1

For The Continuum Companion to Hume, (eds.) A. Bailey & D. OBrien, (London: Continuum).

HUME ON MIRACLES

DUNCAN PRITCHARD & ALASDAIR RICHMOND

University of Edinburgh

1. HUMES ARGUMENT: READINGS & MIS-READINGS

Humes seminal Of Miracles (first Enquiry, Section X) still attracts heated discussion and
different interpretations of Humes argument persist. What is clear, however, is that Hume held
that rational beliefs in miracles based purely on testimony are (at very least) highly problematic.
In particular, anyone whose belief in a particular religious hypothesis is due purely to testimony
recorded hitherto that a miracle has occurred (miracle-testimony) has failed to form their beliefs
as Hume prescribes.
Despite its enduring popularity as an anthology piece, Of Miracles is not a stand-alone
work but one closely tied to Humes overall philosophical project. In particular, Of Miracles
should be considered against the background of Humes regulative theory of induction. Hume
famously did not believe that expectations that the future will resemble the past (or that the
unobserved must resemble the observed) could be justified in a way that was both rational and
non-circular. First, the principle of induction does not express any relation of ideas. The
contradiction of a relation of ideas is inconceivable (or nonsensical), whereas the contrary of any
induction, not matter how well-supported, is always conceivable: That the sun will not rise tomorrow
is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that
it will rise, (Hume, 1975, pp. 25-6). However, neither is the principle of induction a matter of
fact.i All inferences from experience must presuppose the principle of induction; hence that
principle is too fundamental to be justified by appeal to experience: All inferences from
 2

experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past (Hume 1975, p.
37). Likewise, attempts to justify induction by reference to the uniformity of nature face the
insuperable obstacle that any belief in such uniformity can itself only be justified by induction. So
while the principle of induction and the uniformity of nature are certainly not meaningless,
neither are they susceptible to rational, non-circular justification. However, Hume did not think
all inductions were on a par; still less did he advocate facing the future with inductive paralysis.
Creatures like us possess a kind of mental inertia that preserves our mental states in being.ii
Hence we instinctively project those regularities we observe. Furthermore, our expectation that
such regularities will continue should be proportional to the evidence in their favour: The
creature expects from the present object the same consequences, which it has always found in its
observation to result from similar objects (Hume 1975, p. 106).
Thus, Humes pragmatic solution to inductive scepticism urges the maintenance of due
proportion between degree of belief and evidence. However, even ideally well-confirmed
inductions may fail. While proportioning degree of belief to available evidence is the best we can
do, Nature need not conform to our inductions or vindicate our predictions. Inductive failure is
always conceivable and even a small degree of non-uniformity makes us hesitant in projecting
regularities. Therefore, there is a sharp distinction between unbroken regularities and those that
have admitted of exceptions. The projection of very widely-observed, uniform regularities is the
most powerful epistemic norm there is. So Hume is not recommending mere sceptical rejection
of inductive practices, but instead arguing that unaided reason is not the primary regulator of our
inductions. Equally importantly, Hume prescribes how induction should be regulated: while
widely supported, hitherto unbroken uniformities can always fail, we should have the strongest
degree of personal conviction that they will continueinterruptions are always possible but, prior
to experience, they should be incredible. Inductively wise creatures obey their projective instincts.
Crucially, Hume had a three-fold distinction between demonstrations, proofs and probabilities.
A demonstration is essentially a deductive argument, one appealing to relations between ideas.
(So Pythagoras Theorem would be amenable to demonstration). Proofs and probabilities are
inductive arguments, differing only in their evidential support. A proof is the strongest possible
argument from experiencei.e., the projection of a well-confirmed, hitherto exceptionless
regularity.iii (We have a proof that the Sun will rise tomorrowno exceptions are recorded and
many positive instances are). However, a probability involves projecting a well-supported but not
exceptionless regularity. (Thus, if your car has started on the first try some ninety-nine previous
 3

mornings out of a hundred, you should have a strong probability for its starting first try
tomorrow, but not a proof). So, odd though it may sound to modern ears, Humean proofs are
defeasible and may be opposed by greater proofs.iv When proofs conflict, we should incline our
beliefs to that proof with the better evidential support both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Key to Humes argument is that a miracle is characterised as a violation of the laws of
nature (Hume 1975, p. 114)i.e., an exception to one of the best-confirmed regularities we
possess. At times Hume seems to take this to be a complete characterisation.v There is a popular
but misleading interpretation of Of Miracles which well call the strong reading. On this view,
Hume argues a priori (i.e., by appealing to general principles) that testimony can never rationally
ground belief in miracles.vi That is, however strong the testimony, testimony cannot provide
compelling evidence for a miracle because any epistemic force the testimony has will inevitably
be outweighed by the evidence one has against the possibility of miracles. Taken in isolation,
parts of Of Miracles may favour this reading by suggesting there will always be more reason to
suppose testimony to a miracle should be rejected than that a miracle has occurred. Consider this
passage, for example:

[] no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be such of a kind, that
its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish. (Hume
1975, pp. 115-6)

On the strong reading, Hume claims that if we hear testimony to an event contrary to natural
law, then rationality obliges us to reject the testimony as unreliable. So if someone tells you Jesus
miraculously turned water into wine, you necessarily have more reason to reject the testimony
than to suppose this miracle occurred, and hence this testimony provides you with no rational
basis on which to believe this miracle took place. However, the strong reading is multiply
suspect. For one thing, it fails to account for passages where Hume explicitly allows that
testimony can make belief in a miracle rationally compelling.
Another popular misreading trivialises Humes case by making him claim that the very
concept of a miracle makes it a contradictory or impossible event. After all, if laws of nature are
defined as inviolable, then it trivially follows that transgressions of laws of nature are impossible,
and hence miracles must be impossible too. No wonder, then, that it would not be rational to
believe in miracles on a testimonial (or any other) basis! By ruling out miracles by definition, this
strategy would give opponents of miracles a suspiciously quick victory. However, this strategy is
demonstrably not Humes. Hume never argues that a miracle is (conceptually or otherwise)
 4

impossibleindeed he explicitly allows not only that miracles may occur but that they can (at
least in theory) be made the object of compelling testimony. Even the strong reading of Hume
does not reject the very idea of miracles, but appeals only to the balance of evidence against their
occurrence, given ones overwhelming grounds in support of the uniformity of nature and the
slender opposing grounds in favour of the miracle supplied by testimony. Consider this passage:

