28
“Hopkins’ Lectures before The Lowell Institute,” The New-Englander, vol. 4, no. 15 (July 1846), pp. 401–10; selection from pp. 405–409.
[Noah Porter, Jr.]
The New-Englander was begun in 1843 by Edward Royall Tyler. It was a religious quarterly with a Congregationalist center, but published articles on a range of miscellaneous topics. The book under review here was by Mark Hopkins (1802–87), President of Williams College from 1836 to 1872. The full-title of Hopkins’s book is Lectures on the evidences of Christianity, before the Lowell Institute, January, 1844 (Boston, 1846). These were the first of Hopkins’s four Lowell lectures. The reviewer, Noah Porter (1811–92), was one of the magazine’s editors at the time of the review. Porter graduated from Yale College in 1831 and was called to the Clark Professorship of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics at Yale in 1847. On The New-Englander see API, p. 156; Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1850–1865 (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 312–15. On Hopkins see Robert D. Cross, “Mark Hopkins,” ANB, vol. 11, pp. 182–3; John Hopkins Denison, Mark Hopkins, a biography (New York, 1935) and Leverett Wilson Spring, Mark Hopkins, Teacher (New York, 1888). On Porter see Louise L. Stevenson, Scholarly Means to Evangelical Ends: The New Haven Scholars and the Transformation of Higher Learning in America, 1830–1890 (Baltimore, 1986).
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We come next to the consideration of Hume’s argument against the credibility of miracles, of which the author thus speaks: “Shall I then go on to state and answer that argument? I am not unwilling to do so, because it will, I presume, be expected; and because it is still the custom of those who defend Christianity to do so, just as it was the custom of British ships to fire a gun on passing the port of Copenhagen, long after its power had been prostrated, and its influence had ceased to be felt.” This illustration is a pleasant one, and with the author’s view of the thing to be illustrated, is very happy. It would not be so happy, however, if it should prove that his estimate of the position of the antagonist should be seen to be underrated, and the charge of his gun should prove to have been prepared under this impression. Nothing in our view can be more untrue, than that the power of this argument has “been prostrated, and its influence has ceased to be felt.” Hume’s argument is the argument, which is the back-bone of the current infidelity, both vulgar and refined, both unlearned and philosophical. You can not hear a low scoffer attempt to argue, who does not, in fact, advance it, even if he does not in form. And certainly the Rationalism of the present day — whose influence, we have heard, is not unfelt at Boston — rests upon it, as on its strong and almost its only ground. Whether unacknowledged or confessed, it is always proceeded upon.
In meeting this argument, Dr. Hopkins observes, “that Hume takes it for granted, that what we call a miracle is contrary to the uniformity of nature. Indeed, his own definition of a miracle is, that it is a violation of the laws of nature. But how can we know that what we call a miracle is not, in the highest and most proper sense, as natural as any other work? By the term natural, we mean stated, fixed, uniform. Whatever happens statedly, under given circumstances, is natural. In accordance with this definition, we call an event natural, though it happened but once in a thousand years, provided it come round statedly at the end of that time. But who can tell whether in the vast cycles of God’s moral Government, miracles may not have been provided for, and come in, at certain distant points, as statedly and uniformly, and therefore as naturally, as any thing else?” &c. This argument has become not uncommon of late, with writers of a certain class. We confess we do not see its force. We can not understand its drift. If it be put in good faith, as an expression of the real opinion of him who gives it as an answer, it is exposed to the very strong objection, that it countenances that reverence for the laws of nature, which, as Dr. Hopkins says, the opponents of Hume have so often conceded. “They permitted him, while arguing the question ostensibly on the ground of theism, to involve positions that are really atheistic. They have permitted him to give surreptitiously, to the mere physical laws of nature, a sacredness and permanence, which put them in the place of God.” What can tend to do this more effectually, than the justification of miracles on the ground, that they may be, for aught that we know, stated, uniform, and natural? This, however, is not the most serious objection to this argument. The whole value and force of a miracle, as giving credit to the man who works it, or the truth for which it is wrought, lies in the fact, that it is not “stated,” nor “uniform,” nor “natural,” but that for a specific object — the causa causarum can and does suspend the operation of his stated and uniform and natural way of action, in order to attest his sanction of a truth or a messenger. There is no need that provision should have been made beforehand, by interlocking into the machinery of the natural universe, an extra and accidental wheel, that should have been contrived from eternity