Dr.Richard Whately on Evidences/Miracles and Hume's equivocation on Experience

Here is a wodge of Dr. Whately's Logic. You've seen it before but your sybaritic taste glutted on the sophisms of Mr. Hume refused it. Your wish to deny the fact of miracles lest they should lead to a position of faith is, as I pointed out, a groundless anxiety. A faithless generation requires them but even Moses coming back from the dead to confirm the message of the gospels would not convince. Whately would demur. They are useful if the ground of sufficient candour exists.
(repost)
A consistent theme of Whately’s is ‘evidences’. A couple of his books that I’ve come across are composed of annotations appended to what he considers seminal texts. Generally these annotations are chapter length reflections on the previous chapter of the mother text. Paley’s A View of the Evidences of Christianity is one and Bacon’s Essays is the other. 

Evidences is the short form of ‘evidences for the truth of the Christian religion’ or a quasi-rational justification. Though he is represented as having been at odds with John Henry Newman even while the latter was in his Anglican phase I find that both of them really did not believe that there were knock-down demonstrative proofs available in the domain of religion. In the early working out of what later became the illative sense Newman spoke of implicit reasoning and they both would I think have recognised that a prior cultivation of the heart was necessary for the living reception of ‘evidences’. For Whately the fact of miracles was central for faith. Without miracles the establishment of the faith as a world-wide phenomenon would be impossible. Google have his Easy Lessons on Christian Evidences with several chapters on that theme. His amusing retorsion on/of/to Hume on miracles cf. Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte is quite serious in intent.

Men were not to become his disciples in consequence of their knowing and perceiving the truth of what He taught, but in consequence of their having sufficient candour to receive the evidence which his miracles afforded, and being so thoroughly of the Truth as to give themselves up to follow wherever that should lead, in opposition to any prejudices or inclinations of their own; and then knowledge of the truth was to be their reward. There is not necessarily any moral virtue in receiving truth; for it may happen that our interest, or our wishes, are in the same direction; or it may be forced upon us by evidence as irresistible as that of a mathematical demonstration. The virtue consists in being a sincere votary of Truth;—what our Lord calls being 'of the Truth,'—rejecting 'the hidden things of dishonesty,' and carefully guarding against every undue bias. Every one wishes to have Truth on his side; but it is not every one that sincerely wishes to he on the side of Truth.

(from annotation to Bacon’s Essay Of Truth)

A note on David Hume's equivocation re 'experience' from Richard Whately might be a useful antidote:

EXPERIENCE.—This word, in its strict sense, applies to what has occurred within a person's own knowledge. Experience, in this sense, of course, relates to the past alone. Thus it is that a man knows by experience what sufferings he has undergone in some disease, or what height the tide reached at a certain time and place.
More frequently the word is used to denote that Judgment which is derived from experience in the primary sense, by reasoning from that, in combination with other data. Thus, a man may assert, on the ground of Experience, that he was cured of a disorder by such a medicine,—that that medicine is, generally, beneficial in that disorder,—that the tide may always be expected, under such circumstances, to rise to such a height. Strictly speaking, none of these can be known by Experience, but are conclusions derived from Experience. It is in this sense only that Experience can be applied to the future, or, which comes to the same thing, to any general fact; as, e. g. when it is said that we know by Experience that water exposed to a certain temperature will freeze.
There are again two different applications of the word {see Book III. § 10,) which, when not carefully distinguished, lead in practice to the same confusion as the employment of it in two senses; viz. we sometimes understand our own personal experience; sometimes, general Experience. Hume has availed himself of this (practical) ambiguity, in his Essay on Miracles; in which he observes, that we have experience of the frequent falsity of Testimony, but that the occurrence of a miracle is contrary to our Experience, and is consequently what no testimony ought to be allowed to establish. Now had he explained whose Experience he meant, the argument would have come to nothing: if he means the Experience of mankind universally, i. e, that a Miracle has never come under the Experience of any one, this is palpably begging the question: if he means the Experience of each individual who has never himself witnessed a Miracle, this would establish a rule, {viz. that we are to believe nothing of which we have not ourselves experienced the like,) which it would argue insanity to act upon. Not only was the King of Bantam justified (as Hume himself admits) in listening to no evidence for the existence of Ice, but no one would be authorized on this principle to expect his own death. His Experience informs him, directly, only that others have died. Every disease under which he himself may have labored, his Experience must have told him has not terminated fatally; if he is to judge strictly of the future by the past, according to this rule, what should hinder him from expecting the like of all future diseases ?
Some have never been struck with this consequence of Hume's principles; and some have even failed to perceive it when pointed out: but if the reader thinks it worth his while to consult the author, he will see that his principles, according to his own account of them, are such as I have stated.
Perhaps however he meant, if indeed he had any distinct meaning, something intermediate between universal, and individual experience; viz. the Experience of the generality, as to what is common and of ordinary occurrence; in which sense the maxim will only amount to this, that false Testimony is a thing of common occurrence, and that Miracles are not; an obvious truth, indeed ; but too general to authorize, of itself) a conclusion in any particular case In any other individual question, as to the admissibility of evidence, it would be reckoned absurd to consider merely the average chances for the truth of Testimony in the abstract without inquiring what the Testimony is, in the particular instance before us. As if e. g. any one had maintained that no testimony could establish Columbus's account of the discovery of America, because it is more common for travellers to lie, than for new Continents to be discovered. See Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte.
It is to be observed by the way, that there is yet an additional ambiguity in the entire phrase " contrary to experience;" in one sense, a miracle, or any other event, may be called contrary to the experience of any one who has never witnessed the like; as the freezing of water was to that of the King of Bantam; in another and stricter sense, that only is contrary to a man's experience, which he knows by experience not to be true; as if one should be told of an in&llible remedy for some disorder, he having seen it administered without effect. No testimony can establish what is, in this latter sense^ contrary to experience. We need not wonder that ordinary minds should be bewildered by a sophistical employment of such a mass of ambiguities.
Such reasonings as these are accounted ingenious and profound, on account of the Subject on which they are employed; if applied to the ordinary affairs of life, they would be deemed unworthy of serious notice.
The reader is not to suppose that the refutation of Hume's Essay on Miracles was my object in this Article.
That might have been sufficiently accomplished, in the way of a reductio ad absurdum," by mere reference to the case of the King of Bantam adduced by the author himself But this celebrated Essay, though it has often perhaps contributed to the amusement of an anti-christian sophist at the expense of those unable to expose its fallacy, never probably made one convert The author himself seems plainly to have meant it as a specimen of his ingenuity in arguing on a given hypothesis; for he disputes against miracles as against the Course of Nature; whereas, according to him, there is no such thing as a Course of Nature; his skepticism extends to the whole external world;—to every thing, except the ideas or impressions on the mind of the individual; so that a miracle which is believed, has, in that circumstance alone, on his principles, as much reality as any thing can have.
But my object has been to point out, by the use of this example, the fallacies and blunders which may result from inattention to the ambiguity of the word " Experience :" and this cannot be done by a mere indirect argument; which refutes indeed, but does not explain^ an error.

(from alphabetical appendix to Elements of Logic by Dr.Richard Whately)

Richard Whately on genealogical folly, John Hurt and Kevin Whately

An instance has been known of persons, who were the descendants of a celebrated and prominent character in the Civil War, and who was one of the Regicides, being themselves zealous royalists, and professing to be ashamed of their ancestor. And it is likely that if he were now living, they would renounce all intercourse with him. Yet it may be doubted whether they would not feel mortified if any one should prove to them that they had been under a mistake, and that they were in reality descended from another person, a respectable but obscure individual, not at all akin to the celebrated regicide.

