We would suppose, from the various oracular predictions which my friend delivers, that he was a prophet. He has been giving us prediction upon prediction; but unfortunately his prophetic reputation is not uniformly sustained by the accomplishment of former predictions. The treachery of his former predictions forbids confidence in the present. We waited past the time for the fulfillment of his prophecy, three years ago uttered, that Cincinnati would become a deserted or evacuated city before two years; that the citizens would all migrate to New Harmony. But we still find a few people living here, and the sound of the workman's hammer is yet heard in the streets.

      I concluded my last address by remarking that the document read to you, and presented to my friend, was drawn up with a view to elicit a discussion of Mr. Owen's favorite position. I have done everything in my power to bring him to an issue on this point, but with what success you all see. We have given you definitions of the terms fact, faith, testimony, etc.; but all that we can elicit from Mr. Owen is a reiteration of the assertion that everything which exists is a fact; that is, if his library contains ten thousand books, it consists of exactly ten thousand facts. Now this is a language as novel and strange as is the theory of Mr. Owen. [269]

      We have asserted that Judaism and Christianity were founded upon matters of fact--upon things done by the divine power; that these facts, in the first instance, were attested by the most competent and credible witnesses; that their testimony was delivered to the people orally, and that millions believed upon their oral testimony; that this testimony was afterward put into a written form, and that in this shape it has come down to us; and that upon this kind of testimony our faith in Christianity chiefly rests. Now the question before us is, Whether faith, thus built upon testimony, is, or is not, influenced by our volitions. This is the naked, simple question, which we ought now to discuss. I therefore ask my friend, for the sake of coming to an issue, whether the term belief imports anything more than the cordial reception of testimony. Is this belief in any degree influenced by our volitions? Is not volition the consequent of the last dictate of the understanding? But were he to define the term volition, we would most probably discover that our opponent differs from us in his acceptation of the term. But suppose, for example, I have a friend and an enemy. I have conceived such a character of my enemy as to find it difficult to believe a good report of him. As to my friend, I am well disposed to believe all good of him. Suppose, then, that different persons should testify to me something in favor of my enemy and of my friend too: would the same amount of evidence in both cases produce in my mind the same degree of assurance in regard to the facts related? This illustration does not come altogether up to the point, but it comes near enough to elicit a fair investigation, if Mr. Owen would meet the question upon its merits. It is an old adage, that we too easily believe what we wish to be true; and what we do not wish to be true, with difficulty we believe.

      Mr. Owen says he tells the truth: that is enough; you must believe him. But when did I say that persons could not be compelled to pay money against their will to support any religion? I perceive that if I continue in this way, merely excepting to my opponent's premises, he will continue repeating them, as if a repetition of his theory was sufficient to silence all objection, and carry conviction to every heart. These twelve facts, in this way, might be brought to prove or disprove anything. Mr. Owen is like certain witnesses which sometimes appear in our courts: when cross-questioned, they imagine it to be indispensably necessary to go over the whole story again; and if they are ten times cross-examined, they cannot be made to understand that it is not necessary to begin at the beginning and tell the whole story over again. But I will try, if it is possible, to get on with the argument in some other way. I had intended a full recapitulation of my argument from [270] the beginning, but circumstances compel me to confine my recapitulation to my last argument, finished yesterday. The following were its outlines:

      1. We attempted yesterday to develop still farther the criteria by which we distinguish the historic facts that are certainly true, from those that are false or doubtful.

      2. We showed that the facts on which the Jewish religion is based have these criteria.

      3. We next demonstrated that it would be impossible, according to our experience, to institute monuments, or commemorative institutions, of alleged facts which never happened.

      4. We showed that circumcision, the Sabbath, the passover, the redemption of the first-born, the selection of the tribe of Levi, and all the Jewish festivals, were commemorative institutions to assure posterity of the indubitable certainty of the facts on which their religion was built.

      5. We alleged that the types and symbols of the Jews' religion were most wisely designed to furnish the world with a supernatural vocabulary; and not merely to establish the past institutions, but to introduce the Christian religion.