Hume is not arguing that the wise reject testimony for miracles because they recognise that
miracles are impossible by definition. Nor is he claiming that no-one could ever observe a miracle.
He is not missing the point by defining miracle in such a way that any event that actually occurs
or is observed, no matter how bizarre, would fail to be a miracle. (Garrett 1997, p. 152)

It is important to recognise that what miracles oppose is, for Hume, not an inviolable law of
nature, but rather the widely observed regularity of a natural uniformity. Thus, miracles on this
conception are certainly not impossible, but they are problematic objects of inference and things
which we should be at the very least reluctant to believe in.vii A useful summary is this:

Hume is speaking in descriptive mode, in which a law of nature is a type of phenomenon that has
so often been found to occur that, our innate expectations being of the kind they are, we cannot
help but assign it a maximal or near-maximal probability of always being repeated in the same
circumstances. There is, however, no implication that we are correct to do so. (Howson 2000, pp.
241-2).

As an example of correct proportionality between belief and evidence, consider Humes

(1975, pp. 113-4) Indian Prince. Having lived all his life in warm climes and never observed
water freeze, the Prince receives testimony that water can turn into ice. The Prince rejects this
testimony because ice runs so counter to his own observations and thus to what he believes are
the prevailing natural laws for water. Ice to the Indian Prince seems an impossible extrapolation
from waters observed behaviour. Hume argues the Prince has greater reason to reject the
testimony than to alter his beliefs in the light of this testimony, and hence he has reasoned
justly in rejecting such testimony (Hume 1975, p. 114). Of course, the Prince would not be
correct in clinging dogmatically to his rejection of ice if his evidential basis changede.g., if he
were transported to Muscovy and saw water become solid with his own eyes. However, when
the Princes sole evidential support for ice is testimonial, Hume clearly thinks rejecting such
testimony is more rational for the Prince than acceptance. When evaluating testimony, rationality
does not so much prescribe which beliefs are to be accepted, but rather how to change degrees of
belief in the face of new evidence. While the Prince reasoned to a false conclusion in rejecting
the existence of ice, he nonetheless updated his beliefs as rationally as his evidence permits:
 5

A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. In such conclusions as are found on
an infallible experience, he expects the event with the last degree of assurance, and regards his past
experience as a full proof of the future existence of that event. (Hume 1975, p. 110)

Note that the Prince is not being offered testimony to a miracle, since the testimony claims
only that water behaves differently in colder climes.viii In contrast, when someone testifies that a
miracle has occurrede.g., that someone has walked on waterthey explicitly claim that an
event contrary to natural law has taken place, and this makes it even harder to accept the
testimony:

On the one side we have wide and unproblematic testimony to the effect that when people step
into water they do not remain on its surface. On the other side we have isolated reports of people
walking on the surface of water. Given testimony of the first kind, how are we to evaluate
testimony of the second sort? The testimony of the first sort does not show that the testimony of
the second sort is false; it does, however, create a strong presumption!unless countered, a
decisively strong presumption!in favour of its falsehood. (Fogelin 2003, p. 20)

In opposing natural law, testimony to a miracle incurs a greater testimonial opposition than
would be the case if the event were merely unusual. The expectation that natural laws hold and
will continue to hold, although by no means infallible, is nonetheless among the most powerful
rational expectations there are, and any testimony that aims to overturn such expectations faces
an uphill task. Barring remarkably powerful testimonial evidence to the contrary, the rational
expectation must always be that natural laws are obeyed and that our reasoning from experience
must proceed analogically. For the Prince to believe in the existence of ice on the basis of
testimony alone would offend against correct analogical reasoning: The operations of cold upon
water are not gradual, according to the degrees of cold; but whenever it comes to the freezing
point, the water passes in a moment, from the utmost liquidity to perfect hardness (Hume 1975,
p. 114, fn. 1). It isnt merely that the Prince has not heard testimony that water doesnt turn to ice
in cold climates; rather the process attested to implies a failure of natural analogical reasoning.
Presumably the ice-testimony the Prince receives is not very detailedcloser to travellers
tales in effect. But what if a miracle is extremely well attested to? Suppose hundreds of putative,
mutually consistent witnesses testify. Wouldnt it then be entirely unreasonable to dismiss the
possibility that the miracle occurred? Hume is fully aware of this problem:

[] suppose, that all historians who treat of England, should agree, that, on the first of January
1600, Queen Elizabeth died [] and that, after being interred a month, she again appeared,
resumed her throne, and governed England for three years [] (Hume 1975, p. 128)

On the strong reading, Humes way of responding to such cases is not to weaken his stance in
 6

the context of the clear wealth of testimonial support in play. Instead, the strong reader would
have Hume argue that the extent of testimonial evidence on offer in these cases means only that
we should seek out the natural causes which gave rise to this extraordinary event and thereby
determine why so many people are under the false impression that a genuine miracle took place.
This would be akin to the Prince moving to Muscovy during the winter (Hume 1975, p. 114n)
in order to see if water does indeed turn to ice as has been alleged. What the Prince will discover
then is that there is nothing miraculous about this event at all, and hence no rational bar on this
score for supposing that the target event occurs. The additional strength of testimonial support
for the putatively miraculous event thus only has a bearing on the extent to which we are
rationally obliged to discover a natural cause for that event, as opposed to simply dismissing the
testimony tout court. Crucially, additional testimonial support cannot on the strong reading of Humes
view ever suffice to give us reason to think that a miracle has occurred.
While the strong reading has been (and remains) popular among Hume critics, it faces
multiple problems. The fundamental problem with the strong reading is simply that it relies on
partial readings of key passages in Of Miracles. Hume explicitly countenances at least the
possibility of a rationally formed, testimony-based, belief in the occurrence of a miracle:

I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say, that a miracle can never be proved,
so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own, that otherwise, 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. (Hume 1975, p. 127)

So clearly Hume believed (i) that miracles can occur and crucially, and (ii) that they can (at least
in theory) be the subject of rationally compelling testimony. Hume is concerned particularly with
those miraculous events that are capable of acting as support for a system of religioni.e.,
testimonial miracles, miracles that testify to the Divine mission, inspiration or guidance of a
miracle-worker. So what is at issue is whether miracle testimony could ever be good enough to
make a miracle the foundation of a religious hypothesis (a foundational miracle). Hume does
not merely mention the abstract possibility of acceptance-compelling miracle testimony, he goes
on to offer a detailed proposal for what an evidentially-compelling miracle might look like:

Thus, suppose, all authors, in all languages, agree, that, from the first of January 1600, 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 travellers, who return from foreign
countries, bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction: it is
evident, that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain,
and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, corruption, and
 7

dissolution of nature, is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon,
which seems to have a tendency towards that catastrophe, comes within the reach of human
testimony, if that testimony be very extensive and uniform. (Hume 1975, pp. 127-8)

Thus while Hume clearly thinks rational compelling testimony to miracles may be hard to come
by, nonetheless it is clearly not impossible, contra the strong reading. For example, testimony can
be compelling if it is very extensive and uniform, as it is in the eight days of darkness case in
contrast to the relatively parochial Queen Elizabeth case. (The latter miracle would be too
spatiotemporally localised to lend itself to the sort of testimony which would render it worthy of
belief). Likewise, the testimony can be compelling if it comes from widely separated witnesses
who otherwise have little in common and who are not partisans for a particular explanation of
the occurrence testified to, as opposed to (e.g.,) historians with a particular wish to glorify Queen
Elizabeth or to testify to divine endorsement of her policies. Even if Elizabeths resurrection was
universally endorsed by historians, the balance of proof would still favour scepticism.
Thus, the strong reading fails. Provided the above restrictions are met, testimony can be
sufficient to support a rationally held belief in miracles.ix Nonetheless, while interruptions to the
ordinary course of nature are not impossible, our epistemic nature being what it is, such
interruptions will be (and ought to be) incredible, all else being equal. In most conceivable, and
maybe all recorded, cases, we would do better to reject the testimony than believe a miracle has
occurred. Hume thus believes that testimony to a miracle will almost certainly not be of
sufficient quality and quantity to make belief rationally compelling. Furthermore, even granted
belief in the miracle itself is compelling, its exceedingly unlikely, if not impossible, for the
testimony to be so powerful as to make it rational to believe that the miracle in question testifies
uniquely to the truth of a particular religious hypothesis. Call this the weak reading.x
While the strong reading does seem to have some textual support in its favour, it fails to
pay due attention to two key, and related, features of Humes approach. The first is the
essentially empirical nature of Humes discussion. Hume is at least as much concerned to offer an
adequate description of our epistemic and evidential practices as he is to legislate for those
practices. The second concerns the need to distinguish sharply between Humes treatment of
miracles per se, and his treatment of specifically religious miraclesviz., a miracle involving a divine
intervention into the natural order, such as might serve as the foundation of a system of
religion (Hume 1975, p. 127). This last restrictioni.e., to miracle-testimony aimed at
supporting a particular religious hypothesisis very important and, contrary to Humes own
cautions, one often ignored by critics.
 8

It is tempting to regard Hume as aiming to offer some sort of a priori limitation on what it
is reasonable to believe regarding miracles. After all, a good deal of what he says, particularly in
Part 1, is seeming general reflection on the nature of the epistemology of testimony as it applies
to miracles. Crucially, however, it would be utterly contrary to the general sprit of Humes
philosophy to establish a matter of fact in any a priori fashion, and hence we should be
immediately suspicious of this way of reading him. The example of the eight-day darkness bears
this suspicion out, since Hume is clearly not ruling out the possibility of a testimony-based
rational belief in the existence of a miracle tout court. Instead, in offering general remarks on the
nature of testimony, Hume argues that the rational bar is set extremely high for testimony-based
beliefs about miracles. He then appeals to empirical facts about cases where miracles are testified
to and argues that it would be exceedingly hard for any testimony-based belief in miracles to
clear this bar. Hume does not forbid miracles a priori or think such occurrences could never
under any conceivable circumstances be made the object of rationally compelling testimony.
Rather, reflection on correct epistemic practice reveals that the hurdle facing miracle-testimony is
so steep that in practice theres a negligible likelihood that real miracle-testimony can be found
which is compelling.
This brings us to the second point, for Hume is quite clear that there are empirical grounds
for treating our testimony-based beliefs in the existence of specifically religious miracles as even
more epistemically dubious than testimony-based beliefs in the existence of non-religious
miracles. It is one thing to come to believe, on the extensive testimonial basis described, that the
Earth was plunged into darkness for eight days, contrary to ones current understanding of the
natural order. It is another thing to believe that this event was a religious miracle, since this will
impose an additional epistemic burden. As Robert Fogelin puts it:

With respect to miracles, Humes strategy is to use the canons of causal reasoning to evaluate
testimony brought forward in their behalf. Because, for him, no matter of fact can be established a
priori, it remains an open, though remote, possibility that testimony could establish the occurrence
of a miracle. That is the point of the discussion of the eight days of darkness. With respect to
miracles intended to serve as the foundation of a religion, the situation, according to Hume, is
factually difference. When we examine the testimony brought forward on their behalf, we see that it
has uniformly failed to meet appropriate standards of acceptability. (Fogelin 2003, p. 62)