(from Richard Whately's annotations to Bacon's Essay On Nobility)

I was reminded of the actor John Hurt, recently deceased, who was on the genealogy programme Who do you think you are and who hoped to discover that he was a descendent on the sinister side of Lord Altamount the Marquess of Sligo whose residence is at Westport. The present incumbent is reduced to the status of the purveyor of heritage. 'Boating on the lake, m'Lud', Chinese pigs and a saunter round the house by the peasantry. What John Hurt discovered was wholly other.
story

After this discovery that he was not in fact Irish though he felt himself so to be John went off to England. Whether it was the locals 'takin' the Arfur Bliss' or humming the tune from HMS Pinafore, 'and its greatly to his credit', we shall never know. Fair play to him, he was a great actor. Will you ever forget the surprise on his face when the Bitch jumped out of his chest in Alien?

Another actor Kevin Whately on the same genealogy program. discovered that Richard Whately was his great-great- grandfather. Looking at images of the two men a resemblance can be discerned. But there I am, projecting again.

Richard Whately: I respectfully demur Professor James

Whately on the suppression of the use of reason

Many people are led into the error of fancying that an irrational faith is even firmer than a rational one, by mistaking for a firm belief, a firm resolution of the will to believe. They seem to imagine that faith can be made firm only by a sort of brute force upon the understanding, and by brow-beating, as it were, their own minds, and those of others, into implicit submission. Now you never see traces of this kind of violence in the case of other truths which men really believe most firmly. You never hear a man protesting with great vehemence, that he is convinced that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or that the earth is round like a ball, and not fiat, like a platter; and denouncing all who cannot see the proof. Good proof satisfies the mind of itself, and excludes reasonable doubt without any violent effort. When you are sure that the door is strong enough to keep out the intruder, you sit quietly by your fireside, and let him kick his heels against it till he is tired. But if you rushed over and clapped your back and shoulders to the bolt, that would imply that the door is really weak, or, at least that your faith in it is weak that is, that you had not full confidence in its strength.

(from Thoughts and apophthegms from the writings of Archbishop Whately)

Insolens Verbum

I am reading The Man who was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton and as ever wonder whether his over use of paradoxes(oi) was a severe defect of his style. They seem like shiny, glittery objects which have a mesmeric effect and stun the judgement by their patent cleverality. It is, I suggest, a corollary of the principle mentioned by Coleridge in Essays on the Principles of Method:

For if he be, as we now assume, a well-educated man as well as a man of superior powers, he will not fail to follow the golden rule of Julius Caesar, Insolens verbum, tanquam scopulum, evitare. (De Analogia) Unless where new things necessitate new terms, he will avoid an unusual word as a rock.

Avoid reefs - you tend to get stuck on them. Unusual juxtapositions have that effect for they require unpacking. Richard Whately in his Rhetoric has the better procedure. First expatiate and then summate by the apothegm or other device. Oops, insolens verba.

Still, I enjoy his paradoxes, which is undoubtedly a defect in me:

"Listen to me," cried Syme with extraordinary emphasis. "Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front—"

((Full Quote from Caesar: tamquam scopulum, sic fugias inauditum atque insolens verbum trans:avoid a strange and unfamiliar word as you would a dangerous reef ))

Wittgenstein on the Scripture of Pain

One may illustrate the distinct uses of Scripture (in all that relates to morals) and of natural Conscience, by the comparison of a sun-dial and a clock. The clock has the advantage of being always at hand, to be consulted at any hour of the day or night; while the dial is of use only when the sun shines on it. But, then, the clock is liable to go wrong and vary from the true time; and it has no power in itself of correcting its own errors; so that these may go on increasing, to any extent, unless it be from time to time regulated by the dial, which alone the unerring guide.

(from Introductory Lessons on Morals and Christian Evidences by Richard Whately pub. 1857)

"But if I suppose that someone is in pain, then I am simply supposing that he has just the same as I have so often had." — That gets us no further. It is as if I were to say: "You surely know what 'It is 5 o'clock here' means; so you also know what 'It's 5 o'clock on the sun' means. It means simply that it is just the same there as it is here when it is 5 o'clock." — The explanation by means of identity does not work here.

