THE
BAMPTON LECTURES
FOR M.DCCC.LXV.

O X F 0 E D :
BY T. COIIBE, M.A. , E. PICKAHD KALL, AND H. LATHAM, M.A.

I'lU-NTEKs TU Tim L-VlVKl

EIGHT
LECTURES 01^ MIRACLES
PREACHED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
IN THE YEAR M.DCCC.LX-V.
ON THE FOUNDATION OF
THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A.
CANON OF SAMSBHRY.

BY
J. B. MOZLEY, B.D.
VIOAR OF OLD SHOREHAM.
LATE FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE,

3£onl)on,
RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE;
HIGH STREET, I TRINITY STREET,
©jiforB. I ffiambriUgc.
1865.

Dei Voluntas reinim natura est. — St. Augustint.
Miracles well attested do not only find credit themselves, but give it
also to other truths, which need such confirmation. — Loclce.
The miracle, by displaying phenomena out of the oi'dinary connexion of
cause and eifect, manifests the appearance of a higher power, and points
out a higher connexion, in which even the chain of phenomena in the
visible world must be taken up, — Neander.

rvAt

EXTRACT
PROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF THE LATE
REV. JOHN BAMPTON,
CANON OF SALISBURY,
 " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the
" Chancellor^ Masters, and Scholars of the University of
" Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the
" said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and
" pm-poses hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and
" appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox-
" ford for the time being shall take and receive aU the rents,
" issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations,
"¦ and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re-
"¦ mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser-
'' monsj to be established for ever in the said University, and
" to be performed in the manner follo^ving :
" I direct and appoint, that, uj)ou the first Tuesday in
" Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads
" of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining
" to the Printing- House, between the hours of ten in the
" morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity
" Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Ox-
" ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent
" Term^ and the end of the tliird week in Act Term.

VI EXTRACT I'JiOAI CANON IJA UPTON >s WIEL.
" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture
" Sermons shall be preached upon cither of the following Sub-
" jects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to
" confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine au-
" thority of the holy Scriptures — vqxm the authority of the
" writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and prac-
" tice of the isrimitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord
" and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy
" Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre-
" bended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds.
" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec-
" ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months
" after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the
" Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of
" every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of
" Oxford, and one cop}^ to be put into the Bodleian Library ;
" and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the
" revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the
" Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be
" paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed.
" Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali-
" fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath
" taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the
" two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the
" same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser-
" mons twice.'"

PREFACE.

IHE difficulty which attaches to Miracles, in the
period of thought through which we are now passing,
is one which is concerned not with their evidence,
but with their intrinsic credibility. There has risen
in a certain class of minds an apparent perception
of the impossibility of suspensions of physical law.
This is one peculiarity of the present time : another
is a disposition to maintain the disbelief of miracles
upon a religious basis, and in connexion with a
declared belief in the Christian revelation.
The following Lectures, therefore, are addressed
mainly to the fundamental question of the credi
bility of Miracles ; their use, and the evidences of
of them, being only touched on subordinately and
collaterally. It was thought that such an aim,
though in itself a narrow and confined one, was
most adapted to the particular need of the day.

CONTENTS.

LECTUKE I.
mieacles neoessaky for a revelation.
St. John xv. 24.
If I had not done among them, the works thit none other man
did, they had, not had sin.
LECTUKE IL
ORDER OF NATURE.
Gen. VIII. 23.
While the earth rema.ineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not
cease.
LECTURE IIL
influence of the imagination on belief.
Psalm cxxxix. 14.
Marvelhus are Thy works, and that my sonl knoweth right well.
LECTUEE IV.
BELIEF IN A GOD.
Hebeews XI. 3.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed ly
the word of God.

X contents.
LECTURE V.
testimony. Acts i. 8.
Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judaa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the
earth.
LECTURE VL
unknown law.
St. John v. 17.
My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
LECTURE VIL
MIRACLES REGARDED IN THEIR PRACTICAL RESULT.
Romans vi. 17.
But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye
have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was
delivered you.
LECTURE Vm.
FALSE MIRACLES.
Matt. vii. 22.
Many will say to Me in that day. Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in Thy name ? and in Tliy name have cast out
devils ? and in Thy name done many wonderful works ?

LECTUEE I.
MIRACLES NECESSAEY FOR A REVELATION.
St. John xv. 24.
If I had not done among them the works that none other man
did, they had not had sin.
-tLOW is it that sometimes when the same facts
and truths have been before men all their lives,
and produced but one impression, a moment comes
when they look different from what they did 1 Some
minds may abandon, while others retain, their fun
damental position with respect to those facts and
truths, but to both they look stranger ; they excite
a certain surprise which they did not once do. The
reasons of this change then it is not always easy for
the persons themselves to trace, but of the result
they are conscious ; and in some this result is a
change of belief.
An inward process of this kind has been going on
recently in many minds on the subject of miracles ;
and in some with the latter result. "When it came
to the question — which every one must sooner or
later put to himself on this subject — did these things

2 Miracles necessary [Lect.
really take place 1 are they matters of facti they have
appeared to themselves to be brought to a standstill,
and to be obliged to own an inner refusal of their
whole reason to admit them among the actual events
of the past. This strong repugnance seemed to be
the witness of its own truth, to be accompanied by a
clear and vivid light, to be a law to the understand
ing, and to rule without appeal the question of fact.
This intellectual movement against miracles is
partly owing, doubtless, to the advance of science <
withdrawing minds from moral groimds and fixing
them too exclusively upon physical I am not sure,
however, that too much has not been made of science
as the cause in this case ; because, as a matter of
fact, we see persons who are but little acquainted
with physical science just as much opposed to
miracles as those who know most about it, and for
a very good reason. For it is evident that the ob
jection which is felt against miracles does not arise
from any minute knowledge of the laws of nature,
or any elaborate analysis which has shewn the con
nexion of those laws, traced them farther back, and
resolved them into higher and simpler laws ; but
simply because they are opposed to that plain and
obvious order of nature which everybody sees. That
a man should rise from the dead, e. g. is plainly con
tradictory to our experience ; therein lies the diffi
culty of believing it ; and that experience belongs to
everybody as much as to the deepest philosopher.
A cause, wliich has had just as much to do with
it as science, is what I may call the historical imagi-^

I.] for a Revelation. 3
nation. By the historical imagination I mean the
habit of realizing past time, of putting history before
ourselves in such a light that the persons and events
figuring in it are seen as once-living persons and
once-present events. This is in itself a high and
valuable power, and it is evident that there is too
little of it in the mass of men, to whom the past
is a figured surface rather than an actual extension
backward of time, in which the actors had all the
feelings of the hour and saw it passing by them as
we do, — the men who were then alive in the world,
the men of the day. The past is an inanimate image
in their minds, which does not beat with the pulse
of life. And this want of reality attaching to the
time, certain occurrences in it do not raise the ques
tionings, which those very occurrences realized would
raise. But a more powerful imagination enables a
man in some way to realize the past, and to see in
it the once-living present; so that when he comes
across any scene of history, he can bring it home to
himself that this scene was once present, that this
was the then living world. But when the reality
of the past is once apprehended and embraced, then
the miraculous occurrences in it are realized too :
being realized they excite surprise ; and surprise,
when it once comes in, takes two directions ; it either
makes belief more real, or it destroys belief. There
is an element of doubt in surprise ; for this emotion
arises hecause an event is strange, and an event is
strange because it goes counter to and jars with pre
sumption, Shall surprise then give life to belief or
B 2

4 Miracles necessary [Lect.
stimulus to doubt ? The road of belief and unbelief
in the history of some minds thus partly lies over
common ground ; the two go part of their journey
together ; they have a common perception in the
insight into the real astonishing nature of the facts
with which they deal. The majority of mankind
perhaps owe their belief rather to the outward in
fluence of custom and education than to any strong
principle of faith within ; and it is to be feared that
many if they came to perceive how wonderful what
they believed was, would not find their belief so easy
and so matter-of-course a thing as they appear to
find it. Custom throws a film over the great facts
of religion, and interposes a veil between the mind
and truth, which, by preventing wonder, intercepts
doubt too, and at the same time excludes from
deep belief and protects from disbelief. But deeper
faith and disbelief throw off in common the de
pendence on mere custom, draw aside the inter
posing veil, place themselves face to face with the
contents of the past, and expose themselves alike to
the ordeal of wonder.
I would, however, give a passing caution against
one mistake which a mind gifted with an historical
imagination is apt to commit. Such a mind raises
a clear and vivid picture of a particular period,
imagines the persons acting and speaking, calls up
a perfect scene and fills it with the detail of actual
life. The world which it thus pictures, it then
assimilates, with allowance for externals, to the
world of the present day, translating character and

I.] for a Revelation. 5
motives, actions and events into a modern type, in
order to make them look real and livmg. If the
period, then, into which this mind has transported
itself be that of the first promulgation of the Gospel^
the miraculous events of that epoch are imagined
and pictured as the kind of supernatural events
which, if they made their appearance at the present
day, would receive a natural explanation. He has
hitherto, then, made no mistake of fact, because he
has only raised a picture, and only professed to do
so. But just at this juncture he is apt to make,
unawares, a mistake of fact ; i. e. to suppose, be
cause he has transported himself in imagination
to the world of a distant age, that therefore he
has seen that world and its contents, and to mis
take a picture for reality. It seems to him as if
he could bring back a report from thence, and
assure us that nothing reaUy took place in that
world of the nature that we suppose. But in truth
he no more knows by this process of the imagina
tion what took place in that world, than another
person knows : for we cannot in this way ascertain
facts. The imagination assumes knowledge, and
does not make it : it vivifies the stock we have,
but does not add one item to it. The supposition
— 'Had we lived in the world at that time we
should have seen that there was nothing more mi^
raculous in it then than there is now' — carries a
certain persuasiveness with it to some ; but it is
a mere supposition. They may by an effort of
mind have raised a vivid image of the past, but

6 Miracles necessary [Lect.
they have not gained the least knowledge of its
events by this act. That world has now passed
away and cannot be recalled. But certain things
are said to have taken place in it. Whether those
events did take place or not must depend on the
testimony which has come down to us.
With this prefatory notice of a prevalent intel
lectual feature of the day, — for this effort to realize
the past, to make it look like yesterday, does not
only characterize individual writers, but is part of
the thought of the age, — I enter upon the con
sideration of the position which I have chosen as
the subject of these Lectures ; viz. that Miracles)^
or visible suspensions of the order of nature for
a providential purpose, are not in contradiction to'
reason. And, first of aU, I shall enquire into the
use and purpose of miracles, — especially with a view
to ascertain whether in the execution of the Divine
intentions toward mankind, they do not answer a
necessary purpose, and supply a want which could
not be supphed in any other way.
There is one great necessary purpose, then, which
divines assign to miracles, viz. the proof of a reve
lation. And certainly, if it was the will of God
to give a revelation, there are plain and obvious
reasons for asserting that miracles are necessary as
the guarantee and voucher for that revelation. A
revelation is, properly speaking, such only by virtue
of telling us something which we could not know
without it. But how do we know that that commu
nication of what is undiscoverable by human reason

I-] for a Revelation. 7
is truel Our reason cannot prove the truth of it,
for it is by the very supposition beyond our reason.
There must be, then, some note or sign to certify
to it and distinguish it as a true communication
from God, which note can be nothing else than a
miracle. The evidential function of a miracle is based upon
the common argument of design, as proved by co
incidence. The greatest marvel or interruption of
the order of nature occurring by itself, as the very
consequence of being connected with nothing, proves
nothing ; but if it takes place in connexion with
the word or act of a person, that coincidence proves
design in the marvel, and makes it a miracle ; and
if that person professes to report a message or
revelation from heaven, the .coincidence again of
the miracle with the professed message from God
proves design on the part of God to warrant and
authorize the message. The mode in which a mi
racle acts as evidence is thus exactly the same in
which any extraordinary coincidence acts : it rests
upon the general argument of design, though the
particular design is special and appropriate to the
miracle. And hence we may see that the evidence
of a Divine communication cannot in the nature
of the case be an ordinary event. For no event
in the common order of nature is in the first place
in any coincidence with the Divine communication :
it is explained by its own place in nature, and is
connected with its own antecedents and consequents
only, having no allusion or bearing out of them.

8 Miracles necessary [Lect.
It does not either in itself, or to human eye, contain
any relation to the special communication from God
at the time. But if there is no coincidence, there
is no appearance of design, and therefore no attes
tation. It is true that prophecy is such an attes
tation, but though the event which fulfils prophecy
need not be itself out of the order of nature, it is
an indication of a fact which is ; viz. an act of
superhuman knowledge. And this remark would
apply to a miracle which was only miraculous
upon the prophetical principle, or from the exfraor-
dinary coincidence which was contained in it. And
hence it follows that could a complete physical
solution be given of a whole miracle, both the
marvel and the coincidence too, it would cease from
that moment to perform its function of evidence.
Apparent evidence to those who had made the mis
take, it could be none to us who had corrected it.
It will be urged, perhaps, that extraordinary
coincidences take place in the natural course of
providence, which are called special providences ;
and that these are regarded as signs and tokens of
the Divine will, though they are not visible inter
ferences with the order of nature. But special
providences, though they convey some, do not con
vey full evidence of, design. Coincidence is a
matter of degree, and varies from the lowest degree
possible to t'. e fullest and highest. In whatever
degree, therefore, a coincidence may appear in the
events of the world, or in the events of private
life, in that degree it is a direction, to whomsoever

I.] for a Revelation. 9
it is evident, to see the finger of God either in
public affairs or in his own, and to draw a lesson,
or it may be to adopt a particular course of con
duct, in consequence. But it is of the nature of
a miracle to give proof, as distinguished from mere
surmise, of a Divine design ; and therefore the most
complete and decisive kind of coincidence alone is
miraculous. It must be observed, however, that a special pro
vidence is an indication of a special Divine design,
to whatever extent it is so, only as being an indi
cation of extraordinary Divine agency somewhere,
which agency partakes substantially of a miraculous
character ; though that character is not placed di
rectly before our eyes, but is only gathered from
such marks of coincidence as the events in the case
exhibit. The point at which the Divine power comes
into contact with the chain of natural causation is re
mote, and comparatively hidden ; but still however
high up in the succession of nature, such extraordi
nary agency is, at the point at which it does occur,
preternatural ; because by nature we mean God's
general law, or usual acts. A special providence
thus differs from a miracle in its evidence, not in
its nature ; it is an invisible miracle, though not
so absolutely so as not to be indirectly traceable
by means of such indications as the events afford.
If a marvel is commanded or announced, or even
what is not a marvel but only a striking event
(such as sudden cure of a bad disease), and it takes
place immediately, the coincidence is too remark-