When dealing with testimony-based beliefs regarding (mere) miracles versus those regarding
specifically religious miracles, the issue is fundamentally an empirical one related to whether
there is sufficient epistemic support for the testimony-based belief in question to clear the bar
Hume lays down for it. Humes claim, however, is that any testimony-based belief in a miracle
 9

which is also saddled with the burden of a religious explanation would require an even greater
degree of epistemic support to clear this bar, and so faces an even stiffer challenge (one which it
is hard, if not impossible, to see any actual belief being able to satisfy in practice).
Another difficulty for the strong reading of Humes thesis is that it implies that the
business of Of Miracles is effectively completed by the end of Part 1. In Part 1, Hume proposes
a criterion for what counts as a miracle and points out that testimony to a miracle is of its very
nature testimony to an occurrence that violates one of our best-supported regularities. However,
while Part 1 argues that the evidential benchmark for miracles is set very high, it does not
establish that this benchmark is impossibly high or unattainable in practice. Part 1 at least leaves
open the theoretical possibility of compelling testimony to the occurrence of miracles. Thus, Part
1 draws out a conflict between two intuitions: one that testimony is ordinarily worthy of high
(nay decisive) epistemic credit and another that scepticism about the continuance of laws of
nature is hard to sustain. These two intuitions ordinarily command our assent without coming
into conflict. Thus, the problem posed by miracle-testimony is that of how to adjudicate between
two ordinarily compelling intuitions forced into stark confrontation.
Fogelin (2003) argues that Part 1 aims only to emphasise this tension and does not
pronounce on how it should be resolved. Part 2 then develops the case against miracles by
invoking empirical considerations about observed testimony to extraordinary events. In Part 2,
Hume offers empirical grounds why testimony to miracles is likely to be especially
untrustworthy. For example, human beings want to believe that miracles occur because this leads
to agreeable emotions (Hume 1975, p. 117), and this may explain why history is littered with
stories of forged miracles:

The many instances of forged miracles, and prophesies and supernatural events, which, in all ages,
have either been detected by contrary evidence, or which detect themselves by their absurdity,
prove sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and the marvellous, and
ought reasonably to beget a suspicion against all relations of this kind. (Hume 1975, p. 118)

Hume also argues that civilised societies move away from supernatural and/or miraculous
explanations:

It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are
observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilised people has ever
given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant
and barbarous ancestors, who transmitted them with that inviolable sanction and authority, which
always attend received opinions. (Hume 1975, p. 119)

Hume is thus arguing that the development of civilisationand thus the rejection of ignorant
 10

and barbarous traditionsinvolves curtailing the natural impulse towards treating events as
miracles. Hume then allows himself a little sarcasm:

It is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say, [] that such prodigious events never happen in our days. But it
is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in all ages. (Hume 1975, pp. 119-20)

Thus far, of course, these empirical grounds against accepting testimony to miracles will
apply to any miracle. Hume clearly thinks, however, that empirical concerns about testimony are
especially acute when it comes to specifically religious miracles. Of their very nature, religious
miracles are often promoted to favour a particular cause, and thus we can reasonably attribute
substantial self-interest to those putting forward the initial testimony. But as Hume (1975, pp.
120-1) makes clear, where self-interest is involved in testifying to miracles, one should be wary of
that testimony. Moreover, because miracles are often associated with particular religions (or
sects) it is unsurprising that there is in fact a great deal of conflict in the kind of miracle reports
that are found in the great religions, (Hume 1975, pp. 121-2). Contrariety to natural laws already
places a stiff burden of proof on miracle enthusiasts, but applying our knowledge of human
psychology to such testimony makes the evidential situation still worse. We know people tend to
embellish stories likely to incite wonder. Miracle-testimony is usually at several removes from
witnessesi.e., it testifies to miracles far away and/or long ago.xi Furthermore, the diversity of
miracle-reports from different religious traditions reduces the force of miracle-testimony in any
particular case. Finally, there are natural explanations for why people want to believe in
specifically religious miracles:

The wise lend a very academic faith to every report which favours the passion of the reporter;
whether it magnifies his country, his family, or himself, or in any other way strikes in with his
natural inclinations and propensities. But what greater temptation than to appear as a missionary, a
prophet, an ambassador from heaven? Who would not encounter many dangers and difficulties, in
order to attain so sublime a character? Or if, by the help of vanity and a heated imagination, a man
has first made a convert of himself, and entered seriously into the delusion; who ever scruples to
make use of pious frauds, in support of so holy and meritorious cause? (Hume 1975, p. 125)

Religious believers face temptations that testifiers to merely secular extraordinary occurrences do
not face. To appear as the medium of Divine revelation might tempt otherwise utterly
scrupulous witnesses to embroider, distort, omit or invent. The point here is two-fold. On the
one hand, nothing would exercise the passions as much as being able to present oneself as a
witness to a religious miracle. On the other hand, if one is already inflamed with religious
passion, one has reason to accept testimony in support of a religious miracle, regardless of any
epistemic basis for supposing this testimony reliable. Both considerations offer specific empirical
 11

grounds against trusting testimony concerning the occurrence of religious miracles.