(Philosophical Inverstigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein para:350)

The sun-dial/sun/clock analogy may be a common one though it’s not particularly familiar to me. Wittgenstein here might be said to rebut the scripture of pain. There is none. To further expand the Whately/Wittgenstein correspondence in an admittedly fanciful way the word evidences is suggestive of the British Empiricist tenet - if we have valid knowledge
we have evidence. Wittgenstein is impugning this, it seems to me, conscious as I am that one is walking on a quaking bog ascribing a position to him.

Rebalancing Whately

It is a commonplace economy of thought to assume combinations of attitudes. Richard Whately was a complex person and evades prediction. An entry in A Compendium of Irish Biography makes this clear:
Richard Whately
He is neglected. Being a clergyman wouldn’t help.

Whately and Newman on Private Judgement

The animus directed towards Catholics in the 19th. century particularly in Ireland was systemic being reflected in both social and legal attitudes. Reacting to that gave great scope to Irish wits and incendiary patriots. Trollope’s chilly sneers which are unnoticed by the majority of modern readers represent the politer end of the cultural bias. Why for instance did Paul Cardinal Cullen fight against the non-denominational educational system proposed by Archbishop Richard Whately? Might it have to do with the fact that Cullen’s father was only able to buy land after the relaxation of the Penal Laws. He sent his son to Rome to be trained for the priesthood because Maynooth which was just up the road required that the students swear an oath of allegiance to the crown. The Catholic Encyclopedia tells me that during his 30 years in Rome the future first Irish Cardinal struggled against the machinations of British agents. Take it as a given: the Empire is interested in everything.

I have admitted I am a prize ignoramus on History amongst other things. However reading in my quiet corner the various publications of Whately and Newman I am inclined to think that reaction clouds the judgement and suspicion destroys the possibility of the recognition of an ally on the other side. The mention of the term ‘judgement’ brings me neatly around to the topic of ‘private judgement’ a supposedly Protestant bulwark against Romanism foundering in blind faith. I speculate whether the move to declare Papal infallibility might not be the throwing the house keys on the table in that game. I notice also that Cullen had a hand in drafting the declaration on Infallibility and that Newman was lukewarm prior to its passing but naturally accepted it as an element of collective wisdom later.

The chief source of my understanding (for this note) of Whately’s attitude to private judgement in his annotation to the Essay Of Unity in Religion by Francis Bacon. His view seems to this reader the more magnanimous and conciliatory when contrasted with that of Newman. He was of course a master of Rhetoric. Cullen his bete noir used a more Hiberno-Roman way. The latter deployed the methods of the strategist MacKevilly perhaps better known under the Latinised form of his name. Establish a committee but make sure you appoint every last one on it. That’s the Irish way.

Whately writing on Private Judgement:

What the Romanist means by renouncing' private judgment' and adhering to the decisions of the Church is, substantially, what many Protestants express by saying, We make truth the first and paramount object, and the others, unity. The two expressions, when rightly understood, denote the same; but they each require some explanation to prevent their being understood incorrectly, and even unfairly.

A Roman Catholic does exercise private judgment, once for all, if (not through carelessness, but on earnest and solemn deliberation) he resolves to place himself completely under the
guidance of that Church (as represented by his priest) which he judges to have been divinely appointed for that purpose. And in so doing he considers himself, not as manifesting indifference about truth, but as taking the way by which he will attain either complete and universal religious truth, or at least a greater amount of it than could have been attained otherwise. To speak of such a person as indifferent about truth, would be not only uncharitable, but also as unreasonable as to suppose a man indifferent about his health, or about his property, because, distrusting his own judgment on points of medicine or of law,
he places himself under the direction of those whom he has judged to be the most trustworthy physician and lawyer.