10 Miracles necessary [Lect.
able to be accounted for in any other way than
design. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
the dividing of the Red Sea, and other miracles
which were wrought by the medium of natural
agency, were miracles for this reason. But in the
case of a special providence, the coincidence sug
gests but does not compel this interpretation. The
death of Arius, e. g. was not miraculous, because
the coincidence of the death of an heresiarch taking
place when it was peculiarly advantageous to the
orthodox faith, to which it would have been ad
vantageous at any time, was not such as to compel
the inference of extraordinary Divine agency ; but
it was a special providence because it carried a
reasonable appearance of it. The miracle of the
Thmidering Legion was a special providence, but
not a miracle for the same reason, because the coin
cidence of an instantaneous fall of rain in answer
to prayer carried some appearance, but not proof,
of preternatural agency, especially in the climate
where the occurrence happened. Where there is
no violation of physical law, the more inexplicable
must be the coincidence in order to constitute
the proof of extraordinary Divine agency ; and
therefore in that class of miracles which consists
of answers to prayer, the most unaccountable kind
of coincidence alone can answer the purpose. And
the same principle applies to other ijiiracles. The
appearance of the cross to Constantine was a miracle
or a special providence, according to which account
of it we adopt. As only a meteoric appearance in

I.] for a Revelation. 11
the shape of a cross, without the adjuncts, it gave
some token of preternatural agency, but not fuU
evidence. It may be conceded, indeed, that the truths which
are communicated in a revelation might be conveyed
to the human mind without a visible miracle : and
upon this ground it has appeared to some that a
revelation does not absolutely require miracles, but
might be imparted to the mind of the person chosen
to be the recipient of it by an inward and invisible
process alone. But to suppose upon this ground
that miracles are not necessary for a revelation is
to confound two things which are perfectly distinct ;
viz. the ideas themselves which are communicated
in a revelation, and the proof that those ideas are
true. For simply imparting ideas to the human
mind, or causing ideas to arise in the human mind,
an ordinary act of Divine power is sufficient, for
God can put thoughts into men's minds by a pro
cess altogether secret, and without the accompani
ment of any external sign, and it is a part of His
ordinary providence to do so. And in the same
way in which He causes an idea of an ordinary
kind to arise in a person's mind, He could also cause
to arise an extraordinary idea ; for though the cha
racter of the ideas themselves would differ, the
process of imparting them would be the same. But,
then, when the extraordinary idea was there, what
evidence would there be that it was true ? None :
for the process of imparting it being wholly secret,
all that the recipient of it could possibly then

12 Miracles necessary [Lect.
know, would be that he had the idea, that it was
in his mind ; but that the idea was in his mind
would not prove in the least that it was true.
Let us suppose, e. g. that the idea was imparted
to the mind of a particular person that an atone
ment had been made for the sins of the whole
world, and that the Divine power stopped with
the act of imparting that idea and went no further.
The idea, then, of a certain mysterious event having
taken place has been imparted to him and he has
it, but so far from that person being able to give
proof of that event to others, he would not even
have received evidence of it himself In an en
thusiastic mind, indeed, the rise, without anything
to account for it, of the idea that such an event
had taken place, might of itself produce the belief
that it had, and be taken as witness to its own
truth ; but it could not reasonably constitute such a
guarantee, even to himself, and still less to others.
The distinction may be illustrated by a case of
prophecy. It was divinely communicated to the
ancient prophet that Tyre or Babylon should be
destroyed, or that Israel should be carried into
captivity; and in this communication itself there
was nothing miraculous, because the idea of the
future destruction of a city, and of the future cap
tivity of a people, could be raised in the mind of
a prophet by the same process by which God causes
a natural thought to arise in a person's mind. But
then the mere occurrence of this idea to the prophet
would be no proof that it was true. In the case

I.] for a Revelation. 13
of prophecy, then, the simple event which fulfils it
is the proof of the truth of that idea ; but this kind
of proof does not apply to the case of a revelation
of a doctrine, which must therefore have another
sort of guarantee.
If, then, a person of evident integrity and loftiness
of character rose into notice in a particular country
and community eighteen centuries ago, who made
these communications about himself — that he had
existed before his natural birth, from all eternity,
and before the world was, in a state of glory with
God ; that he was the only-begotten Son of God ;
that the world itself had been made by him ; that he
had, however, come down from heaven and assumed
the form and nature of man for a particular purpose,
viz. to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the
sins of the world ; that he thus stood in a myste
rious and supernatural relation to the whole of man
kind ; that through him alone mankind had access to
God ; that he was the head of an invisible kingdom,
into which he should gather all the generations of
righteous men who had lived in the world ; that on
his departure from hence he should return to heaven
to prepare mansions there for them ; and lastly, that
he should descend again at the end of the world to
judge the whole human race, on which occasion aU
that were in their graves should hear his voice and
come forth, they that had done good unto the resur
rection of life, and they that had done evil unto the
resurrection of danmation, — if this person made these
assertions about himself, and all that was done was

14 Miracles necessary [Lect.
to make the assertions ; what would be the inevitable
conclusion of sober reason respecting that person 1
The necessary conclusion of sober reason respecting
that person would be that he was disordered in his
understanding. What other decision could we come
to when a man, looking like one of ourselves and
only exemplifying in his life and circumstances the
ordinary course of nature, said this about himself,
but that when reason had lost its balance, a dream
of extraordinary and unearthly grandeur might be
the result 1 By no rational being could a just and
benevolent hfe be accepted as proof of such astonish
ing announcements. Miracles are the necessary com
plement then of the truth of such announcements,
which without them are purposeless and abortive,
the unfinished fragments of a design which is nothing
unless it is the whole. They are necessary to the
justification of such announcements, which indeed,
unless they are supernatural truths, are the wildest
delusions. The matter and its guarantee are the two
parts of a revelation, the absence of either of which
neutralizes and undoes it.
But would not a perfectly sinless character be
proof of a revelation 1 Undoubtedly that would be
as great a miracle as any that could be conceived ;
but where is the proof of perfect sinlessness ? No
outward life and conduct, however just, benevolent,
and irreproachable, could prove this, because good
ness depends upon the inward motive, and the per
fection of the inward motive is not proved by the
outward act. Exactly the same act may be perfect

I.] for a Revelation. 15
or imperfect according to the spirit of the doer. The
same language of indignation against the wicked
which issues from our Lord's mouth might be uttered
by an imperfect good man, who mixed human frailty
with the emotion. We accept our Lord's perfect
goodness then upon the same evidence upon which
we admit the rest of His supernatural character ; but
not as proved by the outward goodness of His life,
by His character, subUme as that was, as it pre
sented itself to the eye.
On the subject, however, of the necessity of
miracles to a revelation, the ground has been taken
by some that this necessity is displaced by the
strength of the internal evidence of Christianity.
And first, it is urged that the intrinsic nature of the
doctrines, and their adaptation to the human heart,
supplies of itself the proof of their truth.
But the proof of a revelation which is contained in
the substance of a revelation has this inherent check
or limit in it, viz. that it cannot reach to what is un-
discoverable by reason. Internal evidence is itself an
appeal to reason, because at every step the test is our
own appreciation of such and such an idea or doctrine,
our own perception^of its fitness ; but human reason
cannot in the nature of the case prove that which,
by the very hypothesis, lies beyond human reason.
Let us take, e. g. the doctrine of the Incarnation.
The idea of a union of the Divine nature with the
human has approved itself to the mind of mankind
as a grand and sublime idea ; in debased shapes it
has prevailed in almost every religion of the heathen

16 Miracles necessary [Lect.
world, and it occupies a marked space in the history
of human thought. The Christian doctrine appeals
to every lofty aspiration of the human heart ; it
exalts our nature, places us in intimate relation to
God, and inspires us with a sense of His love. The
human heart therefore responds to the doctrine of
the Incarnation, and feels that doctrine to be adapted
to it. But because the idea is thus adapted to it,
is that a proof that it has been chosen in the Divine
counsels to be put into execution 1 No : it would
be wild reasoning to infer from the sublimity of a
supposition, as a mere conception of the mind, that
that conception had been embodied in a Divine dis
pensation, and to conclude from a thought of man
an act of God. To do this is to attribute to our
selves perceptions of the Divine will beyond our
conscience ; i. e. to attribute to ourselves super
natural perceptions. So, again, that the human
heart responds to an Atonement supposed to be
revealed, is no proof that that Divine act has taken
place ; because the human heart has no power by
its mere longings of penetrating into the super
natural world, and seeing what takes place there.
But the internal evidences of Christianity include,
beside the intrinsic nature of the doctrines, the fruits
of Christianity — its historical development. How
ever necessary, it is said, the evidence of miracles
was upon the first promulgation of the Gospel, when
the new faith was but just sown, and its marvellous
growth, its great results, its mighty conquests over
the human heart were not yet before the eye, it is

I.] for a Revelation. 17
no longer necessary now, when we have these effects
before us. Tliis is a kind of proof then of a revelation
which is peculiarly adapted to produce inward convic
tion — a persuasion of the truth of that religion which
produces such results. No member of the Christian
evidence taken singly has perhaps so much strength
as this ; nor can we well rest too much upon it, so
long as we do not charge it with more of the burden
of proof than it is in its own nature equal to — viz.
the whole. But that it cannot bear. If the sincere
belief of persons in something does not prove that
thing, can the natural consequences of that belief
of themselves prove it 1 If I am asked for the proof
of a doctrine, and I say simply, ' I believe it,' that
is obviously no proof; but if I go on to say, 'This
belief has had in my own case a connexion with
devout practice,' that alone is not adequate proof
either, even though this connexion has taken place
in others as well on a large scale. We can indeed
in imagination conceive such a universal spread of
individual holiness and goodness as would amount
to a supernatural manifestation : as, e. g. if we sup
posed that the description of the Christian Church
given in parts of prophecy was literally fulfilled, and
" the people were all righteous *." But the actual
result of Christianity is very different from this.
There are two sides of the historical development of
Christianity ; one of success and one of failure. What
proportion of nominal Christians in every age have
been real Christians % Has Christianity stopped war,
a Isaiah Ix. 21.

18 Miracles necessary [Lect.
persecution, tyranny, injustice, and the dominion of
selfish passion in the world which it has professedly
converted ? No ; nor is that the fault of Christianity,
but of man. But if the appeal is made to the result
of Christianity as the proof of the supernatural truths
of Christianity, we must take that result as it stands.
What is that result % It is that amidst the general
deflection of Christians from the Gospel standard, a
certain number -^so large indeed in comparison with
the corresponding class among the heathen as to
surprise us, but small as compared with the whole
body — are seen in every age directing their lives upon
rehgious principles and motives. But we cannot
safely pronounce this to be a standing supernatural
phenomenon, equivalent to, and superseding the need
of, miraculous evidence. Taken indeed in connexion
with prophecy, the results of Christianity stand upon
a stronger ground as Christian evidence ; but it must
be remembered that this connexion introduces an
other element into the argument, different from and
additional to the simple fact of the results, viz.
the fulfilment of prophecy contained in them, — an
element of proof which is in essence miraculous
proof (Note i.)
It must be remembered that when this part of
Christian evidence comes so forcibly home to us, and
creates that inward assurance which it does, it does
this in connexion with the proof of miracles in the
background, which though it may not for the time
be brought into actual view, is still known to be
there, and to be ready for use upon being wanted.

I.] for a Revelation. 19
The indirect proof from results, fias the greater force,
and carries with it the deeper persuasion, because
it is additional and auxiliary to ihe. direct proof
behind it, upon which it leans all the time, though
we may not distinctly notice and estimate this
advantage. Were the evidence of moral result to
be taken rigidly alone, as the one single guarantee
for a Divine revelation, it would then be seen that
we had calculated its single strength too highly.
If there is a species of evidence which is directly
appropriate to the thing believed, we cannot sup
pose, on the strength of the indirect evidence we
possess, that we can do without the direct. But
miracles are the direct credentials of a revelation ;
the visible supernatural is the appropriate witness
to the invisible supernatural — that proof which goes
straight to the point, and, a token being wanted
of a Divine communication, is that token. We
cannot, therefore, dispense with this evidence. The
position that the revelation proves the miracles, and
not the miracles the revelation, admits of a good
qualified meaning ; but taken literally, it is a double
offence against the rule, that things are properly
proved by the proper proof of them ; for a super
natural fact is the proper proof of a supernatural
doctrine ; while a supernatural doctrine, on the other
hand, is certainly not the proper proof of a super
natural fact.
But suppose a person to say, and to say with
truth, that his own individual faith does not rest
upon miracles ; is he therefore released from the
c 2

20 Miracles necessary [Lect.
defence of miracles 1 Is the question of their truth
or falsehood an irrelevant one to him ^ Is his faith
secure if they are disproved 1 By no means : if
miracles were, although only at the commencement,
necessary to Christianity, and were actually wrought,
and therefore form part of the Gospel record and
are bound up with the Gospel scheme and doctrines ;
this part of the structure cannot be abandoned with
out the sacrifice of the other too. To shake the
authority of one-half of this body of statement is
to shake the authority of the whole. Whether or
not the individual makes use of them for the sup
port of his own faith, the miracles are there ; and
if they are there they must be there either as
true miracles or as false ones. If he does not avail
himself of their evidence, his belief is still affected
by their refutation. Accepting as he does the su
pernatural truths of Christianity and its miracles
upon the same report from the same witnesses,
upon the authority of the same documents, he can
not help having at any rate this negative interest
in them. For if those witnesses and documents
deceive us with regard to the miracles, how can
we trust them with regard to the doctrines 1 If
they are wrong upon the evidences of a revela
tion, how can we depend upon their being right
as to the nature of that revelation ? If their ac
count of visible facts is to be received with an
explanation, is not their account of docfrines liable
to a like explanation ? Revelation then, even if it
does not need the truth of miracles for the benefit

!•] for a Revelation. 21
of their proof, stiU requires it in order not to be
crushed under the weight of their falsehood.
Or do persons prefer resting doctrine upon the
ground more particularly of tradition 1 The result
is still the same. For the Christian miracles are
bound up inseparably with the whole corpus of
Christian tradition. But if tradition has been mis
taken with respect to facts, how can we trust it
with respect to doctrines 1 Indeed, not only are
miracles conjoined with doctrine in Christianity,
but miracles are inserted in the doctrine and are
part of its contents. A man cannot state his behef
as a Christian in the terms of the Apostles' Creed
without asserting them. Can the doctrine of our
Lord's Incarnation be disjoined from one physical
miracle 1 Can the doctrine of His justification of us,
and intercession for us, be disjoined from another ?
This insertion of the great miracles of our Lord's
life in the Christian Creed itself serves to explain
some language in the Fathers which otherwise might
be thought to indicate an inferior and ambiguous
estimate of the effect of miracles as evidence. They
sometimes speak of the miracles performed by our
Lord during His ministry as if they were evidence
of His mission rather as the fulfilment of prophecy,
than upon their own account. Upon this head, then,
it must be remembered, first, that to subordinate
miracles as evidence to prophecy is not to supersede
miraculous evidence; for prophecy is one depart
ment of the miraculous. But, in the next place, the
miraculous Birth of our Lord, His Resurrection and

