could they have reared from these and many other circumstances which I have not mentioned!—How oft would the great names of Pascal, Racine, Arnaud, Nicole, have resounded in our ears? But if they be wise, they had better adopt the miracle as being more worth a thousand times than all the rest of their collection. Besides, it may serve very much to their purpose. For that miracle was really performed by the touch of an authentic holy prickle of the holy thorn, which composed the holy crown, which, etc.

(8) Lucret, iv., 594.

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(9) I beg the limitations here made may be remarked when I say that a miracle can never be proved so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own, that otherwise there may possibly be miracles or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony, though perhaps it will be impossible to find any such in all the records of history. Thus, suppose all authors in all languages agree that from the 1st of January 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days: Suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people, that all travellers who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same tradition without the least variation or contradiction: It is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting that fact, ought to receive it for certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature, is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phænomenon which seems to have a tendency towards that catastrophe, comes within the reach of human testimony, if that testimony be very extensive and uniform.

But suppose that all the historians who treat of England should agree, that, on the 1st of January 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; that both before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole court, as is usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was acknowledged and proclaimed by the Parliament; and that, after being interred a month, she again appeared, took possession of the throne, and governed England for three years : I must confess I should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. I should not doubt of her pretended death and of those other public circumstances that followed it: I should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it neither was nor possibly could be real. You would in vain object to me the difficulty and almost impossibility of deceiving the world in an affair of such consequence; the wisdom and integrity of that renowned queen; with the little or no advantage which she could reap from so poor an artifice : All this might astonish me; but I would still reply that the knavery and folly of men are such common phænomena that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence than admit so signal a violation of the laws of nature.

But should this miracle be ascribed to any new system of religion, men in all ages have been so much imposed on by ridiculous stories of that kind, that this very circumstance would be a full proof of a cheat, and sufficient with all men of page 24 sense not only to make them reject the fact, but reject it without farther examination. Though the being to whom the miracle is ascribed be in this case Almighty, it does not, upon that account, become a whit more probable; since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions in the usual course of nature. This still reduces us to past observation, and obliges us to compare the instance of the violations of truth in the testimony of men with those of the violation of the laws of nature by miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. As the violations of truth are more common in the testimony concerning religious miracles than in that concerning any other matter of fact; this must diminish very much the authority of the former testimony, and make us form a general resolution never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretext it may be covered.

Lord Bacon seems to have embraced the same principles of reasoning:—"We ought," says he, "to make a collection or particular history of all monsters and prodigious births or productions, and in a word of everything new, rare, and extraordinary in nature. But this must be done with the most severe scrutiny, lest we depart from truth. Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an uncontrollable appetite for falsehood and fable." "Facienda enim est congeries sive historia naturalis particularis omnium monstrorum et partuum naturæ prodigiosorum; omnis denique novitatis et raritatis et inconsuetiin natura. Hoc vero faciendum est cum severissimo delectu, ut constet fides. Maxime autem habenda sunt pro suspectis quæ pendent quomodocunque ex religione, ut prodigia Livii: Nec minus quæ inveniuntur in scriptoribus magiæ naturalis, aut etiam alchymiæ, et hujusmodi hominibus; qui tanquam proci sunt et amatores fabularum."—"Nov. Organ.," lib. 2., Aph. 29.

London: Freethought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter St., E.C.