There is another reason why Hume thinks that any actual miracle-testimony thus far
recorded cannot support religious hypotheses, and this is that miracle-traditions are live parts of
the traditions of a host of competing and mutually exclusive religious faiths: [A]ll the prodigies
of different religions are to be regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of these prodigies,
whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other (Hume 1975, p. 122). Inevitably, different
faiths will make different claims about the doctrines to which their miracles testify. Of course, it
is conceivable that the Divinity might depute miracle-working power to several miracle-workers.
(After all, Acts 8: 18-20 never describes Simon Magus, the sorcerer who tried to buy spiritual
power from Peter, as attempting the logically impossible). However, the possibility of disparate
miracle workers is something Hume does not need to rule out a priori. Hume might retort that
several miracle-workers performing miracles in support of different faiths is of itself enough to
undercut the claim that performing a miracle uniquely testifies to one particular faith. It is in this
sense that Hume clearly regards testimony to miracles in support of different faiths as mutually
destructive. However, it isnt clear that reports of miracles from different traditions are logically in
conflict, even if the religions thereby supported make conflicting claims.
So despite some textual support for the strong reading, the evidence actually supports the
weaker reading. Crucially, however, the weak reading is just as challenging to the idea that one
should have a rationally held, testimony-based, belief in the occurrence of a miracle, much less a
religious miracle. For even if it is possible for such a belief to be rationally held, the epistemic bar
that must be cleared in order for this to be the case is so high that it is hard to see how,
practically speaking, any belief could clear it nor that any belief actually has cleared it.xii
In what follows we will explore some further issues of relevance in this regard, beginning
with the supposed import Humes remarks on the epistemology of testimony-based belief in
miracles have been thought to have for the epistemology of testimony in general.

2. HUME & THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TESTIMONY

In the contemporary epistemological literature Hume is often characterised as holding a rather

radical view about the epistemology of testimony. According to this interpretationpopularised
by C. A. J. Coady (1973; 1992)Humes remarks about testimony-based belief concerning
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miracles reveals a general reductionist view about the epistemology of testimony-based belief.
There are a number of competing ways of drawing the reductionism/anti-reductionism
distinction in the contemporary epistemological literature on testimony, but very roughly
reductionism holds that the epistemic standing of a testimony-based belief must ultimately be
completely traced back to, and hence in this sense reduced to, non-testimonial sources, while anti-
reductionism denies this claim.xiii In practice, reductionism means that agents can never simply
rely on testimony if they want to have beliefs which enjoy appropriate epistemic support.
Instead, they must always seek independent grounds in favour of the target belief. So, for
example, in order to form an epistemically sound belief on the basis of testimony one requires
such independent grounds as, for instance, previous first-hand experience of the reliability of this
informant on this subject matter and collateral information regarding the plausibility of the
proposition testified to.
There is a good rationale that can be offered for reductionism. For one thing, it is widely
held that testimony is only a transmissive, and thus not a generative, source of knowledge. That is,
testimony can only at best transfer knowledge that has already been acquired, but cannot be used
to acquire new knowledge (testimony is held to be similar to memory on this score).xiv If thats
right, then it seems that the epistemic status of a testimony-based belief must be ultimately
derived from a non-testimonial source. Moreover, as Elizabeth Fricker (1987; 1994; 1995) has
argued, to reject reductionism is, it seems, to put an epistemic premium on gullibility. Why
should the mere fact that someone testifies that p give you any epistemic basis, however modest,
for believing that p?
There also seems good reason for thinking that Humes argument against the rationality
of testimony-based beliefs in the existence of miracles draws upon a reductionist account of the
epistemology of testimony. Consider, for example, the following oft-cited passage:

[] our assurance in [testimony] is derived from no other principle than our observation of the
veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the reports of witnesses.
(Hume 1975, p. 111)

Here Humes sympathy with reductionism appears perfectly clear: we only gain epistemic
support from testimony when we have an independent basis for the belief so formed, such as
from our first-hand observations about the veracity of human testimony.
The key problem with reductionism, however, is that it appears to entail that not only are
we unable to gain epistemically well-grounded beliefs about the occurrence of miracles, but also
 13

about much else besides. After all, a great deal of our beliefs were acquired through testimony,xv
and yet in a large number of cases not only do we have no practical independent (i.e., non-
testimonial) means of verifying the target proposition but we also cannot even remember what
the particular testimonial source of our belief was. Accordingly, it seems that reductionism
entails a fairly widespread scepticism about the epistemology of testimonial belief.
Right now, for example, I believe!indeed, I think I know!that the Orinoco river flows
through Venezuela, but although I know this belief must have been acquired via testimony, I
havent the slightest recollection of the circumstances in which it was acquired. As such, I can
hardly have any independent epistemic basis for trusting the testimonial source for this belief.
Moreover, although I have various means at my disposal for checking this belief, unless I actually
take the trouble to travel to South America to determine the matter in person, I will almost
certainly need to depend on further instances of testimony, such as an atlas or the testimony of a
colleague, in carrying out these checks. Hence, it is hard to see how I could rationally hold this
belief by reductionist lights. But what applies to this belief will also apply to many other beliefs
that I hold. The upshot is that if reductionism is true then we have far less epistemically well-
grounded testimony-based beliefs than we tend to suppose.
In itself, of course, this is a fairly indecisive strike against reductionism. After all, perhaps
we do know a lot less than we thought we do. Still, reductionism is a contentious thesis in the
literature on the epistemology of testimony, with the dominant camp being by far anti-
reductionism.xvi Accordingly, insofar as we treat Humes argument against the rationality of
testimony-based beliefs in the existence of miracles as trading on this thesis then that might be
thought to be a pretty serious count against it. Fortunately for Hume, however, it is clear on
closer inspection that not only does his argument against the rationality of testimony-based belief
in miracles not trade on reductionism, but it is also questionable whether he assents to this
general thesis about the epistemology of testimony anyway. We will take these points in turn.
The first point can be established by noting that the anti-reductionist could quite
consistently endorse Humes argument against the rationality of a testimony-based belief in the
existence of miracles (on either the strong or the weak reading). After all, what is key to anti-
reductionism is only the claim that in epistemically suitable circumstances one can gain an epistemically
well-founded testimony-based belief even while lacking the full independent epistemic support
demanded by reductionism. That is, while the reductionist demands that independent epistemic
support is always required for a testimony-based belief to be rationally held, the anti-reductionist
 14