22 Miracles necessary [Lect.
Ascension, were inserted in the Christian Creed ;
which cardinal miracles being accepted, the lesser
miracles of our Lord's ministry had naturally a
subordinate place as evidence. If a miracle is incor
porated as an article in a creed, that article of the
creed, the miracle, and the proof of it by a miracle,
are all one thing. The great miracles therefore,
upon the evidence of which the Christian scheme
rested, being thus inserted in the Christian Creed,
the behef in the Creed was of itself the behef in
the miraculous evidence of it. The doctrine of the
Atonement, its acceptance, and the return of the Son
of God to heaven to sit at His Father's right hand,
are indeed in the abstract separable from the visible
miracles of the Resurrection and Ascension which
were the evidence of it ; but actually in the Chris
tian Church this evidence of the doctrine is the
very form of the doctrine too ; and the Fathers in
holding the doctrine held the evidence of miracles
to it. (Note 2.)
Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of
Christianity must stand or fall together. These two
questions — the nature of the revelation, and the
evidence of the revelation — cannot be disjoined.
Christianity as a dispensation undiscoverable by
human reason, and Christianity as a dispensation
authenticated by miracles — these two are in ne
cessary combination. If any do not include the
supernatural character of Christianity in their de
finition of it, regarding the former only as one in
terpretation of it or one particular traditional form

l.J for a Revelation. 23
of it, which is separable from the essence, — for
Christianity as thus defined, the support of miracles
is not wanted, because the moral truths are their
own evidence. But Christianity cannot be main
tained as a revelation undiscoverable by human
reason, a revelation of a supernatural scheme for
man's salvation, without the evidence of miracles.
And hence it follows that upon the supposition
of the Divine design of a revelation, a miracle is not
an anomaly or irregularity, but part of the system
of the universe ; because, though an irregularity
and an anomaly in relation to either part, it has
a complete adaptation to the whole. There being
two worlds, a visible and invisible, and a commu
nication between the two being wanted, a miracle
is the instrument of that communication. An ex
ception to each order of things separately, it is in'
perfect keeping with both taken together, as being
the link or medium between them. This is, indeed,
the form and mode of order which belongs to in-
struments as a class. A key is out of relation,
either to the inside or outside taken separately of
the inclosure which it opens ; but it is in relation
to both taken together as being the insfrument of
admission from the one to the other. Take any
tool or implement of art, handicraft, or husbandry,
and look at it by itself ; what an eccentric and
unmeaning thing it is, wholly out of order and
place ; but it is in exact order and place as the
medium between the workman and the material.
And a miracle is in perfect order and place as the

24 Miracles necessary [Lect.
medium between two worlds, though it is an
anomaly with respect to one of them alone.
"^ Spinoza, indeed, upon this ground of order. That
nothing can be out of the order of the universe
that takes place in the universe, denies the possi
bility of a miracle ; but the truth of this inference
depends entirely on the definition we give of a
miracle. If a miracle is defined to be something
which contradicts the order of the whole, then,
upon the principle that nothing which is out of the
order of the whole can exist or take place, there can be
no such thing as a miracle. But if a miracle is only
a contradiction to one part, i. e. the visible portion
of the whole, this conclusion does not follow. And
thus, according as we define a miracle, this ground
of universal order becomes either a ground for re-
_i luting the miraculous or a ground for defending it.
The defect of Spinoza's view is that he will not look
upon a miracle as an instrument, a means to an end,
but will only look upon it as a marvel beginning
and ending with itself "A miracle," he says, "as
an interruption to the order of nature, cannot give
us any knowledge of God, nor can we understand
anything from it." (Note_3.) It is true we cannot un
derstand anything from an interruption of the order
of nature, simply as such ; but if this interruption
has an evidential function attaching to it, then some
thing may be understood from it, and something of
vast importance.
We must admit, indeed, an inherent modification
in the function of a miracle as an instrument of

I.] for a Revelation. 25
proof To a simple rehgious mind not acquainted
with ulterior considerations, a miracle appears to be
immediate, conclusive, unconditional proof of the doc
trine for which it is wrought ; but, on reflexion, we
see that it is checked by conditions ; that it cannot
obhge us to accept any doctrine which is contiary
to our moral nature, or to a fundamental principle
of religion. But this is only a limitation of the
function of a miracle as evidence, and no disproof
of it ; for conditions, though they interfere with the
force of a principle where they are 7iot compHed with,
do not detract from it where they are. We have
constantly to limit the force of particular principles,
whether of evidence, or morals, or law, which at first
strike us as absolute, but which upon examination
are seen to be checked ; but these principles still
remain in substantial strength. Has not the au
thority of conscience itself checks and qualifications 1
And were a person so disposed, could he not make
out an apparent case against the use of conscience
at aU — that there were so many conditions from this
quarter and the other quarter Hmiting it, that it
was really left almost without value as a guide ?
The same remark applies to some extent to the
evidence of memory. The evidence of miracles, then,
is not negatived because it has conditions. The
question may at first sight create a dilemma — If a
miracle is nugatory on the side of one doctrine,
what cogency has it on the side of another ? Is it
legitimate to accept its evidence when we please,
and reject it when we please 1 But in truth, a

26 Miracles necessary [Lect.
miracle is never without an argumentative force,
although that force may be counterbalanced. Any
physical force may be counteracted by an impedi
ment, but it exists all the wliile, and resumes its
action upon that impediment being removed. A
miracle has a natural argumentative force on the
side of that doctrine for which it is wrought ; if the
doctrine is such that we cannot accept it, we resist
the force of a miracle in that instance ; stiU. that
force remains and produces its natural effect when
there is no such obstruction. If I am obhged by the
incredible nature of an assertion to explain the
miracle for it upon another principle than the evi
dential, I do so ; but in the absence of this necesssity,
I give it its natural explanation. A rule gives
way when there is an exception to it made out ;
but otherwise it stands. "^Tien we know upon
antecedent grounds that the doctrine is false, the
miracle admits of a secondary explanation, viz. as
a trial of faith ; but the first and most natural
explanation of it is still as evidence of the doctrine,
and that remains in force when there is no intrinsic
objection to the doctrine.
When, then, a revelation is made to man by the
only instrument by which it can be made, that that
instrument should be an anomaly, an irregularity
relatively to this visible order of things, is necessary;
and aU we are concerned with is its competency.
Is it a good instrument 1 is it effective 1 does it
answer its purpose 1 does it do what it is wanted
to do?

I.] for a Revelation. 27
This instrument, then, has certainly one important
note or token of a Divine instrument ; — it bears upon
it the stamp oi power. Does a miracle, regarded as
a mere prodigy or portent, appear to be a mean, rude,
petty, and childish thing? Turn away from that
untrue because inadequate aspect of it, to that which
is indeed the true aspect of a miracle. Look at
it as an instrument, as a powerful instrument, as an
instrument which has shewn and proved its power
in the actual result of Christendom. Christianity
is the religion of the civilized world, and it is be
lieved upon its miraculous evidence. Now for a set
of miracles to be accepted in a rude age, and to
retain their authority throughout a succession of such
ages, and over the ignorant and superstitious part
of mankind, may be no such great result for the
miracle to accompKsh, because it is easy to satisfy
those who do not inquire. But this is not the
state of the case which we have to meet on the
subject of the Christian miracles. The Christian
being the most intelligent, the civilized portion of
the world, these miracles are accepted by the
Christian body as a whole, by the thinking and
educated as well as the uneducated part of it, and
the Gospel is believed upon that evidence. Allow
ance made for certain schools of thought in it, this
age in which we Uve accepts the Christian miracles
as the foundation of its faith. But this is a great
result — the establishment and the continuance of a
religion in the world, — as the rehgion too of the
intelligent as well as of the simpler portion of

28 Miracles necessary [Lect.
society. Indeed, in connexion with this point, may
we not observe that the evidence of miracles has
been taken up by the most inquiring and considerate
portion of the Christian body ; by that portion espe
cially which was anxious that its belief should be
rational, and should rest upon evidence ? Of that
great school of writers which has dealt with miracles,
the conspicuous characteristics have been certainly
no childish or superstitious love of the marvellous,
but the judicial faculty, strong reasoning powers,
strong critical powers, the power of estimating and
weighing evidence. May we not then, when the miracle
is represented as a mere childish desideratum, take
these important circumstances into consideration, —
the object which the Christian miracles have actually
effected ; their actual result in the world ; the use
which has been made of them by reasonable and
reflecting minds ; the source which they have been
of reasonable and reflecting belief ; their whole
history, in short, as the basis, along with other
considerations, of the Christian behef of the civi
lized world, educated and uneducated 1 May we
not call attention to the Gospel miracle in its
actual working, — that it has been connected not
with fanciful, childish, credulous, and superstitious,
but with rational religion ; that it has been accepted
by those whose determination it has been only to
believe upon rational grounds ; that indeed, if there
is a difference, it has been the instrument of convic
tion rather to the reasoning class of minds than the
unreasoning. A miracle is in its own nature an

I-] for a Revelation. 29
appeal to the reason ; and its evidence contrasts
in this respect with the mere influence of sentiment
and tradition. These are strong witnesses to the
nature of a miracle as an instrument, and shew
that a miracle is a great instrument, and worthy
of the Divine employment.
For — and this largely constitutes the greatness
and efficacy of the instrument — the evidence of a
miracle is not only contemporary with the miracle,
but extends in the nature of the case through all
subsequent ages into which the original testimony
to such miracle is transmitted. The chain of testi
mony is indeed more and more lengthened out, and
every fresh link which is added is a step further from
the starting-point, but so long as the original testi
mony reaches us, through however many links, the
miracle which it attests is the same evidence that it
ever was. Scientffic men have sometimes, indeed,
speculated upon the effect of time upon the value
of historical evidence ; practically speaking, however,
between an event's first standing in regular history,
and its very latest which is at this very moment,
we see no difference. The testimony to the battle
of Pharsalia is as strong now, as at its first insertion
in the page of history ; nor can we entertain the
notion of a time, however remote, when it wiU not be
as strong as it is now. Whatever value, then, the tes
timony to the Christian miracles had when that testi
mony first took its place in public records, that it has
now, and that it will continue to have so long as the
world lasts. But such a prospect raises our estimate

30 Miracles necessary [Lect.
of the importance and the greatness of a miracle as an
instrument indefinitely, for indeed we do not know
its fuU effects, we are in the middle, or perhaps only
as yet m the very beginning of its history as a pro
vidential engine for the preservation of a religion in
the world. A miracle is remarkably adapted for the
original propagation of a religion, but this is only its
first work. The question must still always arise, and
must be always rising afresh in every generation
afterwards, — Why must I believe in this revelation ?
So far, then, from the use of miracles being hmited
to a first start, even supposing a rehgion could spread
at first by excitement and sjnmpathy without them,
a time must come when rational and inquiring minds
would demand a guarantee ; and when that demand
was made a miracle alone could answer it. The
miracle, then, enters at its birth upon a long career,
to supply ground for rational belief throughout all
time. Mahometanism, indeed, established itself in the
world without even any pretence on the part of its
founder to miraculous powers. But the triumph of
Mahometanism over human behef, striking as it
has been, cannot blind us to the fact that the behef
of the Mahometan is in its very principle irrational,
because he accepts Mahomet's supernatural account
of himself, as the conductor of a new dispensation,
upon Mahomet's own assertion simply, joined to his
success. (Note 4.) But this belief is in its very form
irrational ; and whatever may be the apparent pre
sent strength and prospects of Mahometanism, this

I.] for a Revelation. 31
defect must cling to its very foundation, with this
corollary attaching to it, viz. that if the law of
reason is allowed to work itself out in the history
of human rehgious, the ultimate dissolution of the
Mahometan fabric of behef is certain, because its
very existence is an offence against that law. But
the belief of the Christian is, at all events in form,
a rational belief, which the Mahometan's is not ; be
cause the Christian beheves in a supernatural dis
pensation, upon the proper evidence of such a dis
pensation, viz. the miraculous. Antecedently, indeed,
to all examination into the particulars of the Chris
tian evidence, Christianity is the only religion in the
world which professes to possess a body of direct
external evidence to its having come from God.
Mahometanism avows the want of tliis ; and the pre
tensions of other rehgions to it are mockery. One
religion alone produces a body of testimony — testi
mony doubtless open to criticism — but still solid,
authentic, contemporaneous testimony, to miracles
— a body of evidence which makes a stand, and
upholds with a natural and genuine strength certain
facts. And in this distinction alone between Mahome
tanism and Christianity, we see a different estimate
of the claims of reason, lying at the foundation of
these two rehgions and entertained by their respective
founders. Doubtless the founder of Mahometanism
could have contrived false miracles had he chosen,
but the fact that he did not consider miraculous
evidence at all wanted to attest a supernatural dis-

32 Miracles necessary for a Revelation. [Lect. I.
pensation, but that his word was enough, shews an
utterly barbarous idea of evidence and a total mis
calculation of the claims of reason which unfits his
religion for the acceptance of an enlightened age
and people ; whereas the Gospel is adapted to per
petuity for this cause especially, with others, that
it was founded upon a true calculation, and a fore
sight of the permanent need of evidence ; our Lord
admitting the inadequacy of His own mere word,
and the necessity of a rational guarantee to His
revelation of His own nature and commission. "If
I had not done among them the works that none
other man did, they had not had sin'' ;" " The works
that I do bear witness of Me, that the Father hath
sent Me*:." •> St. John XV. 24.- <! Ibid. v. 36.

