A Dissertation on Miracles
George Campbell (1762)
George Campbell — Principal of Marischal College, Aberdeen, and Hume’s own friend and correspondent
Measured, respectful of his opponent, and entirely unimpressed by the argument regardless.
- Catch rate
- 28 / 255
- Base research
- 244
- Stat total
- 346
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Short, and aimed at one man: Hume read it and respected it, which is not something he said of most replies.
Meets Hume on his own epistemological ground rather than Grotius’s evidential one — the psychology of belief itself, not the count of the witnesses.
Campbell names the circle in Hume’s own definition and does not need a second argument once it is named.
Aberdeen, 1762 — inside Hume’s own lifetime, inside his own city’s university.
Cited for this book
Campbell makes two moves. First: testimony is a native ground of belief, not a conclusion derived from experience — a child trusts what it is told long before it has gathered any experience to weigh it against, which is the psychology Hume has backwards. Second: "uniform experience against miracles" is circular — it is uniform only if every report of one has already been counted false, which is the very thing in question. Grotius answers Hume by calling a witness; Campbell answers him by naming the rule that ruled the witness out before he was called.
Moves learned
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 30 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 40 | A Debt Testimony Never Owed | Rationality | Argument | 76 | 100% | 10 |
| 44 | As Natural As A Hammer On Clay | History | Argument | 94 | 100% | 12 |