demurs and argues that at least sometimes!i.e., in epistemically propitious circumstances!such

a belief can be rationally held even in the absence of independent epistemic support. It is thus
open to the anti-reductionist to claim that the testimonial beliefs at issue when it comes to
miracles arent formed in the required conditions and hence cannot benefit from the greater
epistemic permissiveness of the anti-reductionist thesis.xvii
Indeed, there is in fact every reason for thinking that an anti-reductionist would be
sensible to take this line when it comes to testimony-based beliefs in the existence of miracles.
For given that miracles are by their nature the kind of event that doesnt normally
occur!indeed, as we noted above, on a certain conception of miracles (though not the one that
Hume had in mind) they may well be the kind of event that cannot occur!it follows that there is
always a standing reason to doubt the veracity of testimony regarding miracles. The kind of
testimonial cases that the anti-reductionist wants to protect from the zealous epistemic strictures
of reductionism, however, are precisely those where there is no standing basis for doubt. It is
one thing to argue that in good epistemic conditions one can gain an adequate epistemic basis for
ones testimony-based belief even while lacking any independent support for that belief, and
quite another to claim that an adequate epistemic basis can be had without independent support
where the epistemic conditions are problematic in some way. The case of testimony regarding
the occurrence of a miracle clearly falls into the second, problematic, category, on account of
there being in such a case a standing doubt about the veracity of the testimony in question. In
such instances the anti-reductionist might well demand!indeed, would be wise to
demand!that the agents concerned should seek independent grounds for their belief.
Moreover, note that making the reductionist demand for independent epistemic support
in the specific case of testimony regarding miracles would not settle the matter of whether a
belief in this regard could be rationally held. For as the eight days of darkness example
illustrates, once the wealth of testimonial becomes particularly extensive it is far from clear that
one does lack an independent basis for taking the testimony at face-value. After all, one can
determine on a priori grounds that where there is a uniform convergence in the testimony
regarding a significant event that is offered by all people of all civilised nations, then that is a
good epistemic basis on which to also form a belief in this proposition, even if one cannot verify
the truth of that proposition oneself. Accordingly, even if we were to apply reductionist
standards to testimony-based belief in the existence of miracles, its still not obvious that this
would thereby necessarily prevent such a belief from being rationally held.
 15

This brings us to our second point, which is that it is questionable whether Hume would
in any case assent to the general reductionist thesis regarding the epistemology of testimony. The
foregoing should make it clear why. For if Humes argument against the rationality of testimony-
based belief in the existence of miracles is compatible with anti-reductionism, then clearly we
have no grounds for concluding, on the basis that Hume appears to apply reductionist standards
in this particular case, that he is in general in favour of reductionism. Indeed, we could just as
well conclude on this basis that he is an anti-reductionist.

3. BAYESIAN VERSIONS OF HUMES ARGUMENT

It remains disputed whether Humes argument embodies correct probabilistic reasoning and
whether it can be reconstructed in Bayesian terms. Responses here can be sharply polarised.xviii
Bayesianism takes its name from Humes near-contemporary, the Reverend Thomas Bayes
(1702-61), whose ideas about probability were first published posthumously in 1763 by Humes
correspondent Richard Price (1723-91). Bayes Theorem aims to quantify how degree of belief in
a hypothesis should vary in the light of new evidence (e.g., that better-supported theories should
receive greater belief). In its simplest form, Bayes theorem says that the probability a hypothesis
receives conditional upon evidence equals the likelihood of the evidence if the hypothesis is true
multiplied by the hypothesiss prior probability and divided by the evidences prior probability.
More formally:

Pr(H|e) = Pre|H) Pr(H)

Pr(e)

So, we want to determine the posterior probability testimony (t) confers on a miracle (M)i.e.,
Pr(M"t). Probabilities range between 0 and 1, 0 corresponding to certain falsehood and 1 to
certain truth. One popular misreading sets Humes prior probability for a miraclei.e., Pr(M)
at 0, from which normal Bayesian conditionalisation inevitably dictates that Pr(M"t) = 0.xix
However, setting Pr(M) = 0 treats Humes proofs as indefeasible and conflicts with the eight
days of darkness example. Setting Pr(M) = 0 foists onto Hume principles he didnt hold.
Consider this quotation, for example:

To understand the structure of Humes argument, it is helpful to try to specify the form that
Hume thinks inductive reasoning follows. As a starting point, recall Reichenbachs straight rule of
 16

induction: if n As have been examined and m have found to be Bs, then the probability that the
next A examined will be B is m/n. Corollary: If m = n, then the probability that the next A will be
a B is 1. A (Hume) miracle is a violation of a presumptive law of nature. By Humes straight
rule of induction, experience confers a probability of 1 on a presumptive law. Hence the
probability of a miracle is flatly zero. Very simple. And very crude. (Earman 2000, pp. 22-3).

And very hard to square with Humes text.xx Hume cant accord extremal (0 or 1) probabilities to
any empirical outcome and the straight rule is not Humean.xxi
Although Hume talks of testimony establishing a miracle, this doesnt mean testimony
must support a miracle beyond all (reasonable) doubti.e., such that Pr(M"t) = 1. Rather, the
occurrence of M is confirmed if t makes it more probable than not that M occurredi.e., if the
balance of probabilities favours M rather than M. Therefore, M is established by testimony if
Pr(M"t) > 0.5. In turn, Pr(M"t) > 0.5 if Pr(t & M) < Pr(M) Pr(t"M). We can safely assume
Pr(t"M) = 1i.e., had M occurred then testimony to that effect would certainly have been
forthcoming (Howson 2000, p. 244). If M is to support a particular religious hypothesis, then
presumably testimony to M must be forthcoming, given plausible assumptions about the raison
dtre of miracles. Therefore, following Peter Millican (1993, p. 490), Humes rule is:

Pr(M"t) > 0.5 Pr(M"t) > Pr(~M"t)xxii

Of Miracles requires two distinct arguments: first, that the prior probability of a miracle will be
low, and second, that testimony to the occurrence of a miracle is likely to be forthcoming even if
no miracle occurred.xxiii (Conclusions Hume derives in Parts 1 and 2 respectively). Therefore,
Pr(M) should be very low and Pr(t & M) very high; hence its very unlikely Pr(M"t) > 0.5.
Humes argument would be incomplete had he only argued for low Pr(M)he also needs
reasons for high Pr(t"M). For example, if we have very low Pr(M) yet think it very unlikely t
would be forthcoming if M hadnt happened, Pr(M"t) can still be as close to 1 as desired.
Critics of Hume often object that testimony might come from so many independent
observers that the possibility of collusion or honest mistake can be made arbitrarily low and
therefore Pr(M"t) raised arbitrarily close to 1.xxiv However, this Bayesian point is neither
damaging to Hume nor one Hume need query. As noted above, Hume held that miracles can be
objects of compelling testimony. The crucial point is whether we think Hume thought testimony
can never establish a foundational miracle or (a weaker conclusion) that testimony has never established
a foundational miracle. Even if we allow that miracles might (theoretically) be made the subject
of compelling testimony in a way that supports a particular religious hypothesis, we might then
 17

look at the historical credentials of (e.g.,) Biblical miracles. Imagine that all nations around the
Red Sea recorded the miraculous destruction of Pharaohs armies, that all nations recorded that
the Sun had halted over Gibeon,xxv or that Roman historians recorded that Christ resurrected
Lazarus before Tiberius. In such cases, the evidential position would be far better quantitatively
and qualitatively than in any actual Biblical case. Whether or not the historical David Hume
would have become a believer had such (counterfactual) testimony existed, a Humean could set
the evidential benchmark at this level without in any way contradicting Humes principles.
Believers in miracles might wonder why actual miracle-testimony isnt better. Any finite amount
of testimony could (theoretically) be improved upon.
However, the question is not Why does actual miracle testimony admit any possibility of
doubt?, but rather Why is actual miracle testimony so impoverished?. Remember that Humes
main conclusion is not that miracles cannot be established by testimony but that they (almost
certainly) cant be so established as to support a system of religion. From responses to criticism,
clearly Hume regarded compelling miracle testimony as a hypothetical possibility, and far from
an actuality:

There is no contradiction in saying, that all the testimony which ever was really given for any
miracle, or ever will be given, is a subject of derision; and yet forming a fiction or supposition of a
testimony for a particular miracle, which might not only merit attention, but amount to a full proof
of it. (Letter to Hugh Blair 1761; see Hume 1932, Vol. 1, p. 349).

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

The above aims to situate Humes account of testimony regarding miracles in the context of his
views of correct inductive practice, to guard against some popular misunderstandings, to explore
how far Hume can be regarded as a reductionist about testimony, and to offer a few remarks on
the relevance of Bayesianism to Humes argument. The history of Of Miracles suggests that
certain misreadings of Hume are too tempting to stay buried for very long, and no doubt claims
will continue to be made that Humes account of miracles contradicts his philosophy of
induction, or that he achieves a cheap victory by defining miracles out of existence. However,
these claims are proving harder to sustain as time passes.
Besides its continuing relevance to philosophy of religion and the epistemology of
testimony, Of Miracles remains a key source for Humes positive account of induction and a
useful counter to any views that would dismiss Hume as an unreconstructed sceptic or
 18

unreflective scoffer. Hume anticipates in important ways the increasing trend to naturalistic, even
evolutionary, explanations of our cognitive strategies and their success. Although by no means
immune to criticism, Humes Of Miracles is in no danger of triviality or obsolescence.xxvi

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 19

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NOTES
i
While Humes relations of ideas and matters of fact resemble analytic and empirical truths respectively, the pairs
of terms are not synonymous. See Ott (2009, pp. 200-3).
ii
Hume sought to extend Newtonian mechanical description of physical phenomena into the science of the mind.
Thus, continuity of mental habits may not merely resemble inertial persistence of motion, but may be another instance
of the same phenomenonsee Buckle, (2001, pp. 1-31).
iii As he puts it, proofs are arguments from experience as leave no room for doubt or opposition (Hume 1975, p.

56n).
iv
[I]t may well seem strange that Hume should use the word proof for an argument which he acknowledges to be
fallible, i.e., non-demonstrative. However, Humes training and later employment as a lawyer would make it much
more natural for him to use the word in its original and legal sense rather than in its now familiar (to philosophers
anyway) mathematical and logical sense. In a legal context, proof is a matter of degree and a probable argument, in
Humes sense, can be thought of as yielding a partial proof (Gower 1991, p. 4n, emphasis in original).
In any case, Hume here arguably follows our ordinary language usage of proof: we would normally think it
an entirely adequate proof that there are at least three misprints on a page simply to point out three separate
misprints (cf. Moore 1939, p. 275). According to Buckle (2001, p. 7), for Hume: A proof is not a demonstration,
not a deductively valid argumentand therefore not what we would call a proof. Buckle delineates two Humean
kinds of proofs: (i) where no doubt is possible, such as G. E. Moores external world proof; and (ii) the limit case
of probable argument, since it is that conclusion drawn from experience where the uniformity of experience is
unalloyed (Buckle 2001, p. 8). For more on Humes proofs, see Fogelin (2003, pp. 13-17).
v
At one point Hume (1975, p. 115n) does suggest that the putative transgression of natural law must be brought
about by a supernatural agent:
A miracle may accurately be defined, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity,
 20

or by the interposition of some invisible agent.

