Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow.
David HumeRead
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Hume argues that miracles contradict natural laws and thus cannot be proven true against established experience.
David Hume suggests that miracles, by their very nature, challenge the established laws of nature that have been consistently observed through experience. He posits that because these laws are firm and unchanging, any claim of a miracle is inherently less credible, as it lacks the backing of empirical evidence, and argues that the proof against miracles is as definitive as any logical argument drawn from experience.
Themes
MiracleNatureExperienceEvidencePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about the validity of witness accounts of miracles.
More from David Hume
All quotes →Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
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All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.
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There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.
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To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
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