LECTURE II.
ORDER OF NATURE.
Gen. vm. 22.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not
cease.
Whatever difficulty there is in believing in
miracles in general arises from the circumstance that
they are in contradiction to or unlike the order of
nature. To estimate the force of this difficulty,
then, we must first understand what kind of belief
it is which we have in the order of nature ; for the
weight of the objection to the miraculous must depend
on the nature of the belief to which the miraculous
is opposed.
And first, what is meant by the order of nature 1
It will be answered. That succession and recurrence
of physical events of which we have had experience.
But this, though true as far as it goes, would be a very
inxidequate definition of what we mean by that im
portant phrase — just omitting indeed the main point.
For that order of nature which we assume in all
D

34 Order of Nature. [Lect.
our purposes and plans in life is not a past but a
future. That which is actually known and has been
observed is over and gone, and we have nothing more
to do with it : it is that which has not come under
our observation, and which is as yet no part of our
knowledge, which concerns us ; not yesterday's but
to-morrow's state of the case. We entertain a cer
tain belief respecting what wOl be the state of the
case to-morrow with reference to the rising of the
sun and other things : and that is the order of
nature with which we are practically concerned, not
that part of it which we know but that part of it
of which we are ignorant.
0 What we mean, then, by the phrase 'order of
nature ' is the connexion of that part of the order
of nature of which we are ignorant with that part of
it which we know — ^the former being expected to
be such and such because the latter is. But this
being the case, how do we justify this expectation,
i. e. how do we account for the behef in the order
of nature ?
This behef, then, is defined as consisting in an
expectation of likeness — that the unknown is like the
known, that the utterly invisible future wiU be like
ithe past. "This," says Bishop Butler, "is that pre
sumption or probability from analogy expressed in
the very word continuance which seems our only
natural reason for beheving the course of the world
will continue to-morrow as it has done, so fer as
our experience and knowledge of history can carry
us back." (Note i.)

II-] Order of Nature. 35
But though the fact is very obvious that we do
expect the unknown to be hke the known, the future
like the past, why is it that we do ? on what ground
does this expectation arise % whence is it " that
likeness should beget this presumption V The an
swer to this question will decide the mental character
of our belief in the uniformity of nature, and so
enable us to estimate the weight of the objection
to the miraculous thence arising.
On asking ourselves the question, then, why we
beheve that the future order of nature wiU be like
the past, why such and such a physical fact will
go on repeating itself as it has done, say the rising
of the sun, or the ebb and flow of the tide, our first
impulse is to say that it is self-evident it will do
so. But such a ground gives way upon a moment's
reflexion. We mean by self-evident that of which
the opposite is self-contradictory ; but though the
fact that the sun rose to-day would be contradicted
by the fact that it did not rise to-day, it is in no
way contradicted by the fact that it wiU not rise
to-morrow. These two facts are quite consistent
with each other, as much so as any other two facts
that could be mentioned.
But though the connexion in our minds between
the past recurrence of a physical fact up to this very-
day, and its future recurrence to-morrow, is not a self-
evident one, is there any reason of any kind that
can be assigned for it ? I apprehend that when we
examine the different reasons which may be assigned
for this connexion, i. e. for this behef that the- future
d2

36 Order of Nature. [Lect.
wiU be like the past, they aU come at last to be
mere statements of the belief itself, and not reasons
to account for it.
It may be said, e.g. that when a fact of nature
has gone on repeating itself a certain time, such
repetition shews that there is a permanent cause
at work ; and that a permanent cause produces
permanently recurring effects. But what is there
to shew the existence of a permanent cause 1 No
thing. The effects which have taken place shew
a cause at work to the extent of those effects, and
those particular instances of repetition, but not at
all further. That this cause is of a nature more per
manent than its existing or known effects, extending
further, and about to produce other and more
instances besides those it has produced already, we
have no evidence. Why then do we expect with
such certainty the further continuance of them 1
We can only say, because we beheve the future
will be hke the past We have professed, then, to
give a reason why we believe this, and we have
only at last stated the fact that we do.
Let us imagine the occurrence of a particular
physical phenomenon for the first time. Upon that
single occurrence we should have but the very faintest
expectation of another. If it did occur again once
or twice, so far from counting on another recurrence,
a cessation would come as the more natural event to
us. But let it occur a hundred times and we should
feel no hesitation in inviting persons from a distance
to see it ; and if it occurred every day for years, its

II-] Order of Nature. 37
recurrence would then be a certainty to us, its cessa
tion a marvel. But what has taken place in the
interim to produce this total change in our behef?
From the mere repetition do we know anything more
about its cause % No. Then what have we got besides
the past repetition itself ? Nothing. Why then are
we so certain of its future repetition 1 AU we can
say is that the known casts its shadow before ;
we project into unborn time the existing types, and
the secret skiU of nature intercepts the darkness of
the future by ever suspending before our eyes, as it
were in a mirror, a reflexion of the past. We really
look at a blank before us, but the mind, fuU of the
scene behind, sees it again in front.
Or is it to give a reason why we believe that the
order of nature wiU be like what it has been to say
that we do not know of this constancy of nature at
first, but that we get to know it by experience ?
What do we mean by knowing from experience %
We cannot mean that the future facts of nature have
fallen within our experience, or under our cogni
zance ; for that would be to say that a future fact
is a past fact. We can only mean, then, that from
our past experience of the facts of nature, we form
our expectation of the future ; which is the same as
saying that we beheve the future will be hke the
past : but to say this is not to give a reason for this
behef but only to state it.
Or do we think it giving a reason for our confi
dence in the future to say that though " no man has
had experience of what is future, every man has had

38 Order of Nature. [Lect.
experience of what was future ? " This is a true
assertion, but it does not help us at aU out of the
present difficulty, because the confidence of which
we speak relates not to what was future, but to
what is future. It is true, indeed, that what is
future becomes at every step of our advance what
was future, but that which is now still future, is not
the least altered by that circumstance, it is as in
visible, as unknown, and as unexplored as if not
one single moment of the past had preceded it,
and as if it were the very beginning and the very-
starting-point of nature. Let any one place him
self in imagination at the first commencement of
this course of nature, at the very first opening of
the great roll of time, before any of its contents
had been disclosed, — what would he knov) of the
then future course of nature ? Nothing. At this
moment he knows no more of its future course
dating from this moment. However at each pre
sent instant the future emerges into hght, this only
moves forward the starting-point of darkness ; at
every fresh step into the future the future begins
afresh, and is as unkno"wn a future as ever, behind
the same impenetrable veil which has always hid
it. Whatever time converts into the kno"V5Ti we
are always on the confines of the unknown ; and
whatever tracts of this country we discover, the
rest is as much undiscovered ground as ever. That
" every man then has had experience of what was
future," is no reason for his confidence in what is
future, except upon one assumption, viz. that the

II.] Order of Nature. 39
future wiU be hke the past. But, such being so,
this professed reason for the behef in question does
not account for it, but assumes it.
What ground of reason, then, can we assign for
our expectation that any part of the course of
nature will the next moment be hke what it has
been up to this moment, L e. for our behef in the
uniformity of nature ? None. No demonstrative
reason can be given, for the contrary to the recurrence
of a fact of nature is no contradiction. No pro
bable reason can be given, for aU probable reason
ing respecting the course of nature is founded upon
this presumption of hkeness, and therefore cannot
be the foundation of it. No reason can be given
for this belief. It is without a reason. It rests
upon no rational ground and can be traced to no
rational principle. Everything connected with hu
man life depends upon this belief, every practical
plan or purpose that we form imphes it, every
pro-vision we make for the future, every safeguard
and caution we employ against it, aU calculation,
all adjustment of means to ends, supposes this be
lief ; it is this principle alone which renders our
experience of the slightest use to us, and without
it there would be, so far as we are concerned, no
order of nature and no laws of nature ; and yet
this belief has no more producible reason for it,
than a speculation of fancy. A natural fact has
been repeated ; it will be repeated : — I am conscious
of utter darkness when I try to see why one of
these follows from the other : I not only see no

40 Order of Nature. [Lect.
reason, but I perceive that I see none, though I can
no more help the expectation than I can stop the
circulation of my blood. There is a premiss and
there is a conclusion, but there is a total want of
connexion between the two. The inference, then,
from the one of these to the other rests upon no
ground of the understanding ; by no search or analysis,
however subtle or minute, can we extract from any
corner of the human mind and intelligence, however
remote, the very faintest reason for it.
Such was the conclusion of a great philosopher of
the last century, after an examination of the foundation
upon which the behef in the order of nature rested.
" When it is asked," says Hume, " what is the fovm-
dation of all our reasonings and conclusions con
cerning the relation of cause and effect, it may 'be
replied in one word — Experience. But if we ask.
What is the foundation of all conclusions from ex
perience 1 this implies a new question, which may
be of more difficult solution. . . . Experience can be
aUowed to give direct and certain information of
those precise objects only, and that precise period
of time which fell under its cognizance ; but why
should this experience be extended to future times
and to other objects ? It must be acknowledged
that there is here a consequence dra-wn by the mind,
that there is a certain step taken, a process of thought
and an inference which wants to be explained. These
two propositions are far from the same. I have
found that such and such an object has always
been attended -with such an effect, and I foresee

II.] Order of Nature. 41
that other objects which are in appearance similar
will be attended with similar effects. I shall allow,
if you please, that the one proposition may justly
be inferred from the other : I know in fact that it
always is inferred : but if you insist that the infe
rence is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire you
to produce that reasoning. The connexion between
these propositions is not intuitive. There is required
a medium which may enable the mind to draw such
an inference, if, indeed, it can be dra-wn by reasoning
and argument. What that medium is I must confess
passes my comprehension. I cannot find, I cannot
imagine any such reasoning. You say that the one
proposition is an inference from the other ; but you
must confess that the inference is not intuitive,
neither is it demonstrative. Of what nature is it
then 1 To say it is experimental is begging the
question. For all inferences from experience sup
pose as their foundation that the future wiU resemble
the past : it is impossible therefore that any argu
ments from experience can prove this resemblance.
Let the course of things be aUowed hitherto ever so
regular, that alone, without some new argument or
inference, proves not that for the future it will con
tinue so. As an agent I am quite satisfied on the
point, but as a philosopher I want to learn the foun
dation of this inference. No reading, no inquiry
has yet been able to remove my difficulty. Can
I do more than propose it to the public, even
though perhaps I have small hopes of obtaining a
solution 1 We shaU at aU events by this means be

42 Order of Nature. [Lect.
sensible of our ignorance, if we do not augment our
knowledge''^." Such is the nature of this remarkable and mo
mentous inference and belief — necessary, aU impor
tant for the purposes of life, but solely practical and
possessing no inteUectual character. Will it be said
that this uninteUectual and unreasoning character
belongs to it in common with aU the original percep
tions of our nature, which cannot, as being original,
rest upon any argumentative foimdation ? This
would not be a true or correct account of the cha
racter of this particular inference, and the absence
of the rational quality in it. For there is tliis im
portant difference between the rational or inteUectual
perceptions which cannot be traced further back
than themselves, and this inference we are speaking
of, -viz. that those perceptions cannot be contra
dicted without an absolute absurdity, whereas an
event in contradiction to this inference is no absur
dity at all. The truth of a mathematical axiom
cannot be traced further back than itself; but then
an axiom is self-e-vidently true, and a contradiction
to it is as self-evidently false. And, to go out
of the sphere of strict demonstration, the inference
from the coincidence of one part with another in
organized matter, to design or law as distinguished
from chance, is an inference which cannot be traced
further back than itself, but then this inference can
not be contradicted -without a shock to reason. The
a Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sect. iv.

II.] Order of Nature. 43
supposition that this whole world came together by
chance is an absurdity. But the inference from the
past to the future wants this intrinsic note and test
of an inference of reason, that the contradictory to
it is in no coUision -with reason. There is no vio
lence to reason in the supposition that the world
wiU come to an end and the sun wiU one day not
rise, notwithstanding the increasing presumption from
repetition up to that very day that it will rise.
Indeed, it is not wholly unmeaning to observe that
the great metaphysician himself, who analyzed the
argument from experience, has unconsciously tested
that argument by this very case. Two famous
atheistical philosophers have predicted the end of
the world and the dissolution of aU things. The
grand and striking prophecy of Lucretius is given
with an almost oracular solemnity ; but the vaticina
tion of our own philosopher, based upon hints and
analogies in nature, is also dehvered with a grave
and serious voice, which arrests attention. " Suppose,"
says Hume, " all authors in aU languages agree that
from the first of January, 1600, there was a total
darkness over the whole earth for eight days : sup
pose that the tradition of this extraordinary event
is stiU strong and lively among the people : that aU
traveUers who return from foreign countries bring us
accounts of the same tradition, without the least
variation or contradiction : it is evident that our
present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact,
ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search
for the causes whence it might be derived. The

44 Order of Nature. [Lect.
decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature is an
event rendered probable by so many analogies, that
any phenomenon which seems to have a tendency
towards that catastrophe comes within the reach of
human testimony^^." The end of the world, then,
so far from being impossible, is here contemplated
as likely ; and yet up to the very moment of the
end — for if it comes at all, it may come in a moment
— the argument from experience that it will continue
wiU be in fuU force, — nay, in the very greatest force
that it has ever been in since the beginning of things.
The argument from mere experience, then, intrin-
sicaUy differs in the quality of reasoning, not only
from mathematical reasoning, but even, as has been
noticed, from the other great department of probable
reasoning. Indeed, that this behef in the uniformity of
nature is not a part of reason is shewn by the cir
cumstance that even the brute animals are possessed
with it, apparently quite as much as man is. This
is indeed the very first and most ob-sdous trait of
their instinct ; for it must strike the most ordinary
observers that all animals shew by their actions that
from the past they infer the future, and that they
calculate, just in the same way in which we do, upon
the constancy of that part of the course of nature
-with which they are concerned. Nor can we by
the very minutest analysis discover the shghtest
difference in the nature of this particular instinct in
'' Essay on Miracles.

