If,

in this matter, he would be called obftinate, whimsical, narrow-minded, and a fool. after the experience of fo many ages, men are ftill disposed to believe the word of an honeft man, and find no inconvenience in doing fo, I must conclude, that it is not only natural, but rational, expedient, and manly, to credit fuch testimony: and though I were to peruse volumes of metaphyfic written in proof of the fallibility of teftimony, I should ftill, like the rest of the world, believe credible testimony without fear of inconvenience. I know very well, that teftimony is not admitted in proof of any doctrine in mathematics, because the evidence of that fcience is of a different kind. But is truth to be found in mathematics only? is the geometrician the only person who exerts a rational belief? do we never find conviction arife in our minds, except when we contemplate an intuitive axiom, or run over a mathematical demonstration? In natural philofophy, a fcience not inferior to pure mathematics in the certainty of its conclufions, teftimony is admitted as a fufficient proof of many facts. To believe teftimony, therefore, is agreeable to nature, to reafon, and to found philofophy.

When we believe the declaration of an honeft man, in regard to facts of which he has had experience, we fuppofe, that by the view or perception of thofe facts, his fenfes have been affected in the fame manner as ours

VOL. I.

Р

would

would have been, if we had been in his place. So that faith in teftimony is in part refolvable into that conviction which is produced by the evidence of sense: at least, if we did not believe our fenfes, we could not, without abfurdity, believe teftimony; if we have any tendency to doubt the evidence of fenfe, we must, in regard to testimony, be equally fceptical. Thofe philofophers, therefore, who would perfuade us to reject the evidence of fenfe, among whom are to be reckoned all who deny the existence of matter, are not to be confidered as mere theorists, whofe fpeculations are of too abstract a nature to do any harm, but as men of very dangerous principles. Not to mention the bad effects of fuch doctrine upon fcience in general *, I would only at prefent call upon the reader to attend to its influence upon our religious opinions and historical knowledge. Teftimony is the grand external evidence of Chriftianity. All the miracles wrought by our Saviour, and particularly that great decifive miracle, his refurrection from the dead, were fo many appeals to the fenfes of men, in proof of his divine miffion and whatever fome unthinking cavillers may object, this we affirm to be not only the most proper, but the only proper, kind of external evidence, that can be employed, confiftently with man's free agency and moral probation,

* See below, part 2. chap. 2. fect. 2.

for

ce.

by

fid

[E;

for establishing a popular and univerfal religion among mankind. Now, if matter has no existence but in our mind, our senses are deceitful and if fo, St Thomas must have b- been deceived when he felt, and the rest of the apostles when they faw, the body of their Lord after his refurrection; and all the facts recorded in history, both facred and civil, were no better than dreams or delufions, with which perhaps St Matthew, St John, and St Luke, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Cæfar, were affected, but which they had no more ground of believing to be real, than I have of believing, in confequence of my having dreamed it, that I was last night in Conftantinople. Nay, if I admit the nonexistence of matter, I must believe, that what my fenfes declare to be true, is not only not truth, but contrary to it. For does not this philofophy teach, that what seems to human fenfe to exift does not exift; and that what feems corporeal is incorporeal? and are not existence and non-existence, materiality and immateriality, contraries? Now, if men ought to believe the contrary of what their fenfes declare to be true, the evidence of all history, of all teftimony, and indeed of all external perception, is no longer any evidence of the reality of the facts warranted by it; but becomes, rather a proof that those facts did never happen. If it be urged, as an objection to this reafoning, that BERKELEY was a Christian, notwithstanding his fcepti

cifm (or paradoxical belief) in other matters; I anfwer, that though he maintained the doctrine of the non-existence of body, there is no evidence that he understood it: nay, there is pofitive evidence that he did not; as I fhall have occafion to fhow afterwards *.

Again, when we believe a man's word, because we know him to be honeft, or, in other words, have had experience of his veracity, all reasoning on such testimony is fupported by the evidence of experience, and by our prefumption of the continuance of the laws of nature : - the first evidence refolves itself into instinctive conviction, and the fecond is itself an instinctive prefumption. The principles of common fenfe, therefore, are the foundation of all true reasoning concerning teftimony of this kind.

It is faid by Mr HUME, in his Effay on Miracles, that our belief of any fact from the report of eye-witneffes is derived from no other principle than experience; that is, from our obfervation of the veracity of human teftimony, and of the ufual conformity of facts to the report of witneffes. This doctrine is confuted with great elegance and precifion, and with invincible force of argument, in Dr Campbell's Differtation on Miracles. It is, indeed, like most of Mr HUME's capital doctrines, repugnant to matter of fact: for our credulity is greatest when our experience

* See part 2. chap. 2. fect. 2. of this Effay.

is

is leaft; that is, when we are children; and generally grows lefs and lefs, in proportion as our experience becomes more and more extenfive the very contrary of which must happen, if Mr HUME's doctrine were true.

There is then in man a propenfity to believe teftimony antecedent to that experience, which Mr HUME fuppofes, of the conformity of facts to the report of witnesses. But there is another fort of experience, which may perhaps have fome influence in determining children to believe in teftimony. Man is naturally difpofed to speak as he thinks; and most men do fo: for the greateft liars speak truth much oftener than they utter falfehood. It is unnatural for human creatures to falfify; and they never think of departing from the truth, except they have fome end to answer by it. Accordingly children, while their native fimplicity remains uncorrupted, while they have no vice to dif guife, no punishment to fear, and no artificial fcheme to promote, do always fpeak as they think and fo generally is their veracity acknowledged, that it has passed into a proverb, That children and fools tell truth. Now I am not certain, but this their innate propensity to speak truth, may in part account for their readinefs to believe what others fpeak. They do not fufpect the veracity of others, because they are confcious and confident of their own. However, there is nothing abfurd or unphilofophical in fuppo