PREFACE.

It was after some hesitation, that we resolved to place our argument with Hume at the outset of the following work, rather than at the end of it. Men can both understand and be rightly impressed by the objects of belief, long before the metaphysics of belief are either understood or attended to; and it might therefore have seemed better to enter immediately on the evidence from human testimony for the miracles of the Gospel, previous to our entertainment of the question whether it was com petent for such testimony to establish the truth of a miracle.

But we decided for the arrangement as it now stands, on the consideration, that this alleged insusceptibility of a proof is every where, throughout the celebrated essay of Mr. Hume, regarded and reasoned upon as if it were a bar in the way of all further or detailed examination of it—just as the preliminary objection to a witness upon a trial, if not previously judged of and pronounced upon, is held fatal to the reception of his evidence. We have therefore introduced our discussion of this