On the other hand, a Protestant, in advocating private judgment, does not, as some have represented, necessarily maintain that every man should set himself to study and interpret for himself the Scriptures (which, we should recollect, are written in the Hebrew and Greek languages), without seeking or accepting aid from any instructors, whether under the title of translators (for a translator, who claims no inspiration, is, manifestly, a human instructor of the people as to the sense of Scripture), or whether called commentators, preachers, or by whatever other name. Indeed, considering the multitude of tracts, commentaries, expositions, and discourses of various forms, that have been put forth and assiduously circulated by Protestants of all denominations, for the avowed purpose (be it well or ill executed) of giving religious instruction, it is really strange that such an interpretation as I have alluded to should ever have been put on the phrase ' private judgment.' For, to advert to a parallel case of daily occurrence, all would recommend a student of mathematics, for instance, or of any branch. of natural philosophy, to seek the aid of a well-qualified professor or tutor. And yet he would be thought to have studied :n vain, if he should ever think of taking on trust any mathematical or physical truth on the word of his instructors. It is, on the contrary, their part to teach him how —by demonstration or by experiment—to verify each point for himself.

On the other hand, the adherents of a Church claiming to be infallible on all essential points, and who, consequently, profess to renounce private judgment, these (besides that, as has been just said, they cannot but judge for themselves as to one point—that very claim itself) have also room for the exercise of judgment, and often do exercise it, on questions as to what points are essential, and for which, consequently, infallible rectitude is insured.

(Bacon's Essays)
((This edition is very readable on my very cheap 10inch tablet. For the reader of Bacon completely uninterested in the Annotations of Whately the footnotes to the mother text clarifying usages, Latin idiom and the translation of tags is an excellent resource.))

Newman’s works pullulate with references to ‘private judgement’. cf: Characteristics
My source in this note for Newman’s view is taken from
British Critic

Whately’s ‘Annotation’ is based on a ‘Charge’ (Exhortation/Sermon) to Clergy which was later than the work of Newman and has the advantage of matured reflection on the part of the older man. The audience is of course different. At the time of Newman’s Essay The British Critic was a Tractarian publication cf:British Critic/Wikipedia Article
so the tone is one of scorn with a soupcon of persiflage.

 If a staunch Protestant's daughter turns Roman, and betakes herself to a convent, why does he not exult in the occurrence? Why does he not give a public breakfast, or hold a meeting, or erect a memorial, or write a pamphlet in honour of her, and of the great undying principle she has so gloriously vindicated? Why is he in this base, disloyal style muttering about priests, and Jesuits, and the horrors of nunneries, in solution of the phenomenon, when he has the fair and ample form of Private Judgment rising before his eyes, and pleading with him, and bidding him impute good motives, not bad, and in very charity ascribe to the influence of a high and holy principle, to a right and a duty of every member of the family of man, what his poor human instincts are fain to set down as a folly or a sin.

Probably Whately reading this could doubt the bona fides of Newman and sniff dissimulation. For myself I think Newman was on the bank and wanted to get into the boat. Instead of hopping briskly in he leaned against the boat fearful of losing his footing on the bank. He was now fully stretched out and in danger of a dunking.

 He has cast around the institutions and powers existing in the world marks of truth or falsehood, or, more properly, elements of attraction and repulsion, and notices for pursuit and avoidance, sufficient to determine the course of those who in the conduct of life desire to approve themselves to Him. Now, whether or no what we see in the Church of Rome be sufficient to warrant a religious person to leave her (a question, we repeat, about which we have no need here to concern ourselves), we certainly think it sufficient to deter him from joining her; and, whatever be the perplexity and distress of his position in a communion so isolated as the English, we do not think he would mend the matter by placing himself in a communion so superstitious as the Roman; especially considering, agreeably to a remark we have already made, that even if he be schismatical at present, he is so by the act of Providence, whereas he would be entering into superstition by his own. Thus an Anglo-Catholic is kept at a distance from Rome, if not by our own excellences, at least by her errors.