On this definition, a transgression of natural law brought about in some arbitrary fashion would not count as a
miracle. We set this complication aside henceforth, not least because Hume describes alleged miracles which involve
no supernatural agency, appear perfectly secular and have no apparent volitional origine.g., Queen Elizabeths
imaginary resurrection (Hume 1975, p. 128).
vi
See, e.g., Coleman (1988) and Fogelin (1990). Note that in more recent work Fogelin (2003) rejects this reading.
vii
For more on the notion of a miracle, see Holland (1965), Young (1972), Levine (2005) and Corner (2009).
viii
One might say that ice for the Prince is marvellous (or extraordinary), and not miraculousi.e., an exception to,
not contradictory of, a law of nature. With ice: Contrariety would lie in its going solid at a tropical temperature,
whereas Resurrection involves more than an extension of the complex processes of nature: it involves something
close to a reversal of those processes (Stewart 1994, pp. 194 & 195). Likewise, Other miracle stories, such as
turning one substance into another, do not present the same shock to the system, the same undoing of the past, that
resurrection stories do (ibid., p. 195). However, how far Hume can justifiably draw a miracles/marvels distinction is
controversial. For views con and pro see (e.g.,) Coady (1992, ch. 10) and Coleman (2001), respectively.
ix Indeed, in the first of the two passages just cited Hume explicitly suggests that testimony can provide a proof

of the target event. To the modern ear it might sound as though Hume intended a deductive, and thus indefeasible,
epistemic basis for the belief so formed, but as weve already noted above, this is not what Hume had in mind when
he talked of proofs.
x
The locus classicus for this reading is Fogelin (2003). See also Flew (1959; 1997). Textual evidence suggests Hume
originally thought testimony to a miracle could never make belief in a particular religious hypothesis compelling but
later adopted the softer view that testimony to a miracle has never made belief in a particular religious hypothesis
compelling. A crucial shift in wording comes in the third (1756) edition of the first Enquiry. In 1756, Hume says no
testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof (Hume, 1975, p. 127),
rather than using the earlier (1748 and 1750) formulation no testimony for any kind of miracle can ever possibly
amount to a probability (emphasis added).
xi
In this regard, Hume implicitly refers to the argument found in John Craigs Theologiae Christianae Principia
Mathematica (1699), that the longer the chain of testimony the less assurance it gives of the fact that a miracle had
occurred (Wilson 1989, p. 256). Craig calculated that any testimony-derived probability for Christianity would reach
zero in c. 3150, and hence that this was a plausible date for the Second Coming. See Stigler (1986).
xii
For a nice overview of Humes argument against the reasonableness of testimony-based beliefs regarding the
existence of miracles, see Russell (2005, 6).
xiii
For more on the reductionism/anti-reductionism distinction in the epistemology of testimony, see Pritchard
(2004) and Lackey (2010).
xiv
See Lackey (2006) for a critique of this view of testimony.
xv
As Hume (1975, p. 111) says: there is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary
to human life, than that which is derived from the testimony of men, and the reports of eye-witnesses and
spectators. All else being equal, testimony has, and should have, exceptionally powerful epistemic force.
xvi
For some of the main defences of anti-reductionism, see Coady (1973; 1992), Burge (1993), Foley (1994) and
McDowell (1994). For a recent discussion of how best to draw this contrast, see Pritchard (2004). For an excellent
and up-to-date overview of the literature on the epistemology of testimony, see Lackey (2010).
xvii
Fogelin seems to have this point in mind when he claims that Humes reflections on the epistemology of
testimony-based beliefs in the existence of miracles can be presented equally well within both a reductionist and an
anti-reductionist account of the epistemology of testimony. See Fogelin (2003, pp. 4-10 & esp. n3).
xviii
Witness the title of Earman (2000).
xix
Sobel (1987, p. 176) suggests that Pr(M"t) = i /(i + Pr(~M & t)), where i is a positive infinitesimal. However:
Sobel treats our assurance in a law of nature as having probability infinitely close to one, and the
corresponding violation as infinitely close to zero. I prefer to think of Humes notion of proof as being
simply an argument with very high probability indeed. This allows there to be such a thing as a superior
proof without resort to the un-Humean notion of infinitely close to, and thus allows one to treat seriously
Humes important example of the real possibility of being convinced that the earth was covered in darkness
for eight days. (Owen 1987, p. 189n)
xx For a countervailing view to Earman (2000), see Fogelin (2003) passim.
xxi
Cf. Projection: when all the observed experiments lead to the same outcome O, there is probability 1 that an
unobserved experiment leads to O (Mura 1998, p. 311). Humes view of Projection seems close to that of Carnap,
who did not view projection as an axiom of inductive logic, because in his view it is completely counterintuitive.
Indeed, Carnap referred to it only as an illustration of the severe disadvantages of the straight rule (Mura, ibid).
 21

xxii
Sobel (1991, p. 232) summarises Hume thus: Pr(t) > 0 & Pr(M"t) > Pr(M) > Pr(t & ~M) (substituting M
and t for Millicans and Sobels A and respectively).
xxiii
A consequence of Bayess theorem is that Pr(M/t) = Pr(M & t)/Pr(t)i.e., the posterior probability conferred
on M by t equals the prior probability of the joint occurrence of M and t, divided by the prior probability of t.
xxiv
Howson (2000, p. 245) credits this insight to Charles Babbage (1791-1871). See the extracts from Babbages
Ninth Bridgewater Treatise in Earman (2000, pp. 203-12).
xxv
The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day (Joshua, 10: 13,
Revised Standard Version). Although Hume doesnt say so explicitly, this planetary-scale miracle presumably stands
to the eight days of darkness rather as the resurrections of Lazarus and Jesus do to the resurrection of Elizabeth I.
xxvi
We are grateful to the editors of this volume for inviting us to contribute a piece on this topic. This paper was
written while DHP was in receipt of a Philip Leverhulme Prize.