II.] Order of Nature. 4.5
the two cases, however different may be the range
and rank of the facts to which it is applied. How
ever limited the experience of animals as compared
with man's, the inference from experience is the
same in them as in man. "We admire," says Hume,
" the instincts of animals as something very extra
ordinary and inexplicable by aU the disquisitions
of the human understanding. But our wonder wiU
perhaps cease or diminish, when we consider that
experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in
common with beasts, is nothing but a species of
instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unkno-wn
to ourselves." I would add to this statement one
remark. Some faint elements of reason being dis
cernible in the brute, it is not enough to prove
that a process is not a process of reason, that some
thing approaching to it is seen in the brute. But
aUo-wing this, stiU a mental act which an animal
performs in a mode which we cannot see to differ
from the human mode of it, however valuable an act,
is not what we popularly caU and mean by an act
of reason.
Under what head, then, shall we bring this myste
rious and incomprehensible inference from the known
to the unkno-wn, from the objects and time of which
we have had experience to other objects and other
times of which we have none ; — that which we call
belief in the order of nature ? To what general
principle shall we refer this common primordial
property of rational and irrational natures which lies
at the basement of the whole pyramid of life 1 It

46 Order of Nature. [Lect.
is not of importance to bring it under any regular
head, so long as we understand its general character.
We may observe that our nature, though endowed
with reason, contains constitutionaUy large irrational
departments, and includes within it, as a true and
genuine part of itself, nay, and a most valuable part,
many processes which are entirely spontaneous, irre
sistible, and, so to caU it, of the automaton kind.
Such, e.g. is the impression which time makes upon us,
by which it reheves our sorrows and moderates our
joys. The loss of a relative or friend is in pomt of
reason the same loss years hence that it is now, but
we can no more prevent the effect of time upon our
mind, than we can the spontaneous action of an
internal bodily organ. So, again, the force of asso
ciation is an irresistible principle. The ties of place
and of country- are in one respect irresistible ; men
may act against them, but can never cancel or anni-
hUate them in their own minds. And — to take a
signal instance — custom or habit is an irresistible
principle. No reason can be given why acts should
become easier by repetition, i. e. for the force of
habit. The acts, however, being done, the forma
tion of a habit is s spontaneous and irresistible
a process as the growth of a vegetable. Under
which head the belief now spoken of would ap
pear to come. " Whenever," says the phUosopher
I have quoted, " the repetition of any particular
act or operation produces a propensity to renew the
same act or operation, without being impeUed by
any reasoning or process of the understanding, we

II-] OrcZer of Nature. 47
always say that this propensity is the effect of
custom. By employing that word we do not pretend
to have given the ultimate reason of such a pro
pensity. We only point out a principle which is
universally acknowledged, and which is well known
by its effects. Perhaps we can push our inquiries
no further, or pretend to give the cause of this cause ;
but must rest contented with it as the ultimate
principle which we can assign to aU our conclusions
from experience. This hypothesis seems even the
only one which explains the difficulty why we draw
from a thousand instances an inference which we are
not able to draw from one instance "=."
<= Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sect. 5. It
will be observed that this argument from experience of -n-hich we
are speaking, is different from, and must not be confounded with,
what we call the argument of analogy. The term analogy itself
may indeed be applied to any case of likeness : on which account
the inference from like past to like future, or the argiunent of ex
perience, may be and is sometimes called an argument of analogy.
But it must be seen that it makes all the difference in the nature
of the argument whether it is applied to like physical facts or like
acts of a moral being. What we call by distinction the argument
of analogy is concerned with the latter : it is an argument from
an act of the Divine Being in one case to the probability of a like
act in another which appears to us a similar case. The validity
of this argument, then, depends entirely upon the similarity of these
two cases ; the resemblance in the two sets of circumstances and
nature of the two objects to which the two aets belong — the two
acts from the one of which we argue to the other. Nothing could
be more absurd than to argue from one act to another like it, if
there were no resemblance in the cases in and objects for which the
two acts were performed. And the same with respect to the ne
gative side of analogy. Nothing could be more absurd than to
suppose that, to prove the tenableness of one course of action.

48 Order of Nature. [Lect.
And now, the belief in the order of nature being
thus, however powerful and useful, an unintelligent
impulse of which we can give no rational account,
in what way does this discovery affect the question
of miracles ? In this way : that this behef not having
itself its foundation in reason, the ground is gone
upon which it could be maintained that miracles
as opposed to the order of nature were opposed to
reason. There being no producible reason why a
new event should be like the hitherto course of
nature, no decision of reason is contradicted by its
unlikeness. A miracle in being opposed to our
experience is not only not opposed to necessary rea
soning, but to any reasoning. Do I see by a certain
perception the connexion between these two — It has
happened so : it will happen so ; then may I reject
a new reported fact which has not happened so as an
impossibility. But if I do not see the connexion
between these two by a certain perception, or by any
attributed to the Deity, in one case, it was enough to point to even
the most admitted similar course of Di-vdne action in a totally
different case. The whole validity, then, of the argiunent of analogy
depends upon the establishment of a parallel case, i. e. though not
absolutely identical, substantially similar : and for the correctness
of this resemblance in the two cases we make ourselves responsible
when we use the argument. But the selection of a real parallel or
like case, such as this argument stands in need of, is an act of
reason and judgment, requiring thought and comparison ; it is
indeed an act which exercises the utmost discrimination ; and is
therefore an act of another kind wholly to the mechanical expecta
tion of like events or recurrences in nature. Whence it appears
that the argument of analogy, as it is called, is a fundamentally
different argument from the argument of experience.

II-] Order of Nature. 49
perception, I cannot. (For a miracle to be rejected
as such there must at any rate be some proposition
in the mind of man which is opposed to itj and
that proposition can only spiing from the quarter to
which we have been referring, viz. that of elementary
experimental reasoning. But if this experimental
reasoning is of that nature which pliilosophy de
scribes it as being of, i.e. if it is not itself a process ^
of reason, how can there from an irrational process
of the mind arise a proposition at all, — to make
which is the function of the rational faculty alone ?
There cannot ; and it is evident that the miraculous
does not stand in any opposition whatever to reason.
I have spoken throughout this argument of the
behef in the order of nature as the expectation of
continuance, of a hke future ; but it makes no dif
ference whether the unhke event is a future or a
reported past one : in either case it comes into col
lision with the expectation of likeness, which takes
within its scope alike the future and the past. The
report of a past unlike event encounters the same
resistance in the mind as the idea of a future one.
Thus step by step has philosophy loosened the
connexion of the order of nature with the ground *=
of reason, befriending, in exact proportion as it has
done this, the principle of miracles. In the argument
against miracles the first objection is that they are
against law; and this is answered by saying that
we know nothing in nature of law in the sense in
which it prevents miracles. Law can only prevent
miracles by compelling and making necessary the

6i) Order of Nature. [Leci\
succession of nature, i. e. in the sense of causation ;
but science has itself proclaimed the truth that we
see no causes in nature 'i, that the whole chain of
physical succession is to the eye of reason a rope of
sand, consisting of antecedents and consequents, but
Avithout a rational link or trace of necessary con
nexion between them. We only know of law in
nature in the sense of recurrences in nature, classes
of facts, like facts in nature — a chain of which,
the junction not being reducible to reason, the in
terruption is not against reason. The claim of law
settled, the next objection in the argument against
miracles is that they are against experience ; because
we expect facts like to those of our experience, and
miracles are unlike ones. The weight, then, of the
objection of unhkeness to experience depends on the
reason wliich can be produced for the expectation
of likeness : and to this call philosophy has replied
by the summary confession that we have no reason.
Philosophy, then, could not have overthro-wn more
thoroughly than it has done the order of nature
as a necessary course of things, or cleared the ground
more effectually for the principle of miracles.
Hitherto, however, we have been dealing with the
inference from the kno-wn to the unkno-wn, or the
behef in the uniformity of nature, in connexion only
<l Taking " cause" not in an absolute sense as necessarily con
taining its effect, but in the popular sense of secondary cause, which
may be suspended by a higher cause, the idea of real causation
in nature is not opposed to the miraculous, and general belief has
united the two.

II-] Order of Nature. 51
with the facts of vulgar sensible experience. Let
us now regard the same inference and principle in
connexion with science ; in which connexion it re
ceives a more imposing name, and is called the
inductive principle. The inductive inference or prin
ciple is that act of the mind by which, when the
philosopher has ascertained by discovery a particular
fact in nature, and its recurrence in the same con
nexion within his o-wn observation, he forthwith
infers that this fact wiU universaUy take place, or
converts it into a law. Does this inference from
past experience, then, in connexion with science pass
into a new phase and become luminous and intel
lectual, or does it remain the same blind and un
reasoning instinct as before ?
When we examine, then, what it is which com
poses that process which is caUed inductive reason
ing, we find that it consists of two parts, and that
the first of these two parts is the simple discovery
of a fact. There is w^anted the physical cause of
some kno-wn fact, and this cause is another fact not
known as yet in this relation, for which accordingly
the philosopher institutes a search. It must be a fact
which fulfils certain conditions, must always precede
the known fact when the latter takes place, and al
ways omit this precedence when it does not take place..
The test of invariable antecedence puts aside as causes
on the one hand aU the facts which the event takes
place without, and on the other hand all which
the event does not take place with, tiU it gets at
the residuum which is the physical cause. The
E 2

52 Order of Nature. [Lect.
sagacity of the man of science, then, is shewn
in hitting upon and singling out the fact which
fuffils these conditions from the midst of the whole
promiscuous crowd of facts which surround the
phenomenon before him — a process which severely
tries his powers of observation, force and steadiness
of attention, quickness of apprehension, watchfulness,
accuracy ; his powers of comparison, of seeing things
in relation, and detecting hidden relationships and
connexions in things. He has to extract the real
key to the enigma out of a quantity of deceptive
and misleading promises of solution, which take
him in different directions only to retrace his steps ;
he has to repeat again and again the selection
of facts which he brings to the test, to see if they
answer to it ; he has to carry in his mind a large
body of old observations, in order to pro-vide con
nexion and productiveness to the new.
This is the first part, then, of the inductive
process ; but as yet we have only ascertained a
fact — a fact indeed which fuMls peculiar conditions,
and therefore has not been observed by the ordinary
use of the eyes, but by a process of selection, but
still no more than a fact, that is to say, a particular
past occurrence which has been often repeated :
that the pursuit of it has been regular and sys
tematic does not alter the particularity of the fact,
or make it at all the more a universal or a law.
To take the familiar instance of the discovery of
vaccination. In this instance it was discovered that
in aU the observed cases of freedom from a particular

II.] Order of Nature. 53
complaint, a certain fact preceded that fact ; but
that was only a particular observation : how was
it converted into a universal, or into the law that,
where that fact or something equivalent to it pre
ceded, that freedom would always follow ?
The inference, then, which converts scientific obser
vation into law, which we caU the inductive principle,
and is the second part of the inductive process, is ex
actly the same instinct which converts ordinary and
common experience into law ; viz. that habit by
which we always extend any existing recurrent fact
of nature into the future. The inductive principle
is only this unreasoning impulse apphed to a scien-
tfficaUy ascertained fact, instead of to a vulgarly
ascertained fact. Science is only a method of ascer
taining the fact, which when once ascertained is
the same as any common fact, and dealt with by
our nature in the same way. Science has led up
to the fact, but there it stops, and for converting
the fact into a law, a totally unscientific principle
comes in, the same as that which generalizes the
commonest observation in nature. The one is a se
lected fact indeed, the other an obvious palpable fact,
but that which gives constancy and future recurrence
to each — the prediction attaching to them, is a simple
impression of which we can give no rational account,
which likens the future to the past. The naturalist
obtains his fact by his o-wn sagacity, but the gene
ralization of it is done for him, and this spontaneous
addition is the same in the discovery of a philosopher
and the observation of a savage. There is aU the

64 Order of Nature. [Lect.
difference in the phUosophical rank of the two
observations, their transition from fact into law is
one common mechanical appendage. That which
stereotypes them both is the same, and for his future
or universal the scientific man falls back upon the
same instinct as that which supplies the physical
prospect of the peasant. (Note 2.)
And here it may be remarked by the way, that
what is caUed inductive reasoning is not, strictly
speaking, reasoning. It is caUed so because an in
ference is made in it, a general conclusion is drawn
from particulars. But the first part of the inductive
process is not reasoning but observation ; the second
part is not reasoning but instinct : the scientific part
is not inductive, the inductive part is not scientific.
Hence we cannot attribute to scientific men, by
however penetrating and lofty faculties they may have
discovered yacis, any pecuhar perception of recurrence
or law. Language has been used as if science gene
rated a perception of mathematical or necessary se
quence in the order of nature. (Note 3.) But science
has herself proclaimed the truth that there is no
necessary connexion in nature ; nor has science to do
with generalization at all, but only with discovery.
And I may add, that though science avails herself
of the inductive principle and depends for aU her
utUity upon it, stOl to ascertain the nature of this
principle is not the province of physical but of
mental science.
It must be observed, again, that the inductive
principle thus spoken of as unscientffic, upon which

II.] Order of Nature. 55
the order of nature is founded, is totaUy different
from the perception of harmony and relation in
nature. We use the phrase 'order of nature' in two
senses ; that of aiTangement, and that of recurrence,
I see relation amongst different things, and I call
that the order of nature ; and I see the repetition
of the same thing, and I call that the order of nature
too. I examine the component parts, and see their
wonderful and subtle adjustment ; and I take every
thing in a lump, and expect its uniform continuance ;
and both of these I caU the order of nature. But
in one of these senses order is a scientffic perception,
in the other it is not : and though philosophers
have a far deeper insight into the order of nature
in the one sense than common people have, they have
not in the other. Their knowledge of nature enables
them to unravel the multiphcity of relations in her,
and so to see a more wonderful and nicer agreement
or system in her ; but gives them no greater hght
whereby to prophesy her continuance or repetition.
WhUe we also remark that it is not in the sense
of harmony and system that the order of nature
is opposed to the miraculous at all. The action of,
some intricate engine is interrupted designedly for
some purpose ; is the admirable perfection of -the
machinery at aU interfered with by that fact ? Do
I see its order and arrangement the less ? Does
even an injurious interruption of the relations of the
internal organs of the body, as disease is, make our
bodily structure at aU less wonderful a contrivance 1
The order of nature, then, in the sense of its harmony.

56 Order of Nature. [Lect,
is not disturbed by a miracle ; the interruption of a
train of relations in one instance leaves them stand
ing in every other, i. e. leaves the system as such
untouched. Nature is the same surprising exhibition
of mutual relation and adjustment, whether in one
instance or so the action of the machine is or is not
I interrupted. What is disturbed by a miracle is the
mechanical expectation of recurrence, from which,
and not from the system, and arrangement in nature,
the notion of immutability proceeds.
What is the conclusion, then, to be drawn from this
statement of the process of induction "? It is this.
The scientffic part of induction being only the pur
suit of a particular fact, miracles cannot in the
nature of the ease receive any blow from the scien
tffic part of induction ; because the existence of
one fact does not interfere with the existence of
another dissimUar fact. That which does resist the
miraculous is the wwscientffic part of induction, or
the instinctive generalization upon this fact. The
inductive principle being that which assimUates
the unkno-wn to the kno-wn, or estabhshes the order
of nature, is opposed to any dissimUar fact or inter
ruption of that order, whether we think of it as
going to be, or whether we think of it as having by
report taken place. A reported miracle is a reported
case in which the order of nature did not for that
instance continue, but was interrupted. The induc
tive principle therefore resists that miracle. But
what is the inductive principle % What is its nature ?
what is its force ? what is its weight upon such a

n,] Order of Nature. 57
question ? The inductive principle is simply the
mechanical expectation of the likeness of the un
kno-wn to the known, not become any more luminous
than it was before because its subject-matter is
higher, but being in the most -vulgar and the most
scientific material alike unreasoning, i. e. no part of
the distinctive reason of man. When, then, there is
nothing on the side of reason opposed to it, as is the
case commonly, we foUow it absolutely. But sup
posing there should arise a call of reason to us to
believe what is opposite to it ; supposing there is
the e-vidence of testimony, which is an appeal to our
proper reason, that an event has taken place which
is opposed to this impression — it is e-vident then that
our reason must prevail in the encounter, i e. that
if there is on one side positive e-vidence, the ante
cedent counter expectation of instinct must give
way. And thus we come round to Butler's state
ment of the ground of experience, that there is a
probabUity that all things wUl continue as we ex
perience they are, except in those in which we have
some reason to think they wiU be altered. This
definition of the force of experience is an appeal
to our consciousness, and our consciousness responds
to it, recognising no other belief in the order of
nature but the one thus described. But as thus
described this behef is self-limited, and intrinsically
admits of events contrary to it ; vsdthin its very body
and substance is contained the confession of its o-wn
possible error, the anticipation of reasonable contra
diction to it.

