them no atmosphere such as that by which our planet is enveloped. Now there is nothing more fully founded on experimental observation than the fact, that there was a time when the present order of the world was not in existence. That there have been convulsions, such as, did we now hear of their contemporary occurrence, instead of attesting their past existence through the sure course of observation and induction, we would at once maintain to be impossible. To this then, and this only, comes the theory of miracles, that at the present day, and for a great many years back, the accounts that are given of circumstances having taken place out of the general order of nature, are to be discredited, because between the two things to be believed, the falsehood of the narrative is more likely than the truth of the occurrence. But the very means by which we arrive at this conclusion bring us to another, that there was a time to which the rules taken from present observation of the course of nature did not apply.[283:1] That in history, in science, in the conduct of every-day life, and particularly in the formation of the minds of the young, this rule of belief is of the highest practical utility, few will doubt. The parish clergyman, who assists in throwing discredit on all the superstitious stories of spectres, witchcrafts, and demoniacal possessions with which his neighbourhood may be afflicted, is but an active promulgator of the doctrine. It was a narrow view that Campbell adopted when he said, that if we heard of a ferry boat, which had long crossed the stream in safety, having sunk, we would give credit to the testimony concerning it.[284:1] Our experience teaches us that ferry boats are made of perishable materials, liable to be submerged; and thus, in this case, there is no balance of incredibility against the narrator. To have tried Campbell's practical faith in Hume's theory, he should have had before him a person professing to have become aware of the sinking of the boat, by some unprecedented means of perception, called a magnetic influence, in the absence of a more distinct name; while it is shown that the same person had an opportunity of being informed, through the organs of hearing, of the circumstance which had taken place. It would then be seen, whether that sagacious philosopher would have given the sanction of his belief to a phenomenon contrary to all previous experience--the ascertainment of an external event, without the aid of the senses; or would have acceded to the too commonly illustrated phenomenon, that human beings are capable of falsehood and folly.