      6. We then asserted that there was no contradictory testimony co-temporaneous with the Jewish institution.

      7. We next produced corroborating documents from the remotest antiquities of the surrounding nations.

      An ingenious opponent might have presented me with one or other of the only two conceivable objections to my reasoning. As Mr. Owen has not presented them, I will do it myself. Human ingenuity can devise but two objections to this argument. The one is, that these commemorative institutions were imposed upon the Jewish nation at a period long posterior to the times when the alleged facts were recorded to have transpired; that is to say, that some five hundred years after the happenings of the events, it was required of the people to perform certain actions commemorative of them. Now the question is, is it within the compass of our experience to conceive of the possibility of any people being induced, at a prescribed time, to begin solemnly and scrupulously to observe all these religious customs, and conform to all these commemorative institutions, if the reasons assigned were not founded on demonstrated facts? The question is just this, Could we of the present day now be induced, by any sort of influence, from this time forth to celebrate the anniversary of an event said to have happened a hundred years ago, of which we have no satisfactory proof? The universal experience of mankind proves that we could not--it [271] would be an imposition which it is not in human nature to submit to. The second objection which might be urged to these premises, is, that Moses found the Jews in the practice and observance of these institutions, and that from his own brain he manufactured the reasons for them; that he found, for example, the rite of circumcision and the institution of the Levitical priesthood held in great reverence by these people; and that he told them these were commemorative of certain matters of fact recorded in their history, written by himself, which they had never heard before; but that he now reveals to them the reason, and constrains them to say that these commemorative actions have respect to events of which they never before heard. On this hypothesis the difficulty is this: that at this very time he suggested these things to the people, they must have inquired with deep interest whether these reasons assigned by Moses were the true ones; and, moreover, this absurdity is implied in the objection that the people had been long in the practice of these observances without knowing any reason for them! Neither of these hypotheses are conceivable upon any known principle of human nature, and these are the only two objections which can be offered to the conclusion which I have deduced from these premises.

      I know that the reason why my opponent objects to receiving the testimony of these holy men, is based upon a principle which he has not avowed. That principle we wish now to expose; and, therefore, before we enter on the historic argument, we must present you with a brief analysis of the reasonings and objections of David Hume.

      David Hume affirms that "experience is our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact," and that "our belief, or assurance of any fact from the report of eye-witness, is derived from no other principle than experience; that is, our observation of the veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the reports of witnesses."

      To detect the sophistry of Hume, we must give a true definition of experience:--

      Experience is either personal or derived.

      "Personal experience is founded in MEMORY, and consists solely of the general maxims and conclusions that each individual has formed from the comparison of the particular facts he hath remembered."

      "Derived experience is founded in testimony, and consists not only of all the experiences of others, which have, through that channel, been communicated to us; but of all the general maxims or conclusions we have formed, from the comparison of particular facts attested."

      Our opponents, by the term experience, must mean personal experience, unless they make use of sophism called by logicians, "a circle [272] in causes;" for derived experience is derived from testimony, and cannot be contrasted with it; for it is the same with the assurance attendant on, or is the result of, faith.

      Now if all testimony is to be judged by our personal experience, or by our memory, or senses, we shall be reduced in the measure of our information even below the savage himself. It will be impossible for an inhabitant of the torrid zone to be assured that water can become solid as a rock; or for an Icelander to believe in the existence of an animal called a Negro. No number of witnesses, however credible, could establish such facts in the minds of those who have no recollection of seeing them.

      The sophistry of the whole reasoning of Hume on this subject is involved in this one period:--

      "TESTIMONY is not entitled to the least degree of faith, but as far as it is supported by such an extensive experience, as if we had not a previous and independent faith in testimony we never could have acquired."

      David Hume asserts--"A miracle, supported by any human testimony, is more properly a subject of derision than of argument;" p. 194. Again--"No testimony for ANY KIND OF MIRACLE can ever possibly amount to a probability, much less to a proof." Yet, page 203, he owns, "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." "Suppose," adds he, "all authors in all languages agree that from the 1st of January, 1700, 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 travelers who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation of contradiction, it is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting of that fact, ought to receive it for certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived."

      This same Mr. Hume asserts that "testimony has no evidence but what it derives from experience: these differ from each other only as a species from the genus."

      "The love of the marvelous," and "religious affection," are assigned as the great causes of imposition in matters of testimony concerning miracles and prodigies. Mr. Hume and other skeptics have in their constitution a little of the love of the marvelous; but instead of the religious affection, they have a strong religious antipathy. Hence, Mr. Hume says, "Should a miracle be ascribed to any new system of [273] religion, this very circumstance would be a full proof of a cheat, and sufficient with all men of sense, not only to make them reject the fact, but even reject it without further examination."

      "The violations of truth are more common," says the same author, "in the testimony concerning religious miracles." (Gratuitous declaration!) This "should make us from a general resolution never to lend attention to it, with whatever specious pretext it may be covered."

      Mr. Hume and other Free Thinkers preach implicit faith, and warn their followers of the danger of consulting reason. "Beware," says Hume, "of inquiring into the strength of the plea; for 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."