to come in just at this critical moment, and yet revolve regularly and uniformly, only so as always to happen just when amiracle is needed. Not only is there no need of this contrivance, but the very suggestion of it destroys the force and interpretation which men put upon a miracle when wrought. If a friend of ours were raised from a sick bed, or called up from the sleep and corruption of death, and we were to say and to feel this is the direct agency of God, and to interpret its moral significance; and if just at this moment a philosopher should suggest, that it was occasioned by some law of the vital fluid, or some mysterious animal magnetism, which happened, in all regularity, to be present then, and effected this result; it would destroy the significance of the miracle, in spite of ourselves and of him. It is the ground also, which the anti-super-naturalism of the age rests upon. Its argument is, a miracle is a wonder. Whatever is a wonder to the eye of the observer, produces the effect of a miracle. Christ and his disciples wrought miracles, by their knowledge of laws which were hid from the knowledge of those ages, but which were natural and fixed notwithstanding. The suggestion of this, as an interpretation of the past, destroys the significance of the act, and robs it of its power to attest to us the truth of God. We feel that if this is so, there was a pious jugglery unworthy of God; a jugglery in his deeds which destroys our confidence in his words. It makes no difference, that in the one case the miracle worker knew the law of which to avail himself, and in the other both the worker and the spectators were ignorant of both, except that in the one case it is God, and in the other it is his messenger that imposes on us. The same impression is produced by such an argument as this of Dr. Hopkins, though for other reasons not in the same degree, as is wrought by the explanations of the miracles of Christ in Paulus, or Furness’ Life of Jesus. In this last book, the argument most frequent, is, that the sick were healed by the naturally curative power of faith, excited by the virtuous life and confident manner of Jesus.
We ought to say here, that Dr. Hopkins, in another place, takes precisely the view of the matter which we have done. When he asks, p. 34, “Do we believe in the existence of a personal God, intelligent and free? — not a God who is a part of nature, or a mere personification of the powers of nature, but one who is as distinct from nature as the builder of the house is from the house? Then we can find no difficulty in believing, that such a God may, at any time, when the good of his creatures requires it, change the mode of his operations and suspend those laws.” What is a little surprising to us is, that in the illustration designed to exhibit the other view, i.e. that of the possibility of miracles being natural, he in fact abandons the ground, and illustrates the very opposite doctrine. The provision for the reversal of the action of the locomotive, is, in no sense, designed for “stated and uniform and natural” use; nor does it call itself into action, just when this action is needed. It does not hold back the engine by self-adjustment, when the train pushes too hard, down a descending grade; or suddenly hold it up, when a collision is at hand; but it supposes an engineer to use it in junctures “neither stated, nor uniform, nor natural.” The illustration is fine, and it is a pity it was not put in the right place in the argument.
We are sorry not to see, in Dr. Hopkins’ direct consideration of Hume’s argument, what we conceive to be the real and the only sufficient answer to that argument. The argument is this — “It is contrary to experience, that the laws of nature should be suspended or reversed. But it is not contrary to experience, that men should be deceived, and utter falsehood. Moreover, it is according to experience, that, in respect to religion, men are prone to be credulous, to be imposed upon and to deceive. When, therefore, a miracle is said to have been performed, we set our experience of the uniformity of nature — against our experience of the fallibility of human testimony, and the former must weigh down the latter; or if it do not in respect to prodigies in nature, it must in respect to prodigies in religion.” The true answer to the argument, we think, to be this. “The argument is good in all ordinary cases; and not only is it sound, but it is the one which mankind unconsciously employ. We use it ourselves, in respect to the miracles of Mahomet, and of Joseph Smith, and of the ‘Holy coat of Treves.” But whenever it may be shown, that a miracle is demanded by the nature of the case, and that the doctrine revealed is worthy of the interposition, then not only may a miracle be believed, but not to believe it implies a spirit, not only unphilosophical but wicked. This is the case with the Christian miracles.” We are sorry that Dr. Hopkins did not assert and expand this argument. It is at once adapted to a miscellaneous audience, as it commends itself to the conscience and common sense of all thinking men. It is capable of endless expansion and illustration, and is altogether coincident with the favorite line of argument of the lecturer. This would have been a gun worth firing, at a fortress by no means dismantled or nominal; least of all in Boston.
