<P> And there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of human testimony, also based on experience . If a) testimonies conflict one another, b) there are a small number of witnesses, c) the speaker has no integrity, d) the speaker is overly hesitant or bold, or e) the speaker is known to have motives for lying, then the epistemologist has reason to be skeptical of the speaker's claims . (Hume 1974: 390) </P> <P> There is one final criterion that Hume thinks gives us warrant to doubt any given testimony, and that is f) if the propositions being communicated are miraculous . Hume understands a miracle to be any event which contradicts the laws of nature . He argues that the laws of nature have an overwhelming body of evidence behind them, and are so well demonstrated to everyone's experience, that any deviation from those laws necessarily flies in the face of all evidence . (Hume 1974: 391 - 392) </P> <P> Moreover, he stresses that talk of the miraculous has no surface validity, for four reasons . First, he explains that in all of history there has never been a miracle which was attested to by a wide body of disinterested experts . Second, he notes that human beings delight in a sense of wonder, and this provides a villain with an opportunity to manipulate others . Third, he thinks that those who hold onto the miraculous have tended towards barbarism . Finally, since testimonies tend to conflict with one another when it comes to the miraculous--that is, one man's religious miracle may be contradicted by another man's miracle--any testimony relating to the fantastic is self - denunciating . (Hume 1974: 393 - 398) </P> <P> Still, Hume takes care to warn that historians are generally to be trusted with confidence, so long as their reports on facts are extensive and uniform . However, he seems to suggest that historians are as fallible at interpreting the facts as the rest of humanity . Thus, if every historian were to claim that there was a solar eclipse in the year 1600, then though we might at first naively regard that as in violation of natural laws, we'd come to accept it as a fact . But if every historian were to assert that Queen Elizabeth was observed walking around happy and healthy after her funeral, and then interpreted that to mean that they had risen from the dead, then we'd have reason to appeal to natural laws in order to dispute their interpretation . (Hume 1974: 400 - 402) </P>

What is an enquiry concerning human understanding about