A date is not an argument, but evidence still matters
It is simply a matter of a man's theory of things.
The paragraph rebuts an objection based merely on a belief's age. Its broader wording needs a distinction between allowing miracles in principle and finding a particular report credible. Hume supplies a useful comparison, though Chesterton does not name him here. In the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (first published in 1748), section X, §§87–91, Hume weighs the reliability of testimony against experience supporting natural regularities. That is an argument about evidence, not about which century appears on the calendar. At §99 he even allows that some extraordinary departures might be established by sufficiently extensive testimony, while withholding this concession from miracles offered as foundations of religion. Hume, section X.
Chesterton's reply can expose an unstated prohibition on miracles; it does not by itself settle a dispute about witnesses or competing explanations. A believer in divine will can still reject a reported cure. In the chapter's argument, the immediate purpose is to keep an ancient Christian answer eligible for consideration, rather than to authenticate a particular healing.
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