Miracle Quotes (3)
When asked what he meant by a miracle:
Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.
Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.
Attributed.
See also: | Biography (120)
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature... There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (1894), section 10, part 1, 114-5.
See also: | Death (54) | Experience (19) | Fact (82) | Fire (4) | Imagination (21) | Law (76) | Lead (3) | Nature (136) | Proof (24) | Water (18)
This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.
The Carlyle Anthology (1876), 230.
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