Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Against Hume on miracles

The cures at Lourdes, imbued with Catholic tradition, are usually called miracles, a word with religious connotations. The paranormal phenomena witnessed by Wallace at séances, although devoid of conventional religious overtones, are just as miraculous, in the sense of violating natural law, as understood by orthodox materialistic science. These phenomena might be called secular miracles. Reports of miracles, secular and religious, attained wide circulation, even in educated circles in Europe. Those who wished to dismiss such reports, which undermined the foundations of a strictly materialistic science, often did so in the name of David Hume, who a century earlier had argued in his book An inquiry into Human understanding against the acceptance of miracles.

Hume appealed to uniform human experience in his refutation of miracles. For example, Hume observed “it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or any country.” Wallace noted two flaws in this argument. First, the appeal to uniform human experience, granting the truly uniform nature of the experience, insures that no really new fact could ever be established. Second, Wallace questioned the veracity of Hume’s version of uniform human experience. “Reputed miracles abound in all periods of history,” wrote Wallace (1896, p. 8). And they continued up to the present, thus nullifying Hume’s assumption.

Wallace (1896, p. 8) gave levitation of the human body as an instance of a miraculous event for which there is abundant human testimony: “A few well-known examples are those of St. Francis d’Assisi who was often seen by many persons to rise in the air, and the fact is testified by his secretary, who could only reach his feet. St. Theresa, a nun in a convent in Spain, was often raised into the air in the sight of all the sisterhood. Lord Orrery and Mr. Valentine Greatrak both informed Dr. Henry More and Mr. Glanvil that at Lord Conway’s house at Ragley, in Ireland, a gentleman’s butler, in their presence and in broad daylight, rose into the air and floated about the room above their heads. This is related by Glanvil in his Sadducismus Triumphatus. . . . So we all know that at least fifty persons of high character may be found in London who will testify that they have seen the same thing happen to Mr. Hume.”

Wallace then pointed out a contradiction in the pages of Hume’s own discussion of miracles. Hume had written that for testimony in favor of a miracle to be accepted, it should have the following characteristics. The testimony must be given by multiple observers. The observers should have reputations for honesty. They should be in social positions that entailed some definite material risk in the event their testimony were to be found false. As for the events themselves, they should be public, and they should take place in a civilized part of the world. Hume maintained that such satisfactory testimony was “not to be found, in all history” (Hume, cited in Wallace 1896, p. 8).

But Wallace noted that Hume then gave an account of some miraculous occurrences that fulfilled his own strict criteria. Hume told of the many extraordinary cures that took place in Paris at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, a saintly member of the Jansenists, a persecuted Catholic sect. Hume said of these events, which took place not long before he wrote his book: “The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind, were everywhere talked of as the usual effects of that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world.” Not only that, said Hume. The Jesuits, who thoroughly opposed the Jansenists, and desired to expose the miracles as hoaxes, were unable to do so, despite their access to the full power of church and state. Given this set of circumstances, it seems Hume should have accepted the miracle. Instead, he wrote: “Where shall we find such a number of circumstances agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility, or miraculous nature of the events which they relate? And this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation” (Wallace 1896, p. 9). Wallace faulted Hume for this blatantly self-contradictory conclusion.

Wallace then cited a particularly striking case, drawn from a book on the Parisian cures by Carré de Montgeron, and summarized in English by William Howitt in the History of the Supernatural : “Mademoiselle Coirin was afflicted, amongst other ailments, with a cancer in the left breast, for twelve years. The breast was destroyed by it and came away in a mass; the effluvia from the cancer was horrible, and the whole blood of the system was pronounced infected by it. Every physician pronounced the case utterly incurable, yet, by a visit to the tomb, she was perfectly cured; and, what was more astonishing, the breast and nipple were wholly restored, with the skin pure and fresh, and free from any trace of scar. This case was known to the highest people in the realm. When the miracle was denied, Mademoiselle Coirin went to Paris, was examined by the royal physician, and made a formal deposition of her cure before a public notary. . . . M. Gaulard, physician to the king, deposed officially, that, ‘to restore a nipple actually destroyed, and separated from the breast, was an actual creation, because a nipple is not merely a continuity of the vessels of the breast, but a particular body, which is of distinct and peculiar organisation’” (Wallace 1896, pp. 11–12). E. B. Tylor, one of the founders of anthropology, also offered philosophical objections to spiritualistic phenomena. Tylor called the primitive belief in a spirit world “animism.” Modern spiritualism would thus represent a remnant of primitive animistic thought in civilized Europeans. Wallace countered that modern spiritualists arrived at their conclusions by careful and repeated observation. “The question is a question of facts,” he wrote (Wallace 1896, p. 28). And to Wallace the facts suggested that modern spiritualism and primitive belief shared “at least a substratum of reality” and that “the uniformity of belief is due in great part to the uniformity of underlying facts” (Smith 1991, p. 83).

More experiences

While Wallace was defending spiritualism in print, he was also gathering more experimental evidence. In 1874, he attended a series of séances with the medium Kate Cook. The sittings took place in the London apartment of Signor Randi, a painter. The medium sat in a chair, behind a curtain hung across a corner of a large reception room. Miss Cook always wore a black dress, earrings, and tightly laced boots. A few minutes after she sat behind the curtain, a female figure, wearing white robes, would sometimes come out and stand near the curtain.

Wallace (1905 v. 2, pp. 327–328) offered this description of what happened: “One after another she would beckon us to come up. We then talked together, the form in whispers; I could look closely into her face, examine the features and hair, touch her hands, and might even touch and examine her ears closely, which were not bored for earrings. The figure had bare feet, was somewhat taller than Miss Cook, and, though there was a general resemblance, was quite distinct in features, figure, and hair. After half an hour or more this figure would retire, close the curtains, and sometimes within a few seconds would say, ‘Come and look.’ We then opened the curtains, turned up the lamp, and Miss Cook was found in a trance, in the chair, her black dress, laced-boots, etc., in the most perfect order as when she arrived, while the full-grown white-robed figure had totally disappeared.”