58 Order of Nature. [Lect.
The proper function of the inductive principle, the
argument from experience, or the belief in the order
of nature — by whatever phrase we designate the
same instinct — is to operate as a practical basis for
the affairs of life and the carrying on of human
society. Without it it would be impossible for the
world to go on, because without it we should have
no future before us to calculate upon ; we should
not feel any assurance of the continuance of the
world itself from moment to moment. This prin
ciple it is, then, which makes human hfe practicable ;
which utilizes all our knowledge ; which makes the
past anything more than an irrelevant picture to us ;
for of what use is the experience of the past to us
unless we believe the future will be like itl But
it is also evident what is not the proper function
of this principle. It does not belong to this prin
ciple to lay do-wn speculative positions, and to say
what can or cannot take place in the world. It
does not belong to it to control religious belief, or
to determine that certain acts of God for the reve
lation of His will to man, reported to have taken
place, have not taken place. Such decisions are
totaUy out of its sphere ; it can assert the universal
»as a law; but the universal as a law and the uni-
• versal as a proposition are wholly distinct. The one
asserts the universal as a fact, the other as a pre
sumption ; the one as an absolute certainty, the other
as a practical certainty, when there is no reason to
expect the contrary. The one contains and includes
the particular, the other does not : from the one we

II.] Order of Nature. 59
argue mathematically to the falsehood of any opposite
particular ; from the other we do not. Yet there
has existed virtuaUy in the speculations of some
philosophers an identification of a universal as a law,
with a universal proposition ; by which summary
expedient they enclosed the world in iron, and bound
the Deity in adamantine fetters ; for such a law fore
stalls aU exception to it. An apparently counter-
process has indeed accompanied this elevation of
induction to mathematics, viz. the lowering of mathe
matics to induction. But either form of identification
has the same result, and is an alchemical process for
transmuting the bhnd inference from experience into
demonstration, and thus endowing the order of nature
which rests upon that experience with the character
of immutable and necessary law. (Note 4.)
For example, one signal miracle, pre-eminent for
its grandeur, cro-wned the evidence of the super
natural character and office of our Lord — our Lord's
ascension — His going up with His body of flesh and
bones into the sky, in the presence of His disciples.
" He hfbed up His hands, and blessed them. And
whUe He blessed them. He was parted from them,
and carried up into heaven. And they looked stead
fastly toward heaven as He went up, and a cloud
received Him out of their sight^."
Here is an amazing scene, which strikes even the
devout behever, coming across it in the sacred page
suddenly or by chance, amid the routine of life,
« Luke xxiv. 50, 51 ; Acts i. 9, lo.

60 Order of Nature. [Lect.
with a fresh surprise. Did, then, this event really
take place ? Or is the evidence of it forestaUed by
the inductive principle compeUing us to remove the
scene as such out of the category of matters of fact 1
The answer is, that the inductive principle is in its
o-wn nature only an expectation ; and that the expec
tation, that what is unlike our experience -wiU not
happen, is quite consistent with its occurrence in
fact. This principle does not pretend to decide the
question of fact ; which is whoUy out of its province
and beyond its function. It can only decide the fact
by the medium of a universal ; the universal pro
position that no man has ascended to heaven. But
this is a statement which exceeds its power ; it
is as radically incompetent to pronounce it as the
taste or smeU is to decide on matters of sight ; its
function is practical, not logical. No antecedent
statement, then, which touches my behef in this
scene, is aUowed by the laws of thought. Converted
indeed into a universal proposition, the inductive
principle is omnipotent, and totaUy annihilates every
particular which does not come -within its range.
The universal statement that no man has ascended
into heaven, absolutely falsffies the fact that One
Man has. But thus transmuted, the inductive prin
ciple issues out of this metamorphose, a fiction
not a truth ; a weapon of air, which even in the
hand of a giant can inffict no blow because it is
itself a shadow. The object of assault receives the
unsubstantial thrust without a shock, only exposing
the want of solidity in the implement of war. The

II.] Order of Nature. 61
battle against the supernatural has been going on
long, and strong men have conducted it and are
conducting it — but what they want is a weapon.
The logic of xmbelief wants a universal. But no
real universal is forthcoming, and it only wastes its
strength in -wielding a fictitious one.

LECTURE HI.
influence of the imagination on belief.
Psalm cxxxix. 14.
Marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.
J.T is e-vident that the effect which the visible order
of nature has upon some minds is, that as soon
as they realize what a miracle is, they are stopped
by what appears to them a simple sense of its
impossibihty. So long as they only beheve by
habit and education, they accept a miracle without
difficulty, because they do not realize it as an
event which actually took place in the world ; the
alteration of the face of the world, and the whole
gro-wth of intervening history, throw the miracles
of the Gospel into a remote perspective in which
they are rather seen as a picture than real oc
currences. But as soon as they see that, if these
miracles are true, they once really happened, what
they feel then is the apparent sense of their im
possibility. It is not a question of evidence with
them : when they realize, e. g. that our Lord's re-

Influence of the Imagination on Belief. 63
surrection, if true, was a visible fact or occurrence,
they have the seeming certain perception that it
is an impossible occurrence. ' I cannot,' a person
says to himself in effect, ' tear myself from the type
of experience, and join myself to another. I cannot
quit order and law for what is eccentric. There
is a repulsion between such facts and my behef as
strong as that between physical substances. In the
mere effort to conceive these amazing scenes as real
ones, I faU back upon myself and upon that type
of reahty which the order of nature has impressed
upon me.'
Now when such a person proceeds to probe the
ground of his deep objection to a miracle, the first
thing, I think, that cannot but strike him is how
very poor any reason- he can allege and specify
is, compared -with the amount of his own inward
feeling of certainty. If he is a reflecting person,
he cannot but be struck of his o-wn accord -with
this singular disproportion between the two — on
the one hand an overpowering prepossession, on the
other hardly anything to sustain it. The form in
which he wUl first put his reason to himself will
perhaps be that miracles are inconceivable to him.
But what is meant by this assertion 1 That the
causes are inconceivable 1 But the causes of the
commonest physical facts are the same. That the
facts are inconceivable ? But the facts are not in
conceivable, but conceivable. I can conceive the
change of water into wine just as easily as I can
conceive any chemical conversion ; i. e. I can first

64 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
conceive water, and then I can conceive -wine in
the place of water ; and that is aU I can do in
the case of any change of one substance into another
in chemistry. The absence of the medium of an
artificial process only makes the cause inconceivable,
not the fact. So I can form the idea of a dead man
alive again, just as easily as I can of the process
of decay ; one fact is as conceivable as another,
whUe the causes are alike inconceivable of both.
We cannot rest, then, at the reason of inconceiv-
ableness, but must go on to some further one. Is it
that miracles are physical results produced without
means, without a physical medium intervening be
tween the Di-vdne -wiU and the result 1 But we can
not pronounce upon the fact of the total absence of
means, but only on their invisibility, which belongs
to many steps and media in nature. Nor can we
pronounce upon the necessity of physical means ;
for even in the natural action of wiU or spirit
upon matter, there must be a point at which the
one acts on the other without a medium, how
ever inconceivable that may be ; otherwise, if the
media never end, the one never gets at the other
at aU.
The reason then against miracles that we come
to at last, and in which aU these vaguer reasons end,
is simply their unlikeness to the order of nature.
A suspension of the order of nature is the ordinary
phrase in which we express this unlikeness to the
order of nature ; but whether or not we call un
likeness by this term, the fact itself is the ultimate

III.] on Belief. 65
objection to a miracle. It was shewn, however, in
my last Lecture, what the expectation of likeness
was, and that no reason against an unlike event
as such was producible or even imaginable.
The rejector of miracles has indeed, in the over
powering force of an impression upon his mind,
something to which argument is hardly adapted.
Every time he recals a miracle to his imagination,
he recals a felt sometliing at the bottom which in his
own idea closes the door against it ; something at
the root of the matter which is untouched, a true
cause of conviction which is unanswered : he cannot
conceive that so strong a rejecting influence as he
feels can be without rational necessity ; that the
force of the resistance in his mind is not its own
-vindication. And yet the question of the possibility of any
thing — possibility, i. e. as far as we know — is a
judicial question which must be decided in the same
way as a question of fact. There is a court which
decides this question — ^the inner court of our own
mind, in which witnesses are cited and e-vidence is
heard. The -witnesses cited into this court are all
the faculties and perceptions of our minds ; and when
they have answered to the summons, one question
is put to them, — Does any reason exist why a
miracle is impossible 1 If they know of none, the
case is over. The court of possibihty decides in the
same way in which a court of fact does. It is
an open court into which all mankind are admitted,
for indeed the witness in that court is the collective

66 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
reason of mankind, which appears there to give an
account of itself, to declare to its oym kno-wn con
tents, and whether amongst them aU there is found
a reason for the impossibility of a miracle. Science
has its summary e-vidence of fact by which it chal
lenges foregone conclusions ; and reason has the same.
What has been, then, in the present instance the
cause at work — that which has made a reason, when
there was none, against the miraculous as suchl I
cannot but think that under an inteUectual disguise
it is the imagination. The design, as I have stated,
of the inductive principle or belief in the order of
nature is a practical one — to enable pro-vision to be
made for human life and welfare ; which could not
be done unless we could reckon upon the likeness
of the past to the future. For -without this expec
tation, what would be our prospect? Every mo
ment of nature might be its last, and we should
live upon the constant brink of utter change and
dissolution, which would paralyse aU action in us.
But the impression as it exists in us by nature, being
entirely a practical one, and this being its legitimate
and constitutional scope, imagination seizes hold of
it and diverts it from its scope ; by brooding upon
it exaggerates it ; converts a practical expectation
into a scientific truth, and ^extracts from an un
reasoning instinct what it cannot by its very na
ture contain — a universal intellectual proposition,
that the order of nature is immutable.
^ We apply the term imagination to denote that
faculty by which the mind adds anything out of

Ill-] on Belief. 67
itself to a fact or truth, whether that fact or truth
be a visible object, or an idea or motive within us.
Being such, however, the imagination has a very
different moral aspect according as it acts in one
or other of two ways ; that is to say, actively by
energy and self-exertion from -within, or passively
by 3^elding to an impulse or impression from with
out. In either case it adds to a fact something
which that fact does not supply of itself; for to
yield too much to an impression is to exaggerate
it : but the two cases of addition widely differ.
When the imagination acts by energy from within,
when it enables us to see the force and extent of
some truth, to grasp a condition of things external
to ourselves, to understand the feelings and the
wants of others, to admire nature, to sympathise
with man ; or when it aids in the work of com
bination, construction, invention ; in thus actively
imparting meaning and life to facts, imagination
is a noble and effective instrument, if indeed we
may not caU it a part, of reason. But when the
imagination exaggerates an impression by passively
submitting and surrendering itself to it, when it
gives way to the mere force of attraction, and
instead of grasping something else, is itself grasped
and mastered by some dominant idea — it is then
not a power, but a faihng and a weakness of nature.
We may caU these respectively active and passive
imagination. When imagination is spoken of in
books of morals as a common source of delusion
and unhappiness in men, who are carried away by
F 2

68 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
their joys and griefs, their hopes and fears, and allow
impressions to fasten upon them till they cannot
shake them off, it is not the active imagination
which is meant, but the passive.
The passive imagination, then, in the present case
exaggerates a practical expectation of the uniformity
of nature, implanted in us for practical ends, into a
J scientific or universal proposition ; and it does this by
surrendering itself to the impression produced by the
constant spectacle of the regularity of visible nature.
By such a course a person allows the weight and
pressure of this idea to grow upon him tiU it reaches
the point of actuaUy restricting his sense of possi-
bUity to the mould of physical order. It is a
common remark that repetition as such tends to
make itself believed ; and that if an assertion is
simply reiterated often enough it makes its way to
acceptance ; which is to say that the force of im
pression produces belief independently of reason.
The order of nature thus stamps upon some minds
the idea of its immutability simply by its repetition.
The imagination we usuaUy indeed associate -with the
acceptance of the supernatural rather than -with the
denial of it ; but the passive imagination is in truth
neutral; it only increases the force and tightens the
hold of any impression upon us, to whatever class
the impression may belong, and surrenders itself
to a superstitious or a physical idea, as it may be.
Materiahsm itself is the result of imagination, which
is so impressed by matter that it cannot realise the
existence of spirit.

Ill-] on Belief. 69
The passive imagination thus accounts for the rise
of the apparent perception of the impossibility of
a miracle. For what is this perception in those who
have it, and what is the actual form which it takes ?
The form which it takes is this, that, upon the image
of a miracle occurring to the mind, there is at once
an entire starting back and repulsion from it, as
from something radically antagonistic to the very
type of reality and matter of fact Now, that a
contradiction to the order of nature should excite
a provisionary resistance in our minds is inevitable,
because we possess the instinctive expectation of
uniformity, unlikeness disagrees with that expec
tation, this disagreement creates surprise, and sur
prise is provisionary resistance. But what is it
that makes this pro-visionary resistance final ? Is it
reason 1 No. Reason imposes no veto upon un
likeness. Then it is the imagination. Reason may
reject that unlike event for want of e-vidence, ima
gination alone can reject it as such.
Is it not true, indeed, that the inteUect, like the
feelings and affections, is capable of contracting bad
habits, which need not at all interfere with the
soundness and acuteness of it in general, but may
only corrupt and disable the judgment upon par
ticular subjects 1 If then, when there is no pro
ducible reason why a miracle should be impossible,
a person appears to himself to perceive that it is ;
if the intellect is so bound to the order of nature
that it rejects by an instantaneous impulse a fact
of a contrary type as such, it can only be because

70 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
the inteUect has contracted an unsound habit upon
that subject-matter.
It will be rephed, however, 'We do not reject
strange and anomalous facts as such, we receive
many such ; and therefore our disbelief in miracles
is not the effect of imagination starting back from
an eccentric type.' But I answer, that the accept
ance of eccentric facts solely upon the hypothesis
that they are ultimately reducible to the order of
nature, is not an acceptance of really eccentric facts.
They are admitted and receive assent only upon
the idea that their eccentricity is a temporary mask,
underneath which really he facts which come under
the head of existing classes and known laws. They
are accepted as hypotheticaUy like facts to known
ones, not as unlike ones. Nof-Vidthstanding all the
admission which is extended to such phenomena, facts
ultimately eccentric excite as such a final resistance
in the minds to which we are alluding, although
no reason for their impossibility is forthcoming.
And yet we may see how the imagination is
compelled to confront and consent to the most in
conceivable things, because it is dragged by the
reason to do it. Two great counteracting influences
appeal to it to preserve its balance against the im
pression from the uniformity of nature, and to rouse
it from its lethargic submission to custom and re
currence. One is the wonders of the -visible world,
the other is — for in this discussion I assume the
doctrines of natural religion — the wonders of the
invisible world.

