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DAVID HUME.

David Hume was born at Edinburgh in 1711 and died there in 1776. His character was amiable and upright; his literary achievements in two different branches extraordinary. He remains to this day the only historian of the whole, not a part, of English history, whose literary merit is very high, and the clearness, pregnancy, and elegance of his philoso phical style have never been surpassed.

ON MIRACLES.

MIRACLE is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a

firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden : because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed, in any age or country. There must, therefore, be an uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct

and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.

The plain consequence is—and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention,-"That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.' When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.

HIS OWN CHARACTER.

IN spring 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits; insomuch, that were I to name the period of my life, which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this latter period. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. I consider, besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms

of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I know that I could have but few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.

To conclude historically with my own character. I am, or rather was, for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments; —I was, I say, a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked by her baleful tooth: and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct: not but that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability. I cannot say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and ascertained.

My Own Life.

P. 196, 1. 19. Uniform experience amounts to a proof. Formal logic, it must be remembered, had been almost entirely neglected in Hume's time. It would have saved one of the acutest of reasoners from making an obvious blunder. Uniform experience of course amounts to no proof except with the aid of a postulate or assumption as to the “uniformity of nature,” which is in fact a circular argument.

I

LAURENCE STERNE.

Laurence Sterne, a rather sorry man but a great writer, was born at Clonmel in 1713. He took orders and held preferment in Yorkshire, travelled abroad, and died in London in 1769. Sterne was a plagiarist, a sentimentalist to the gushing point, a deliberate dabbler in indecency for the sake of attracting readers, but he was one of the first of English humorists, and a perfect literary artist.

ON SLEEP.

WISH I could write a chapter upon sleep.

A fitter occasion could never have presented itself, than what this moment offers, when all the curtains of the family are drawn-the candles put out-and no creature's eyes are open but a single one, for the other has been shut these twenty years, of my mother's nurse. It is a fine subject!

And yet, as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters upon button-holes, both quicker and with more fame than a single chapter upon this. Button-holes !-there is something lively in the very idea of 'em—and trust me, when I get among 'em-You gentry with great beards-look as grave as you will-I'll make merry work with my button-holes-I shall have 'em all to myself. . . . 'tis a maiden subject.... I shall run foul of no man's wisdom or fine sayings in it.

But for sleep I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin-I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place— and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world-'tis the refuge of the unfortunate the enfranchisement of the prisoner-the

downy lap of the hopeless, the weary, and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lie in my mouth by affirming that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompense the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us—that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it) or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and passions of the day are over, and he lays down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, that whichever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her-no desire-or fear-or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty past, present or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secession.

.... "God's blessing," said Sancho Pancha, "be upon the man who first invented this selfsame thing called sleep-it covers a man all over like a cloak." Now there is more to me in this, and it speaks warmer to my heart and affections, than all the dissertations squeezed out of the heads of the learned together upon the subject.

-Not that I altogether disapprove of what Montaigne advances upon it 'tis admirable in its way. (I quote by memory.)

The world enjoys other pleasures, says he, as they do that of sleep without tasting or feeling it as it slips and passes byWe should study and ruminate upon it, in order to render proper thanks to him who grants it to us-for this end I cause myself to be disturbed in my sleep, that I may the better and more sensibly relish it—And yet I see few, says he again, who live with less sleep when need requires; my body is capable of a firm, but not of a violent and sudden agitation-I evade of late all violent exercises-I am never weary with walkingbut from my youth, I never like to ride upon pavements. I love to lie hard and alone, and even without my wife-This last word may stagger the faith of the world—but remember, Vraisemblance" (as Baylet says in the affair of Liceti) " n'est pas toujours du Côté de la Verité." And so much for sleep.

"La

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

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