      Miracles are not aided in gaining credit by the religious affection; for all the Bible miracles, at least those in support of Christianity, are rather impaired by it. Miracles performed in proof of a religion to be established, and in contradiction to opinions generally received, and the evidence of miracles performed in support of a religion already established, and in confirmation of opinions generally received, are in the former case not aided by the religious affection; and in the latter case they are; but as is the advantage in the latter, so is the disadvantage in the former. Let this be weighed.

      If Mr. Hume's dogmas can be believed, or if his positions on testimony, evidence, and experience are to be admitted, then it follows (for this is his system in one sentence)--"It is impossible for the Almighty to give a revelation attended with such evidence that it can be reasonably believed in after ages, or even in the same age, by any person who has not been an eyewitness of the miracles by which it is supported."

      Dr. George Campbell, of Aberdeen, in his Essay upon Miracles, has made these and other positions of the celebrated Hume appear subjects of derision rather than of argument. I do not think there is to be found in the English language a more complete and masterly refutation of any system of error, than is the Essay upon Miracles of the system of Hume. Hume felt himself defeated--completely defeated. He never replied to it. And I have it from living testimony, that when Hume's friends jested him upon the complete defeat of his system, he acknowledged that "the Scotch theologue had beaten him." But such was his pride of understanding, that he did not publicly acknowledge his defeat in any other way than by never presuming to answer the Essay. It is mortifying to hear the dogmas of Hume brought forward by his skeptical disciples, and attempted to be passed current as oracular precepts, when their master dared not to defend them himself. There is not, from so able a pen, a more vulnerable position that that which is [274] the corner stone of the temple of skepticism. It is that on which Mr. Hume rears his fabric, viz: that every man's personal experience is to be the measure and standard of his faith. He that has never seen a whale cannot believe that there is one.

      No man can have any experience of the future. Query--How do we learn that the future will resemble the past?

      "Our belief of the continuance of the laws of nature cannot be founded either upon knowledge or probability," and is not derived from reason; and how comes it that Mr. Owen talks with so much certainty about what will come to pass hereafter? No man can speak of the future, pretending to any certain knowledge, but the Christian. Here the infidel's candle goes out, and except he obtains some oil from the lamp of revelation, he must continue in perpetual darkness.

      It was necessary, my friends, to introduce this brief analysis of the principal objections against the truth of the Christian miracles. You will easily perceive, that sentiments contained in my extract from Mr. Hume, are the reasons of Mr. Owen. Mr. Owen will not believe a miracle, because it is contrary to his experience--and for precisely the same reason, no people who had not traveled, could be made to believe that there existed on the face of the earth any other nation or country than their own.

      Lord Bacon himself lays the foundation for correcting our reasonings upon this, as well upon other subjects. Some of his aphorisms are:

      Man is ignorant of everything antecedent to observation.

      There is not a single department of inquiry in which a man does not err, the moment he abandons observation.

      The greater part of all human knowledge is derived from testimony, but testimony does no more than hand down to us the observations of others.

      What is science but a record of observed phenomena grouped together according to certain points of resemblance, which have been suggested by an actual attention to the phenomena themselves!

      In none of the inductive sciences can the student verify everything by his own observation; he must rely upon testimony for the large majority of facts. This is especially true in the natural sciences of geography, geology, and chemistry.

      These principles are not contrary to a single position we have taken in this discussion; indeed, our investigation has proceeded upon these as the basis of the laws of investigation.

      The great question, as Chalmers, I think, or some other very argumentative writer, states; the great question, on which the whole argument rests, is this: Shall we admit the testimony of the apostles, upon [275] the application of principles founded upon observation, and as certain as is our experience of human affairs; or shall we reject that testimony upon the application of principles that are altogether beyond the range of observation, and as doubtful and imperfect in their nature as is our experience of the counsels of Heaven?

      The former is founded upon EXPERIENCE, the latter upon ASSUMPTION; and here I make my stand, and say, Attack it who may--that our faith in Christianity is most certainly based upon experience--and infidelity upon assumption--upon ASSUMPTION throughout. If Mr. Owen call me not to account for this, I hope some person more philosophic than he, may yet do it. I will make the principles of the inductive philosophy, too, my rule and guide in this investigation.

      Mr. Owen has frequently told us of our extreme ignorance--but how emphatically does experience contradict Mr. Owen--only look at the improvements which have taken place in the lapse of the last three hundred years--and who have been their authors--who have laid the foundations?

[COD 269-276]