be any comfort to you, without being able to disbelieve simultaneously.  If you believe the testimony false, you must believe the alleged miracle false; but you will have then the moral miracle to believe.  If you believe the testimony true, you will then believe the physical miracle true.  Perhaps the best way will be to believe both alternately in rapid succession; and you will then hardly perceive the difficulty at all!”

There was here a brief pause.  Harrington suddenly resumed.  “These are very perplexing considerations.  One thing, I confess, has often puzzled me much; and that is,—­what should we do, in what state of mind should we be, if we did see a miracle?”

“Of what use is the discussion of such a particular case, when you know it is impossible that we should ever see it realized?” replied Fellowes.

“Of course it is; just as it is impossible that we should ever see levers perfectly inflexible, or cords perfectly flexible.  Nevertheless, it is perfectly possible to entertain such a hypothetical case, and to reason with great conclusiveness on the consequences of such a supposition; and in the same way we can imagine that we have seen a miracle; and what then?”

“Why, if we were to see one, of course seeing is believing.  We must give up our principle,” said Fellowes, laughing.

“Do you think so?  I think we should be very foolish then.  How can we be sure that we have seen it?  Can it appeal to any thing stronger than senses, and have not our senses often beguiled us?” Must we not rather abide by that general induction from the evidence to which our ordinary experience points us?  In other words, ought we not to adhere to the great principle we have already laid down, that a miracle is impossible?”

“But, according to this, if we err in that principle, and God were to work a miracle for the very purpose of convincing us, it would be impossible for him to attain his purpose.”

“I think it would, my friend, I confess; just for the reason that, since we believe a miracle to be impossible, we must believe it impossible for even God to work one; and therefore, if we are mistaken, and it is possible for him to work one, it is still impossible that he should convince us of it.”

“I really know not how to go that length.”

“Why not?  You acknowledge that your senses have deceived you; you know that they have deceived others; and it is on that very ground that you dispose of very many cases of supposed miracles which you are not willing, or are not able, to resolve otherwise.  If I believe, then, that a miracle is impossible, I must admit that, if I err in that, it is still impossible for God himself to convince me of it.”

Fellowes looked grave, but said nothing.

“And do you know,” said Harrington, “I have sometimes thought that Hume, so far from representing his argument from ‘Transubstantiation’ fairly, (there is an obvious fallacy on the very face of it, to which I do not now allude,) is himself precisely in the condition in which he represents the believer in miracles?”