Note 283:1 — Chapter VII

This matter seems on another occasion to have passed under his own view. In the "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion" he makes Philo say, "Strong and almost incontestable proofs may be traced over the whole earth, that every part of this globe has continued for many ages entirely covered with water. And though order were supposed inseparable from matter, and inherent in it, yet may matter be susceptible of many and great revolutions through the endless periods of eternal duration." That even Hume's argument makes allowance for miracles having some time or other existed, and that it can only be urged against this or that individual statement of an unnatural occurrence, is the weapon which Campbell wields with chief effect in his admirable dissertation.