Wittgenstein Vs Whately

from Wittgenstein Lectures on Religious Belief:

Although, there is a great temptation to think we do. Because we do talk of evidence, and do talk of evidence by experience. We could even talk of historic events. It has been said that Christianity rests on an historic basis.
It has been said a thousand times by intelligent people that indubitability is
not enough in this case. Even if there is as much evidence as for Napoleon. Because the indubitability wouldn’t be enough to make me change my whole life. It doesn’t rest on an historic basis in the sense that the ordinary belief in
historic facts could serve as a foundation. Here we have a belief in historic facts different from a belief in ordinary historic facts. Even, they are not treated as historical, empirical, propositions. Those people who had faith didn‟t apply the doubt which would ordinarily apply to any historical propositions. Especially propositions of a time long past, etc. What is the criterion of reliability, dependability? Suppose you give a general description as to when you say a proposition has a reasonable weight of probability. When you call it reasonable, is this only to say that for it you have such and such evidence, and for others you haven’t? For instance, we don‟t trust the account given of an event by a. drunk man.

Ludwig I know you don’t do footnotes but if you had referenced Whately’s Historic Doubts concerning Napoleon Buonaparte then that would have added to the texture of the argument in that one could look at the solution that is offered there which is essentially the one that you struggle with. The seeker must put on ‘the mind of Christ’, be ‘of Christ and of the truth, be in Whateley’s usage ‘candid’. He is pointing towards the archaic:

free from bias; impartial.
3: Free from malice; favourably disposed, kindly - 1800
4: Frank, ingenuous, sincere in what one says 1675. (S.O.D.)

Ludwig: Yes, yes, yes, But. I can’t argue with that. It escapes me. It’s a country I’ve heard of but have no way of getting to. I don’t believe its imaginary. Don’t come at me with your imaginal, that’s altogether too big of a serving. Don’t you see, there’s no there there.

Moi: Don’t bring her into it or we’ll never get out of here.