III.] on Belief 71
First the wonders of nature appeal to the imagina
tion, in counteraction to the yoke of physical law.
If we examine into the nature of the sense of wonder,
we see that it implies a kind of resistance in the
mind^ — often, indeed more generally, a pleased re
sistance, — but stUl a resistance to the facts which
excite it. There is an element of doubt in wonder,
an hesitation, a difficulty in taking in the new mate
rial and incorporating it in the existing body of behef
There is a sense of strangeness in wonder, of some
thing to overcome in the character of the fact pre
sented to it. AU wonder therefore, where the facts
are, as they are in the case of natural marvels,
admitted, is a precedent for facts resisted and yet
believed, resisted on one side of our nature, believed
on another. We see that in nature God acts in
modes wliich astonish us, which startle us. On every
side are seeming incredibihties. Why should this
be so ? Why is nature such a dispensation of sur
prises 1 Why is it that no processes, no methods,
no means to ends go on in her which do not contain
this element 1 Is it the unavoidable condition of
existence at all that it should be wonderful, and
that aU its mechanism should be wonderful 1 Whether
it is or no, the wonders of nature are precedents
of the kind which I mention.
But we have no sooner said thus much than we
are immediately met by the fact that many men who
have had the deepest sense of the wonderful in
nature have been disbelievers in the supernatural :
and the names of some great poets, and men of

72 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
powerful imagination in the realm of science, wiU
occur as familiar instances of this. What, then, is
the difference in the sense of wonder in these two
spheres, and what is the relation in which the
wonderful in nature stands to the supernatural 1
The old saying, then, that nature is as wonderful
reaUy as any miracle, were we not so accustomed to
her, omits the task of comparison, and does not
bring out an important distinction which exists be
tween these two kinds of the wonderful. A wonder
of natural science is wonderful on its o-wn account,
and by reason of what is actually seen in it. In
some vast disposition of nature for supplying the eye
-with light, or the vegetable with proper nutriment,
or the limbs with active power, or for providing
the breath of life itself, or for communicating heat,
or distributing colour, or for sustaining the motions
of the heavens, or for any of those innumerable
purposes for which the physical universe is adapted
and contrived — it is the incredible power which com£S
out and exhibits and expresses itself in the arrange
ment which constitutes the subject of wonder. The
effect is hke that of looking on some gigantic machine
in motion : it is the regulated force in action before
our eyes that arrests us, which we admire for its own
sake. The greatness lies in what is present and ad
dresses itself to our perceptions, as power in execution.
This is the case especially in the impression made
upon us by those extraordinary revelations of science
which divulge as it were the miracles of nature, — ^the
disclosures, e. g. of the velocity of some of the mo-

III.] on Belief 73
tions of nature, or the magic of her metamorphoses
and conversions. Even in the region of rude nature
the source of wonder is in this respect the same,
that that emotion arises in consequence of some
signal force of nature which comes out and is mani
fested and expressed ; which thus strikes us with
astonishment on its o-wn account. Such is the im
pression produced by the speed of lightning, the rage
of winds, the weight of waters, even the great sounds
of nature. And the same remark apphes to the per
ception of the obvious and palpable features of order,
beauty, and grandeur in nature ; -viz. that the effect
which they produce upon our minds is an effect
arising from something which is expressed and which
comes out before our eyes.
But whUe the marvel of nature surprises on ac
count of what is visible and expressed in it, a
miracle, on the other hand, excites our wonder less
as a visible fact than as the sign of an invisible one :
the wonderful really lies behind it; for that which
lies behind a miracle, the true reality of which
the eccentric sign is but the veil and front, is the
world supernatural. A miracle shews design and
intention, i. e. is the act of a Personal Being. Some
one, therefore, there is who is moving behind it, -with
whom it brings us in relation, a spiritual agent of
whose presence it speaks. A miracle is thus, if true,
an indication of another world, and an unseen state of
being, containing personality and wUl ; of another
world of moral being besides this visible one ; and
this is the overawing and impressing consideration

74 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
ill it ; in the wonder excited by it, the mind rests
only momentarily on the external fact, and passes
on immediately to that mysterious personal power
out of nature of which it is the token.
Hence we obtain the true scope and character of
that affection or propensity of the human mind which
we caU the love of the supernatural. It is impossible
to question the existence and universality of this
affection, and that it is an affection which is pro
ductive of a characteristic sensation of pleasure. And
when we examine and analyse this sensation, and
investigate the source of this gratification — one in
stance of which indeed we may say we have even
in the interest which attaches to those reported cases
of supernatural communications and visits from the
unseen world, upon whatever e-vidence resting, which
we have aU heard in conversation — when we trace, I
say, this emotion to its source, we find it deeply and
intimately connected with the sense of eternity in
our minds, the desire for our o-wn future existence.
Any communication from the unseen world — sup
posing it for an instant to be true — is a token of
personal existence going on in that world, and so
a pledge, as it were, of the continuation of our
o-wn personal life when we depart hence. We are
interested parties therefore. How indeed do we
see people superstitiously, fancifully, and therefore
-wrongly, catching at such signs of another world
as if for safety ; at anything which promises a rescue
from the absorption of the grave. But the very
morbid excess of such longings shews that the love

III.] on Belief 75
of the supernatural is no fictitious feeling. A miracle
then, besides all the other purposes which it serves,
is an answer to this affection ; it speaks to us of a
power out of this order of things, of wiU, of Moral
Being, of Personal Being in another world — of His
existence, whose existence, according to our Lord's
argument, is a security for the continuance of our
own. Thus a miracle has an awe and a wonder
attaching to it which is peculiarly its o-wn, and is in
marked contrast with physical wonder ; because it is
a sign of an in-visible world. It speaks to us in a
manner and to a purpose, which all the astonishing
forces of nature coUected together cannot reach to :
because it is addressed immediately to the soul, to
the sense of immortality. The marvels of nature do
not address themselves immediately to this part of
us. Physical wonder is simply entering into present
reality, into what things are; the sense is part of
our very understanding ; for though great intellects
have it most, a man must be -without intellect at
aU who has no wonder. And therefore all the mar
vels and aU the stupendous facts in nature do not
speak to us in that way in which one miracle speaks
to us ; because they do not speak to us directly of eter
nity; they do not teU us that we are not like them
selves — passing waves of the vast tide of physical life.
And here I "wiU just remark upon the perverse
determination of Spinoza to look at miracles in that
aspect which does not belong to them, and not to
look at them in that aspect which does. He com- ^
pares miracles -vsdth nature, and then says how -vdse

76 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
is the order of nature, how meaningless the violation
of it ; how expressive of the Almighty Mind the one,
what a concealment of it the other! But no one
pretends to say that a miracle competes with nature,
in physical purpose and effectiveness. That is not
its object. But a miracle, though it does not profess
to compete with nature upon its rival's own ground,
has a ghostly force and import which nature has not.
If real, it is a token, more pointed and direct than
physical order can be, of another world, and of Moral
Being and Will in that world. And I may add, that
for this effect of a miracle the benevolent and phi-
lanthropical type is not necessary, however befitting
such miracles as are intended to be emblems of
Di-vine love : it is enough for this function of a
miracle that power is she-vsm : nor do we on that
account bow do-wn to the mere power in a miracle,
but only to that power as the sign and e-vidence of
a truth beyond it.
Wonder in the natural world, then, differs from that
wonder which has for its object the supernatural; but
it is not the less true that physical wonder is an itdro-
ductio7i to the belief in the supernatural — in this way,
that it tends to raise in the mind a larger idea of
possibility — that idea which is expressed in the old
quotation, that "there are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamed of in our phUosophy ;"
the notion of the potential as distinguished from
what is actual ; the sense of the unknown. The same
imagination which causes wonder also naturaUy pro
duces this larger sense of possibility ; for indeed this

III.] on Belief 77
latter is a kind of negative imagination ; which with
out framing positive images or figures of things, or
putting contingencies into shape, distinctly contem
plates the idea of what is out of sight, and raises up
a vivid sense of an unknown region. This negative
imagination is in the affairs of this world the ground
work of a worldly sagacity ; for those who are con
scious of surrounding darkness, though they do not
shape to themselves the contents of it, catch the
more readily at such facts as emerge to hght, and
are more cautious -- under their concealment ; and
in spiritual things partakes of the nature of faith ;
for a sense of the possible unkno-wn enters largely
into our notion of faith.
Nor is this connexion of the sense of wonder
with this sense of possibility shewn by a common
source only ; it is also proved by a common foe,
which acts as the stupifier and suppressor of them
both — -viz. custom. Custom proverbiaUy diminishes
wonder. It is commonly noticed as a deteriorating
effect of custom, that it benumbs the faculty of admi
ration. The case has been often put, that could we
imagine ourselves -with our mature faculties seeing
nature for the first time, the sight of her glory
would act irresistibly upon us like a splendid vision,
and raise the most powerful emotions, but that we
are accustomed to her and therefore our perception
of her subhmity is deadened*. We would fain re-
a " Nil adeo magnum nee tam mirabile quicquam
Principio, quod non minuant mirarier omnes
Paulatim ; ut cceli clarum purumque colorem

78 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
lease ourselves from the thraldom of this stupor,
unwind to its very last hnk the chain of custom by
which we are bound, and win back the original
perception ; but we are held in the iron grasp of
necessity. The effect of constant repetition is that
the impression wears off, and our admiration becomes
not so much admiring as the consciousness that we
ought to admire. And yet if God, in planting us
here, has set us down before a spectacle which is
designed to elicit our admiration, it is plain that
this defect of it is a confession that we are so far
inadequate to the situation in which we are placed.
I do not say that it may not be partially remedied
by effort and culture. So the awe which moral and
religious truths inspire wears off by repetition, till
they become mere words ; unless a counteracting
force is found in our o-wn minds. And thus the
same person may exemplify the simultaneous growth
of the strengthening and weakening effect of custom ;
deriving from this power an extraordinary facihty
and readiness in the use of particular faculties, while
the same power has deadened in him the impression
of every high truth.
Quemque in se eohibent palantia sidera passim
Lunseque et solis prseclara luce nitorem :
Omnia quae si nunc primum mortalibus adsint
Ex improviso ceu sint objecta repente ;
Quid magis his rebus poterat mirabile diei,
Aut minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes ?
Nil ut opinor, ita hrec species miranda fuisset ;
Quom tibi jam nemo fessus satiate -videndi
Suspicere in coeli dignatur lucida templa." Lucretius, ii. 1027.

III.] on Belief 79
But if custom proverbially diminishes wonder, its
effect in limiting the idea of possibility is equally
proverbial : for it is the most familiar observation, that
when we are accustomed to certain modes of doing
things we get to think no other mode possible. No
incongruity so glaring but that it is harmony itself
to the eye of custom ; no combination so true but
that it looks to it an impossibihty : because the mind
has surrendered itself captive to one form and mould,
and cannot conceive anything different from what
it is. And here I observe the questionable company
in which the impression of immutability in the order
of nature, i. e. of the possibihty of nothing out of it,
comes ; for the same principle that limits the sense
of possibility also deadens the sense of wonder, and
blunts the perception of beauty and truth. There
is an evident analogy in these two effects of custom ;
its effect upon sensibihty, and its effect upon belief
For I have she-wn that the immutability of the order
of nature is the decision of custom, only custom
operating on the area of all nature instead of a small
and local scaled
The sense of wonder then and the larger sense of
possibility are connected together, as she-wn both by
a common source and common foe, while it is also
b " Quelle raison ont-ils de dire qu'on ne pent resusciter ?
Quel est plus difficile de naitre ou de resusciter, que ce qui
n'a jamais it6 soit, ou que ce qui a 6te soit encore 1 Est il
plus difficile de venir en ^tre que d'y revenir 1 La coutume
nous rend I'un facile ; le manque de coutume rend I'autre im
possible. Populaire fafon de juger." — Pascal, ed. Famgere, vol. ii.
P- 323-

80 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
evident that the sense of possibihty has a great deal
to do with the belief in the supernatural. The sense
of physical wonder therefore is through this me
dium intrinsically allied to and introductory to the
behef in the supernatural. It is an attitude of mind
which favours the latter belief We may observe
that some old religions, e. g. the Scandina-vian, and
the still earlier Aryan, seem to have been almost
founded upon the sense of physical wonder. At the
same time the sense of wonder in nature may stop
at a first stage, and not reach this further one which
naturally succeeds to it. Having followed its object
up to the gates of darkness, there it may rest, and it
is the more likely to do so if the mind of the poet is
under the influence of sensual passion or — what is a
better though stUl a bad reason — a deep prejudice
against the supernatural arising from passionate
indignation at the abuses of religion, and hypocrisy
in the profession of it.
But the miraculous having a natural ally in the
marvels of nature, has in the next place a stUl
stronger support and a more direct parallel in the
wonderful truths of the invisible world, which in
this inquiry we assume.
Upon this head, then, a ground has been recently
taken which deserves notice. "We are ready," it
has been said, " to admit the existence of an in-visible
world totally different from this visible one ; we do
not object to anything inconceivable in that world ;
to the most mysterious and incomprehensible doc
trines relating to it ; we leave untouched the whole

Ill] on Belief. 81
domain of the spiritual and in-visible. But the exist
ence of another world or order of things is another
thing altogether from the interruption of this. What
staggers our reason is not the invisible supernatural,
but the violation of physical law." (Note i.)
This position, then, breaks down with respect to
the doctrines of revelation, for the simple reason that
those doctrines require miracles for their proof, and
therefore cannot consist with the rejection of the
miraculous. But how does it stand as a simple
comparison of the belief in the miraculous with
the belief in an invisible world 1
It is quite true, then, that if there is any intrinsic
absurdity in the interruption of order as such, the
absurdity of the interruption of order in one world
is not cancelled by the existence of another and a
second world : and it is irrelevant to bring forward
the latter fact as any extenuation of the former.
But if the objection to the interruption of order is
only a certain resistance of the mind, in that case, in
admitting so astonishing a conception as the existence
of an in-visible world we have already got over the
resistance of our minds in one most signal and re
markable instance ; which is a precedent for our
getting over it in another instance. The natural
effect of the mind taking in one strange and sur
prising truth, is that it entertains less opposition to
another truth, on account of its being strange and sur
prising. The parallel holds in this important respect,
even if the two instances are distinguished from each
other in some points. a

