Note 48 — Lecture VIII. Free Thought in England in the Present Century; Summary of the Course of Lectures; Inferences in Reference to Present Dangers and Duties. (continued 2)

It may be almost superfluous to name that the evidences are usually divided into 1. external, and 2. internal. Each of these requires a subdivision into (α) the divine, and (β) the human.

The external divine are miracles and prophecy; the external human are the historical proof as to the authenticity and genuineness of the literature which contains the narrative of the miracles and the prophecy. The internal divine are sought in the accordance of the materials of the Revelation, the character of Christ, the scheme of Redemption, &c. with the moral sense of man, and with the expectations which we should form antecedently of the contents of a revelation; the internal human, in the critical evidence of undesigned coincidence. Looked at logically, the second is like the corroboration of the testimony of a witness; the fourth, like cross-examining him. The first two may amount almost to demonstration, being what Aristotle (Rhet. i. 2.) would call τεκμήρια: the two latter have only the force of probability; the third being antecedent probability, εἰκός; the fourth, the ἀνώνυμον σμηεῖον, or circumstantial evidence. The argument of analogy used by Butler, which may be regarded as almost1072 one form of Aristotle's παράδειγμα (Rhet. ii. 20), (if looked at on its positive side, and not merely its negative, as disproof of objections,) comes under the third, inasmuch as it offers a series of principles obtained by generalization from the natural and moral world, which furnish an antecedent presumption of the character of any revealed scheme. The remarks in the text relate to tho comparative weight to be given to the first and third of the four classes named above. The advantage of Butler's argument over the other cases of internal à priori evidence is, that it is founded on previous careful induction; the other kinds of anticipations are founded only on hasty empirical generalizations. For this view of the evidences, see Hampden's Introduction to the Philosophical Evidences of Christianity; Davidson's Lectures on Prophecy (Introductory Lecture); and W. D. Conybeare's Lectures on Theology, ch. i.