Mill further helps the Christian cause by pointing out two flaws
in Hume's argument against miracles--viz., that the evidence of
experience to which its appeal is made is only negative evidence;
which is not conclusive, since facts of which there had been no
previous experience are often discovered and proved by positive
experience to be true; and secondly, the argument assumes that the
testimony of experience against miracles is undeviating and
indubitable, whereas the very thing asserted on the other side is that
there have been miracles, and that the testimony is not wholly on the
negative side.
No Christian can read the following tribute to the character of Christ
without sadness that the joy of a larger faith was rejected by its
author: "Whatever else may be taken away from us by rational
criticism, Christ is still left--a unique figure, not more unlike all
his precursors than all his followers, even those who had the direct
benefit of his teaching. About the life and sayings of Jesus there is
a stamp of personal originality, combined with profundity of insight,
...
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