# The apple-woman and Hume's competing evidence

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH09.P013](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09.P013/#char=2269,2390): "You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story."

The demand to hear the apple-woman is an argument about who may count as a witness. Chesterton then makes the stronger claim that rejecting her report must express either social contempt or an antecedent prohibition of miracles. Those claims need separating: admitting testimony into an inquiry does not settle how much weight it should receive.

A useful comparison is David Hume's *Enquiry concerning Human Understanding*, first published in 1748; the edition inspected is Peter Millican's Hume Texts Online transcription of the 1777 text. Hume is not named here, so this is a comparison, not proof of a direct reply. In [section X, paragraphs 5–13](https://davidhume.org/texts/e/10), testimony and expectations about events both derive their authority from experience. Doubt can therefore arise from competing evidence rather than a metaphysical ban. Paragraph 13 asks whether a witness's deception or mistake is less probable than the reported event. On that account the same person's murder report and ghost report can receive different assessments without a judgment against her social class.

Chesterton's objection nevertheless finds a real foothold in Hume. Paragraph 20 associates miracle traditions with supposedly ignorant societies; paragraph 27 sets aside strikingly strong testimony to cures associated with Abbé Paris because of the events' miraculous character. Yet paragraph 36 expressly allows that testimony could establish some extraordinary violations of nature, while restricting their use as foundations of religion. Hume's text contains both evidential comparison and severe presumptions against religious miracles.

The resulting question is more exact than whether peasants deserve belief: what independent grounds justify discounting this particular report? Chesterton exposes a circular procedure if alleged superstition is inferred solely from reporting miracles and then used to disqualify the reporter. But he does not establish that every skeptical assessment follows that procedure. No particular medieval or modern miracle is identified here, so this paragraph supplies a defense of admissibility and a challenge to prejudice rather than a case whose historical evidence the reader can independently weigh.

## Sources

- [David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section X: Of Miracles](https://davidhume.org/texts/e/10), E 10.5–13 (SBN 111–116); E 10.20 (SBN 119); E 10.27 (SBN 124–125); E 10.36 (SBN 127–128), Hume Texts Online, 1777 copytext
- [Peter Millican, Editorial Notes to Hume's First Enquiry](https://davidhume.org/texts/e/notes), Opening publication history and final note identifying the 1777 text followed

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