Experience

Let me start off by saying that my edition doesn't have the paragraph separations but I'll try to point out the section as close as I can. About 2/3 of the way through Part II of "Of Miracles," Hume says "It is experience only which gives authority to human testimony, and it is the same experience which assures of the laws of nature." I don't know that I am quite convinced by this, especially with what follows: "When, therefore, these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have nothing to do but to subtract the one from the other and embrace an opinion either on one side or the other with that assurance which arises from the remainder." This statement seems to reduce contrary experiences to simple probability and mathematics, which I find a bit difficult to argue. I don't think that there can be surety of something if there is in fact a contrary experience, regardless of the "remainder" that may result. For example, if I were to say, "apples are red," after having seen one out of the 300 I'd seen which was green, that statement wouldn't be any more correct than had I seen 100 red apples and 200 green.