"I beg the limitations here made may be remarked when I say that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own that, otherwise, there may possibly be miracles or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony; though perhaps it will be impossible to find any such in all the records of history. Thus, suppose all authors, in all languages, agree that from the first of January, 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days; suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people; that all travelers who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction--it is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon which seems to have a tendency toward that catastrophe comes within the reach of human testimony, if that testimony be very extensive and uniform. "But suppose that all the historians who England treat of should agree that on the first day of January, 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; that both before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole court, as is usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was acknowledged and proclaimed by the parliament; and that after being interred a month she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed England for three years--I must confess that I should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. I should not doubt of her pretended death, and of those other public circumstances that followed it; I should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it neither was nor possibly could be real. You would in vain object to me the difficulty, and almost impossibility, of deceiving the world in an affair of such consequence. The wisdom and solid judgment of that renowned queen, with the little or no advantage she could reap from so poor an artifice--all this might astonish me; but I would still reply that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature.