Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/232

 circumstance, so far as it may be observed, will authorize a presumption that they are not the fabrications of imposture; which has always some end, commonly a discoverable end, to promote by its illusions. At any rate, our ignorance of the purpose or end can be no disproof of the fact: and the purposes of Providence in the events most obvious to our notice, observably often elude our scrutiny.

Still the acknowledged millions of the dead that are seen no more induce a reluctance to believe in the reappearance of any, however attested. Common incidents, though often not less inexplicable than those which are unusual, become familiar to our observation, and soon cease to excite our wonder. But rare and preternatural occurrences astonish and shock belief by their novelty; and apparitions are by many accounted things so improbable in themselves, as not to be rendered credible by any external testimony. The same charge of insuperable incredibility has been urged against miracles; and in both cases proceeds upon a supposition, evidently erroneous, that the improbable nature of any alleged event is a stronger evidence of its falsity, than the best approved testimony can be of its truth.

It is confessed that extraordinary events, when rumoured, are, till proved, less probable than those that are common; because their occurrence having been less frequent, their existence has been verified in fewer instances by experience. And, upon the same principle, the more remote any reported phenomenon appears to be from what we ordinarily observe in nature, the greater, antecedently to its authentication by evidence, is its improbability.

But improbability arising from rarity of occurrence, or singularity of nature, amounts to no disproof; it is a presumptive reason of doubt, too feeble to withstand the conviction induced by positive and credible testimony, such as that which has been borne to shadowy reappearances of the dead. These, as our author intimates, have been uniformly attested in every age and country, by persons who had no communication or knowledge of each other, and whose concurrence of testimony