'Permit me to demur Mr.Hume' said Dr.Whately

EXPERIENCE.—This word, in its strict sense, applies to what has occurred within a person's own knowledge. Experience, in this sense, of course, relates to the past alone. Thus it is that a man knows by experience what sufferings he has undergone in some disease, or what height the tide reached at a certain time and place.
More frequently the word is used to denote that Judgment which is derived from experience in the primary sense, by reasoning from that, in combination with other data. Thus, a man may assert, on the ground of Experience, that he was cured of a disorder by such a medicine,—that that medicine is, generally, beneficial in that disorder,—that the tide may always be expected, under such circumstances, to rise to such a height. Strictly speaking, none of these can be known by Experience, but are conclusions derived from Experience. It is in this sense only that Experience can be applied to the future, or, which comes to the same thing, to any general fact; as, e. g. when it is said that we know by Experience that water exposed to a certain temperature will freeze.
There are again two different applications of the word {see Book III. § 10,) which, when not carefully distinguished, lead in practice to the same confusion as the employment of it in two senses; viz. we sometimes understand our own personal experience; sometimes, general Experience. Hume has availed himself of this (practical) ambiguity, in his Essay on Miracles; in which he observes, that we have experience of the frequent falsity of Testimony, but that the occurrence of a miracle is contrary to our Experience, and is consequently what no testimony ought to be allowed to establish. Now had he explained whose Experience he meant, the argument would have come to nothing: if he means the Experience of mankind universally, i. e, that a Miracle has never come under the Experience of any one, this is palpably begging the question: if he means the Experience of each individual who has never himself witnessed a Miracle, this would establish a rule, {viz. that we are to believe nothing of which we have not ourselves experienced the like,) which it would argue insanity to act upon. Not only was the King of Bantam justified (as Hume himself admits) in listening to no evidence for the existence of Ice, but no one would be authorized on this principle to expect his own death. His Experience informs him, directly, only that others have died. Every disease under which he himself may have labored, his Experience must have told him has not terminated fatally; if he is to judge strictly of the future by the past, according to this rule, what should hinder him from expecting the like of all future diseases ?
Some have never been struck with this consequence of Hume's principles; and some have even failed to perceive it when pointed out: but if the reader thinks it worth his while to consult the author, he will see that his principles, according to his own account of them, are such as I have stated.
Perhaps however he meant, if indeed he had any distinct meaning, something intermediate between universal, and individual experience; viz. the Experience of the generality, as to what is common and of ordinary occurrence; in which sense the maxim will only amount to this, that false Testimony is a thing of common occurrence, and that Miracles are not; an obvious truth, indeed ; but too general to authorize, of itself) a conclusion in any particular case In any other individual question, as to the admissibility of evidence, it would be reckoned absurd to consider merely the average chances for the truth of Testimony in the abstract without inquiring what the Testimony is, in the f articular instance before us. As if e. g. any one had maintained that no testimony could establish Columbus's account of the discovery of America, because it is more common for travellers to lie, than for new Continents to be discovered. See Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte.
It is to be observed by the way, that there is yet an additional ambiguity in the entire phrase " contrary to experience;" in one sense, a miracle, or any other event, may be called contrary to the experience of any one who has never witnessed the like; as the freezing of water was to that of the King of Bantam; in another and stricter sense, that only is contrary to a man's experience, which he knows by experience not to be true; as if one should be told of an in&llible remedy for some disorder, he having seen it administered without effect. No testimony can establish what is, in this latter sense^ contrary to experience. We need not wonder that ordinary minds should be bewildered by a sophistical employment of such a mass of ambiguities.
Such reasonings as these are accounted ingenious and profound, on account of the Subject on which they are employed; if applied to the ordinary affairs of life, they would be deemed unworthy of serious notice.
The reader is not to suppose that the refutation of Hume's Essay on Miracles was my object in this Article.
That might have been sufficiently accomplished, in the way of a reductio ad absurdum," by mere reference to the case of the King of Bantam adduced by the author himself But this celebrated Essay, though it has often perhaps contributed to the amusement of an anti-christian sophist at the expense of those unable to expose its fallacy, never probably made one convert The author himself seems plainly to have meant it as a specimen of his ingenuity in arguing on a given hypothesis; for he disputes against miracles as against the Course of Nature; whereas, according to him, there is no such thing as a Course of Nature; his skepticism extends to the whole external world;—to every thing, except the ideas or impressions on the mind of the individual; so that a miracle which is believed, has, in that circumstance alone, on his principles, as much reality as any thing can have.
But my object has been to point out, by the use of this example, the fallacies and blunders which may result from inattention to the ambiguity of the word " Experience :" and this cannot be done by a mere indirect argument; which refutes indeed, but does not explain^ an error.

(from alphabetical appendix to Elements of Logic by Dr.Richard Whately)

Whately's Evidences

A consistent theme of Whately’s is ‘evidences’. A couple of his books that I’ve come across are composed of annotations appended to what he considers seminal texts. Generally these annotations are chapter length reflections on the previous chapter of the mother text. Paley’s A View of the Evidences of Christianity is one and Bacon’s Essays is the other.

Evidences is the short form of ‘evidences for the truth of the Christian religion’ or a quasi-rational justification. Though he is represented as having been at odds with John Henry Newman even while the latter was in his Anglican phase I find that both of them really did not believe that there were knock-down demonstrative proofs available in the domain of religion. In the early working out of what later became the illative sense Newman spoke of implicit reasoning and they both would I think have recognised that a prior cultivation of the heart was necessary for the living reception of ‘evidences’. For Whately the fact of miracles was central for faith. Without miracles the establishment of the faith as a world-wide phenomenon would be impossible. Google have his Easy Lessons on Christian Evidences with several chapters on that theme. His amusing retorsion on/of/to Hume on miracles cf. Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte is quite serious in intent.

