"There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves"
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Hume isn’t politely doubting miracles; he’s quarantining them. The sentence is built like a legal disclaimer that quietly guts the entire case: he sets the bar for testimony so high - “a sufficient number,” “unquestioned good sense,” “education and learning” - that the category “miracle, responsibly believed” starts to look empty. That’s the intent. Not to sneer at faith as such, but to insist that extraordinary claims don’t get a free pass just because they arrive wrapped in piety or tradition.
The subtext is sharper than the gentlemanly tone suggests. Hume treats human perception as a soft instrument, prone to error, enthusiasm, group pressure, and self-deception. Notice the key move: even if witnesses are honest, the danger is “delusion in themselves.” He’s not primarily accusing them of lying; he’s diagnosing the mind. That allows him to sound fair while still denying the evidentiary possibility that testimony could override the regularity of nature. Miracles, by definition, collide with what we know about how the world behaves; Hume’s wager is that it’s always more rational to suspect the report than to rewrite the laws.
Context matters. In 18th-century Britain, arguments over religion were also arguments over who gets to claim authority in public life: clergy, tradition, or emerging scientific inquiry. Hume’s skepticism doesn’t just undercut specific biblical stories; it challenges a social technology - testimony as sacred proof. His real target is epistemic privilege: the idea that certain communities can declare an exception to reason and call it certainty.
The subtext is sharper than the gentlemanly tone suggests. Hume treats human perception as a soft instrument, prone to error, enthusiasm, group pressure, and self-deception. Notice the key move: even if witnesses are honest, the danger is “delusion in themselves.” He’s not primarily accusing them of lying; he’s diagnosing the mind. That allows him to sound fair while still denying the evidentiary possibility that testimony could override the regularity of nature. Miracles, by definition, collide with what we know about how the world behaves; Hume’s wager is that it’s always more rational to suspect the report than to rewrite the laws.
Context matters. In 18th-century Britain, arguments over religion were also arguments over who gets to claim authority in public life: clergy, tradition, or emerging scientific inquiry. Hume’s skepticism doesn’t just undercut specific biblical stories; it challenges a social technology - testimony as sacred proof. His real target is epistemic privilege: the idea that certain communities can declare an exception to reason and call it certainty.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
|---|---|
| Source | David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Section X "Of Miracles" — passage on attestations of miracles. |
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