date

1817 Nov. 7 Not Paul Ch Quasi
1817 Nov. 7

Not Paul

Ch Quasi Miracles &c

§ Least improbability Paul &c

Applied to the facts of religion―of revealed religion this rule or at any rate one branch of it may be thus expressed. Whatever effect may with probability be referred to and accounted for by natural causes for the accounting of it, forbear to have recourse to supernatural ones to any cause of a supernatural cast―to any cause by the existence of which in that character if admitted, the effect in the event or state of things would be referred to the class of miraculous ones.

In a heathen poet may be found a rule which though applied to a very different / light / subject, may help to place and fix in the mind the important and serious rule here in question

Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus

Inciderit.― i.e. ‘nor should a god be introduced unless a knot arises which requires a deliverer’; Horace, Ars poetica, 192-2.
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  • Title: [1817 Nov 7 Not Paul Ch Quasi]
    Description: 1817 Nov 7

    Not Paul

    Ch Quasi Miracles &c

    Least improbability Paul

    But if the rule here contended for―the rule which prescribes that mode of accounting for occurrences presented as extraordinary prescribes that mode of accounting which is most probable―which is most conformable to the ordinary course of nature as presented to us by our own experience and observation―say in a word the rule of greatest probability be received―away at one stroke go the whole tribe of quasi miracles as exhibited in the Epistles of our Paul, and the history of his adherent the author of the Acts. Considered with a view to the history of those times, they are all reduced to a level with the same phrases of the same tenor or purport which in these our times are observable in such abundance in the discourses of Methodists and other sectaries.

    Note (a)

    Among Natural Philosophers under / by / the name of the rule or principle of the least action―more particularly among the French, under the name of principe du moindre action used to be designated a rule which was proposed for the purpose of accounting for certain phenomena belonging to the art and science of mechanics. Not more elliptical than that is the denomination here proposed for one of the / a / fundamental rules or principles belonging to that branch of the art and science of logic which might be termed Dicastics: or the art and science of judicature, taking the word judicature in the largest scales, and not as confined to law.
  • Title: [1817 Nov 7. Not Paul I. Argument]
    Description: 1817 Nov 7.

    Not Paul

    I. Argument

    Ch. Quasi Miracles &c

    § Least improbability Paul

    §. 3. Rule of least improbability or least improbability explained and justified

    In the endeavour to account for a notorious or undisputed fact In every other part of the field of thought and action, reason common sense without any objection on the part of the most zealous religionists, prescribes the employing in the endeavour to account for a notorious or undisputed fact that mode of accounting that presents itself as most probable.

    Why this course of which the reasonableness―the exclusive[?] reasonableness is in respect of every other part of the field of thought and action is universally admitted should not be admitted in this part―in this part in which the importance and mischievousness of error is at its maximum seems not altogether easy to pronounce.

    If any opposite or different rule were admitted, in what respect would true religion in what respect would that / a portent[?] / which is admitted / embraced / as true by Protestants be a given[?] by it? How in behalf of purely Catholic miracles could it be refused admittance by Protestants? how in behalf of the miracles of the Mahometan or / and / Hindoo religions could it be refused by either Protestant or Catholic Christians? How Sentence breaks off.

    Among Protestants if the opposite rule were admitted―all those verbal miracles with which the language of Methodists and even of Missionaries of other persuasion as well as that are so abundant could they be saved from being counted[?] into―from being admitted into the character of real miracles?

    Thus would not only incorrect editions of the true, be proved correct, but false religions of all sorts be proved true.
  • Title: [1817 Sept. 8 Not Paul Ch. Paul]
    Description: 1817 Sept. 8

    Not Paul

    Ch. Paul’s success―its causes

    Give me but a standing place said Archimedes, I will move the earth Archimedes ( c. 287- c. 212 bc), Greek mathematician and inventor. The anecdote is related by Simplicius, a 6th century ad Neoplatonist, In Aristotelis de Physica Commentarii, 1110.5.―meaning in a physical [sense]. Give me but force and fluency (might a man almost any man say) and I will move the world, meaning in an intellectual and moral sense―such / Such / is the power of the evidence afforded by intellectual authority, especially when reinforced by sympathy. ( Si vis me flere) says the earliest of our writers in the field of aesthetics si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi. Grieve―for though without any real cause by the mere force of imagination the skilful writer though it be but for the moment introduces into his mind the passion of grief. Grieve first yourself says Horace, if you would make others weep. See Horace, Ars poetica, 102-3.

    Intellectual authority and sympathy―those were the instruments of which Paul had put himself in possession and learnt the use.

    In all stages in the career of civilization, nonsense on condition of being accompanied with the appearance of a certain degree of self-persuasion―nonsense so far as being obstructive has been productive of the effect of producing corresponding persuasion in other minds.

    Cromwell! what an ascendancy did not that man acquire over other minds! to what a height in the ladder of ambition did he not raise himself! Yet of the sort of eloquence by which these effects were produced specimens are not wanting. Hume in his history has dragged out into day light one of them: a tissue of nonsense he pronounces it: nor does the propriety of the appellation seem much exposed to dispute.