We observe farther, in respect to this argument of Hume’s, that it was designed as an explanation of the practical rules of belief or disbelief, in regard to prodigies and miracles, or, in other words, the law of evidence, as employed by thinking men. It does not bear upon its face the finished assertion of ultimate and fundamental principles, in regard to the foundations of our confidence in the uniformity of nature, or in human testimony; but rather the law of actual procedure, for practical judgment, in specific cases. Taken in this view, it is a sound and useful canon, as it seems to us; and although we like not the sneer and heartlessness of the manner, there is great force in Hume’s cautions, in respect to miracles, said to be wrought for religion, as especially suspicious.
Had it been answered as it should have been, as a practical canon, rather than made a metaphysical puzzle, it would have been well. Had Hume’s opponents conceded the truth of what he said, and then retorted upon him the complex argument, from the nature of the doctrine as worthy of God; as commended to the conscience of man, and as thus enforcing a belief, on the grounds both of our confidence in nature and in testimony; this spectered ghost of an argument would long since have ceased to haunt the dreams of theologians, and to provoke their passes at its metaphysic shadow, which has proved
“as the air invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.”
Had the fortress been thus attacked, it would have long ago been a worse condition than that of Copenhagen, and would not have required the recognition of its former greatness, by the compliment even of a passing gun.
But this was not done, and for three reasons: — First, the doctrines were discussed metaphysically and not practically. Much learned dust was raised, to show what are the true grounds of our belief in the uniformity of nature; and extreme cases were ingeniously supposed, to prove that we might in some cases withdraw our confidence from her. The force of human testimony was dwelt upon, as being, under certain circumstances never likely to occur, absolutely overwhelming. Whereas, however useful this discussion has been in indirectly casting light on the dark places of metaphysical inquiry, and however potent the ghost of Hume was seen to be, in leading to the invention, as Chalmers says, of two instinctive laws of nature, in order to lay it, the argument was a practical one and ought to have been so considered. Secondly, the friends of Christianity were less used to metaphysics than their adversaries. Then, as now, it was the fashion to decry metaphysics, as useless if not wicked, and so to discourage the study of them; and in the time of need to rush to their aid, and find the ally, which in the time of security had been reproached and scorned, was slow to come to the rescue. Third, the sneer of Hume in the words, “our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason, and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is by no means fitted to endure,” was but too completely justified by the current language of many divines of his day. When they complained of it, he could point them to too many passages in their own writings, to leave them ground for complaint. To rest religion on reason, was then, as now, deemed by many dangerous and profane; and when the scoffer retorted, that there was no occasion for complaint against him for showing that it had no reason on which to rest, for that on their own principles reason was not necessary, he had the better of them for the moment.
It is remarked with great justice by Mill, in a critique on Hume’s argument, Logic, pp. 376, 7, Am. Ed., “It is now acknowledged, by nearly all the ablest writers on the subject, that natural religion is the necessary basis of revealed; that the proofs of Christianity presuppose the being and moral attributes of God; and that it is the conformity of a religion to those attributes, which determines whether credence ought to be given to its external evidences; that (as the proposition is sometimes expressed) the doctrine must prove the miracles, not the miracles the doctrine.”* After showing that these are the views of the New Testament, he adds, “There is no reason therefore that timid Christians should shrink from accepting the logical canon of the grounds of disbelief. And it is not hazarding much to predict, that a school which peremptorily rejects all evidences of religion, except such as, when relied upon exclusively, the canon in question irreversibly condemns; which denies to mankind the right to judge of religious doctrine, and bids them depend on miracles as their sole guide; must, in the present state of the human mind, inevitably fail, in its attempt to put itself at the head of the religious feelings and convictions of this country,” &c.
*We suppose the meaning of this last clause to be, that the doctrine must be such as to remove all presumption against the miracles, and thus fully to counteract all opposing evidence from the uniformity of nature’s laws, against the divine authority of the teacher; and that thus, while the truth of the doctrines does not, in all cases at least, depend on the miracles, it derives from them, the fuller confirmation of the divine sanction.