METAPHYSICS.—­Of Hume as a philosopher, we need not here say much.  He was acute, intelligent, and subtle; he was, in metaphysical language, “a sceptical nihilist.”  And here a distinction must be made between his religious tenets and his philosophical views,—­a distinction so happily stated by Sir William Hamilton, that we present it in his words:  “Though decidedly opposed to one and all of Hume’s theological conclusions, I have no hesitation in asserting of his philosophical scepticism, that this was not only beneficial in its results, but, in the circumstances of the period, even a necessary step in the progress of Philosophy towards Truth.”  And again he says, “To Hume we owe the philosophy of Kant, and therefore also, in general, the later philosophy of Germany.”  “To Hume, in like manner, we owe the philosophy of Reid, and, consequently, what is now distinctively known in Europe as the Philosophy of the Scottish School.”  Great praise this from one of the greatest Christian philosophers of this century, and it shows Hume to have been more original as a philosopher than as an historian.

He is also greatly commended by Lord Brougham as a political economist.  “His Political Discourses,” says his lordship, “combine almost every excellence which can belong to such a performance....  Their great merit is their originality, and the new system of politics and political economy which they unfold.”

MIRACLES.—­The work in which is most fairly set forth his religious scepticism is his Essay on Miracles.  In it he adopts the position of Locke, who had declared “that men should not believe any proposition that is contrary to reason, on the authority either of inspiration or of miracle; for the reality of the inspiration or of the miracle can only be established by reason.”  Before Hume, assaults on the miracles recorded in Scripture were numerous and varied.  Spinoza and the Pantheistic School had started the question, “Are miracles possible?” and had taken the negative.  Hume’s question is, “Are miracles credible?” And as they are contrary to human experience, his answer is essentially that it must be always more probable that a miracle is false than that it is true; since it is not contrary to experience that witnesses are false or deceived.  With him it is, therefore, a question of the preponderance of evidence, which he declares to be always against the miracle.  This is not the place to discuss these topics.  Archbishop Whately has practically illustrated the fallacy of Hume’s reasoning, in a little book called Historic Doubts, relative to Napoleon Bonaparte, in which, with Hume’s logic, he has proved, that the great emperor never lived; and Whately’s successor in the archbishopric of Dublin, Dr. Trench, has given us some thoughtful words on the subject:  “So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and improbable, miraculous and incredible may be allowed to remain convertible terms; but once lift up the whole discussion into a higher region, once acknowledge aught higher than nature—­a kingdom of God, and men the intended denizens of it—­and the whole argument loses its strength and the force of its conclusions.”