Men were not to become his disciples in consequence of their knowing and perceiving the truth of what He taught, but in consequence of their having sufficient candour to receive the evidence which his miracles afforded, and being so thoroughly of the Truth as to give themselves up to follow wherever that should lead, in opposition to any prejudices or inclinations of their own; and then knowledge of the truth was to be their reward. There is not necessarily any moral virtue in receiving truth; for it may happen that our interest, or our wishes, are in the same direction; or it may be forced upon us by evidence as irresistible as that of a mathematical demonstration. The virtue consists in being a sincere votary of Truth;—what our Lord calls being 'of the Truth,'—rejecting 'the hidden things of dishonesty,' and carefully guarding against every undue bias. Every one wishes to have Truth on his side; but it is not every one that sincerely wishes to he on the side of Truth.

(from annotation to Bacon’s Essay Of Truth)

Archbishop of Dublin Richard Whately - Elements of Rhetoric

Archbishop of Dublin Richard Whately (1787 - 1863) is probably better known in America for his Elements of Rhetoric (1828) which was influential there. In Ireland his philanthropic, ecumenical and educational work is remembered. Monies that were gathered in Calcutta, - yes, for that, - he disbursed often using Catholic priests as his agents. He was in favour of the endowment of the Maynooth seminary and the establishment of the National School system for which he produced a work entitled Easy Lessons on Money Matters. I must have a look at that. He was against transportation and slavery. So good a man was he that his opposite number the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Paul Cullen thought it was some kind of proselytising cuteness. Lawn sleeves are deep you know.

All this I have but recently learned for to admit the truth my Holmesian lumber room has never had to have History pushed out for there was not much there to begin with. Twas in the Britannica article on ‘Rhetoric’ that I first came across a mention of him and his treatise. Having read it as far as Part IV on Elocution I can report that it is a fine book evincing the valuable character of perspicuity.

The finding of arguments to prove a given point, and the skillful arrangement of them may be considered as the immediate and proper province of Rhetoric and of that alone.

He writes of the address to the Understanding to produce conviction and then of the address to the Will to produce persuasion . Next he considers the aspects of Style such as perspicuity, energy and elegance. His hints on the achievement of effective communication are precise and as befitting a Divine of the old school are illustrated by quotations from the Greek which remains reproachfully untranslated. Of the sometimes conflicting objectives of conciseness, energy and perspicuity he writes:

wavering between the demands of Perspicuity and of Energy, (of which the former of course requires the first care, lest he should fail of both,) and doubting whether the phrase which has the most of forcible brevity, will be readily taken in, it may be recommended to use both expressions; — first to expand the sense, sufficiently to be clearly understood, and then to contract it into the most compendious and striking form. This expedient might seem at first sight the most decidedly adverse to the brevity recommended; but it will be found in practice, that the addition of a compressed and pithy expression of the sentiment, which has been already stated at greater length, will produce the effect of brevity. For it is to be remembered that it is not on account of the actual number of words that diffuseness is to be condemned, (unless one were limited to a certain space, or time,) but to avoid the flatness and tediousness resulting from ill; so that if this appearance can be obviated by the insertion of such an abridged repetition as is here recommended, which adds poignancy and spirit to the whole. Conciseness will be, practically, promoted by the addition. The hearers will be struck by the forcibleness of the sentence which they will have been prepared to comprehend ; they will understand the longer expression, and remember the shorter. But the force will, in general, be totally destroyed, or much enfeebled, if the order be reversed ; — if the brief expression be put first, and afterwards expanded and explained ; for it loses much of its force if it be not clearly understood the moment it is uttered; and if it be, there is no need of the subsequent expansion. 

Apart from 'Rhetoric’ the only other book of Whately’s that I have read is his retorsion of Hume on Miracles - Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. It’s available in a clean epub/kindle format on Gutenberg Project. Brilliant, succinct, concise and to the point. Tutt, tutt superfluity of expression. It requires a separate post.