Abstract

In his essay "Of Miracles" Hume derives the conclusion that testimony cannot provide adequate reason to believe in a miracle from two principles: a general one concerning the conditions under which testimony should be accepted, and the principle that to be believed properly to be a miracle, an event would have to violate principles as well established as any can be by inferences from experience. Here it is argued that both of Hume’s principles are false, after which a positive account is sketched of the conditions under which belief in a miracle would be reasonable.