In this reference to Transubstantiation, it is very apparent that Hume’s concern is more of a display of his hostility to Christianity both on intellectual and moral grounds than the miraculous dimension of the dogma. Thus in these historical narration he is contending that no human testimony is persuasive enough to establish a miracle so as to use it as a foundation of any system of religion.
The section on miracles is divided into two parts corresponding to the two sorts of reason employed by Hume to drive home the above contention. Part one consists of a general proceeding apriori to indicate principles that should govern the acceptance of testimonies of whatever past experience. In part two he illustrates aposteriori, the reason why miracles
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The very nature of the opposing testimonies themselves has an important role to play for such judgment. Concerning the witnesses themselves, one has to take both their number and credibility into account. Thus a witness rendered by hundred known chronic liars would worth nothing compared to that of forty trustworthy gentlemen. Or the testimony of an equal force on opposite sides would tend to favour the side, which has more voices. Hume also allocates an undeniable place to the intellectual and cultural standard of those involved. We shall see in the way he links miracle reports with the vulgar. The judgment must consider the narrator’s interest in the affair in question as well as their manner of putting across their point. In all these, Hume insists that experience or observation must be the ultimate and final referee. From this then the imbalance of one side against the other generates a mutual destruction of the opposite side due to the latter’s scanty support. These conditions are the same for any reported event, miracles inclusive. But we shall see that Hume is not justified to judge the truth of all events only by the manner in which it is reported, because we can have a true but badly presented