82 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
^ For what image can be presented to the mind
which more confounds the imagination than jiersonal
existence after the body's dissolution % What can
go more counter to the impress of experience 1
What, if we did not believe it to be the most serious
of all fafits, would be a more wUd and eccentric con
ception, more hke a dream of imagination, and a
visionary creation of the poet, than the existence of
another invisible world of created beings 1 If a
reflecting person is asked what it is absolutely easy
to believe in, his answer is short, — Matter, and life
connected with matter. If he is asked what it is
not absolutely easy to beheve in, his answer is equaUy
short, — Everything else. The real belief in invisible
things is, and is intended to be, and is represented
in Scripture as being, not entirely easy, but requiring
an effort and ascent of the mind. To a carnal ima
gination an invisible world is a contradiction in
terms — another world besides the whole world. Nor
is there much difference upon this head between the
imseen world of natural religion and the unseen
world of the Nicene Creed. The notion of a fixed
and final state which absorbs all transitory life ;
of an eternal world and consummation of all things
which gathers into itself the whole spiritual popu
lation of the universe, and distributes into its infinite
realms of endless life the countless mdUions of per
sonal beings who pass into it out of this state of
mortahty — this or the Christian doctrine of another
world is a far sublimer conception than any pagan
one ; but another world at aU is a marveUous,

III.] on Belief. 83
astonishuig, and supernatural conception. And if we
go into particulars, we know that there must be forms
of hfe in that world, conditions of intelligence, sights
and objects in it which foUow inconceivable types.
And we aUow all this to be a reality, and innu
merable hosts to be hving now in that unseen sphere
which is only di-vided from us by the veU of the
flesh. Now a person may say that a marvellous
condition of things in another world is not the same
with the miraculous in this, but can he embrace
the former conception as an actual truth, -without a
general effect on his standard of credibUity 1 Could
he avoid, whUe this idea was vi-vidly upon him, feel
ing less resistance in the mind to the miraculous 1
Could a miracle look otherwise than less strange
to him with the strong impression of an existing
different world at the moment upon his mind 1 Has
not the obstacle of unlikeness to the known had to
give way, and has there not been already introduced
into his mind something whoUy alien to the experi
mental contents of itl That which is repulsive in
a miracle is the eccentricity of type in the fact ; this
provokes the rejecting instinct, the antagonism of
custom or experience ; but in the admission of another
world he has already passed through the shock of
this coUision If an eternal in-visible world indeed
is admitted at aU, it is so vast a conception, that this
s visible world floats like a mere fragment upon the
unfathomable depths of that great mystery ; and its
laws assume a subordinate rank.
When, then, the distinction is dra-wn between the
G 2

84 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
existence of another world and the violation of order
in this world, between the invisible and inconceivable,
and the miiaculous, it must be remembered that in
both cases alike there is a difiiculty of belief, arising
from the common source of that mental habit which
-visible order engenders. If, then, I yield to this
habit in the one instance, why may I not yield to
it in the other, and an invisible world become an
imreal conception to me 1 An historical imagination
throws itself back into the Gospel era, pictures the
people, the city, the passing day of the time and
country; then when it has made that time as real
as possible, as truly present time once as to-day is
now, the doubt arises — How can I beheve that this
stupendous miracle was a real occurrence 1 But
exactly the same ordeal -will disturb the behef in
the in-visible world. Let a person try to think it
real ; let him say to himself — ' Is the whole mul
titude that has passed away from this earthly scene
since the race of man existed, in existence now,
every one of them a li-ving person in the realms
of spirit ; is this person, is that person at this mo
ment living, this great monarch, that sagacious states
man, that sublime phUosopher or poet, that heroic
soldier of antiquity '? Are the men of aU ages, from
the earliest pastoral tribe to the generation that has
only just departed from us, enjoying a simultaneous
existence in that world 1 Are such things con
ceivable V As such thoughts crowd upon his mind
wUl he not find it as difficult to think all this a
reality, as he does the miraculous to be such 1 And

III.] on Belief 85
yet if he does not think it a reality, what has he
to look forward to himself when this passing scene
is over ? This resistance, then, of the imagination
to the miraculous is either no test of its truth, or
a test which endangers the existence of the invisible
world as weU.
When we reduce the broad distinction dra-wn be
tween the invisible world and the miraculous as ob
jects of behef to its first principle, that principle would
seem to be the principle of unity, or, if loe may so
express it, one world at a time — that the two worlds
admitted to exist, must exist in absolute discon
nexion. The objection felt against a miracle is that
it offends against this principle, that it puts the two
worlds into communication and junction with each
other, whereas they are intrinsicaUy separate ; that
it is an interpolation from one order of things into
another, an injection of the supernatural into the
sphere of the natural, thus confounding two systems
which are perfectly distinct. Can the Supreme Mind
or WiU in the in-visible world declare itself by the
insertion of an anomalous fact in nature 1 It is
boldly answered. No.
With respect, then, to this objection to a mii'acle,
that it is a transgression against the unity of nature,
I observe that nature, so far from being constructed
upon any principle of unity, or simphcity in its
contents, is itself the first great transgressor of that
principle, being as mixed and heterogeneous a com
position as can be imagined ; and that therefore the
introduction of a miracle into this scene is not a

86 Influence of the Imagination [Lect,
sudden incongruity, but that we are prepared for
it by the misceUaneous and dissimilar physical and
spiritual material of this world itself. It would
indeed be a contradiction in terms to say that nature
had anything in it supernatural ; because the fact
of the constant appearance of anything in nature
makes it natural, and that only is supernatural which
is out of the order of nature ''. But though the con
tents of nature are all in common natural, as being
its contents, they are of such totally different types,
and some so much higher than others, that some
as compared to and in relation to others are super
natural. A miracle is therefore no discordant isola
tion in a system of mere matter, but blends -with
and carries out the diversity of nature, which takes
off the edge of the resistance to it.
It would be cognate to this observation to notice
that which has been so much dwelt upon by many,
that nature borders everywhere upon the super
natural ; that the supernatural is not removed to
an impassable distance from her, but stands at her
very portals and touches her very outskirts. God
is not in nature ; nevertheless the e-vidence of a
God is. But what does e-vidence imply ? It im-
<= We mean by the supernatural that which is out of the order
of nature. God, angels, departed spirits, heaven and hell, are out
of the order of nature because they are not in nature at all ; a
miracle is in nature in the sense of -vasibility, but is not in the
order of nature ; the invisible world therefore, and miracles, are
supernatural. But life, the human soul, conscience, reason, will,
are natural, because they are in the order of nature or part of
our constant experience.

IIL] on Belief 87
phes a light breaking through nature, revealing that
which is the subject of this light ; that nature is
tracked to the edge of an incomprehensible truth.
Wherever evidences of design, then, appear in the
world, there nature borders upon mystery — the
mystery of the Universal Mind and WUl. And
what, again, is the very infinity of the material
world 1 Do we not think of it as a kind of impos
sibility, so extravagant and eccentric a fact it is, and
replete with extravagant results 1 (Note 2.) Space
itself, divested of the limit of sense, seems incredible.
Yet this space is not a mere idea but a fact of this
world ; for not anywhere out of nature, but in what
ever direction I point my finger, lies that enigma of
infinite space which is as insoluble and mysterious
as an apparition. But I revert to the topic of the
mixed physical and spiritual contents of nature ;
which comes to a head in the situation of num in
nature. The record which this earth gives of itself shews
that after a succession of stages and periods of
vegetable and animal change, a new being made his
appearance in nature. Those who profess to trace
the bodUy frame of man to a common animal source,
stUl admit that the rational and moral being man
is separated from all other animal natures by a
chasm in the chain of causation which cannot be
filled up ; and that even if such a transition is only
conceived as a leap from a lower to a higher level
in the same species, such a leap is only another
word for an inexplicable mystery. But such a

88 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
change cuts asunder the identity of the being
which precedes it and the being which succeeds it.
(Note 3.)
The first appearance, then, of man in nature was the
appearance of a new being in nature ; and this fact
was relatively to the then order of things miraculous ;
no more physical account can be given of it than
could be given of a resurrection to life now. What
more entirely new and eccentric fact indeed can be
imagined than a human soul first rising up amidst
an animal and vegetable world 1 Mere consciousness —
was not that of itself a new world -within the old
one ? Mere knowledge — that nature herself became
kno-wn to a being -within herself, was not that the
same 1 Certn.inly man was not all at once the skilled
interpreter of nature, and yet there is some inter
pretation of nature to which man as such is equal in
some degree. He derives an impression from the
sight of nature which an animal does not derive ;
for though the material spectacle is imprinted on its
retina, as it is on man's, it does not see what man sees.
The sun rose, then, and the sun descended, the stars
looked do-wn upon the earth, the mountains climbed
to heaven, the cliffs stood upon the shore, the same
as now, countless ages before a single being existed
who saw it The counterpart of this whole scene
was wanting — the understanding mind; that mirror
in which the whole was to be reflected ; and when
this arose, it was a new birth for creation itself, that
it became known, — an image in the mind of a conscious
being. But even consciousness and knowledge were

III.] on Belief 89
a less strange and miraciUous introduction into the
world than conscience.
Thus wholly mysterious in his entrance into this
scene, man is now an insulation in it : he came
in by no physical law, and his freewiU is in utter
contrast to that law. What can be more incompre
hensible, more heterogeneous, a more ghostly resident
in natm-e, than the sense of right and wrong 1 What
is it 1 whence is it 1 The obligation of man to
sacrifice himself for right is a truth which springs
out of an abyss, the mere attempt to look down into
which confuses the reason. (Note 4.) Such is the
juxtaposition of mysterious and physical contents
in the same system. Man is alone, then, in nature ;
he alone of aU the creatures communes -with a Being
out of nature ; and he divides himself from aU other
physical life by prophesying, in the face of universal
-visible decay, his own immortahty.
But man's situation in nature being such, his ori
ginal entrance a miracle, his sojourn an interpolation
in the physical system, a world -within a world — a
life of consciousness, freewill, conscience, reason, com
munion -with God, sense of immortality insulated
as an anomaly in the midst of matter and material
law ; is it otherwise than in accordance with this
fact that the Divine method of training and edu
cating this creature should be marked by distinctive
and anomalous features 1 If man himself is an ex
ception to nature, why should not his providential
treatment be the same 1 Why should that not be
upon occasions di-vided from the order of nature by

90 Inflxtence of the Imagination [Lect.
the same mystery and chasm which divides its subject
from it ? The being is an isolated being — isolated
in his commencement and in his destiny — for whom
miracles are designed. These Divine acts are con
cerned with the education of man, his instruction,
the revelation of important truths to him, and liis
whole preparation and training for another world ;
but this being the case, what does such a dispensation
of miracles amount to but this, that the education of
man has been conducted by communications -with the
mysterious fountain-head of his being, with the same
extraordinary agency which produced his first entrance
into the world. An anomalous situation bears cor
responding fruits. " The soul of man," says Lord
) Bacon, " was not produced by heaven or earth, but
( was breathed immediately from God : so that the
I ways and proceedings of God with spirits are not
included in nature ; that is in the laws of heaven
and earth ; but are reserved to the law of His secret
-will and grace**."
It is indeed avowed by those who reduce man
in common -with matter to law, and abohsh his
insulation in nature, that upon the admission of
freewill, the objection to the miraculous is over,
and that it is absurd to allow exception to law in
man, and reject it in nature.
What has been said may be coUected and abridged
in one pregnant position — that man whUe in this
world is placed in relations to another ; which is a
supernatural relationship within nature. Could we
d A Confession of Faith, vol. ii. p. 482.

IIL] on Belief. 91
imagine a person, who had not conceived the idea
of religion, seeing for the first time the act of prayer
— his surprise and perplexity at the sight would
truly indicate what a remarkable insertion in nature
this relationship to the unseen world was. So far
from the two worlds standing totally apart, human
reason itself places them in connexion ; and this
connexion naturahzes a miracle. The same Divine
policy which has imparted this double scope to
reason, and instituted in this world our relations
to another, only goes a step further when it gives
us a message or communication from that world.
The school which calls itself Secularist sees this
result involved in this premiss, and therefore cuts
off revelation at the root by denying that we have
any relations to another world at aU, by the maxim,
" Act for the world in which you live ; whUe you
are in this world you have nothing to do with
another." (Note 5.)
To conclude, then, let us suppose an intelligent.
Christian of the present day asked, not what e-vidence
he has of miracles, but how he can antecedently to
aU evidence think such amazing occurrences pos
sible; he would reply, 'You refer me to a certain
sense of impossibihty which you suppose me to
possess, applying not to mathematics but to facts.
Now on this head I am conscious of a certain natural
resistance in my mind to events imlike the order
of nature. But I resist many things which I know
to be certain ; infinity of space, infinity of time,
eternity past, eternity future, the very idea of a God

92 Influence of the Imagination [Lect.
and another world. If I take mere resistance there
fore for denial, I am confined in every quarter of
my mind, I cannot carry out the very laws of reason,
I am placed under conditions which are ob-viously
false. I conclude, therefore, that I may resist and
beheve at the same time. If Providence has im
planted in me a certain expectation of uniformity
or likeness in nature, there is implied in that very
expectation resistance to an unlike event, which
resistance does not cease even when upon evidence
I believe the event, but goes on as a mechanical
impression, though the reason counterbalances it.
Resistance therefore is not disbelief, unless by an
act of my o-wn reason I give it an absolute veto,
which I do not do. My reason is clear upon the
point, that there is no disagreement between itself
and a miracle as such.'
Such a reply would be both true itself, and also
a caution against a mistake which both younger
and older minds are apt to faU into, that of con
founding the resistance of impression to a miracle
with the veto of reason. Upon the facts of the
Gospel history being first realised, they necessarily
excite this resistance to a greater extent than they
did when they were mainly accepted by habit ; but
this resistance is in itself no disbehef, though some
by the very mistake of confounding it -with disbelief
at last make it such, when in consequence of this
misconception they begin to doubt about their own
faith. Nor is it dealing artificially -with ourselves to exert

III.] on Belief 93
a force upon our minds against the false certainty of the
resisting imagination — -such a force as is necessary to
enable reason to stand its ground, and bend back again
that spring of impression against the miraculous which
has Ulegally tightened itself into a law to the under
standing. Reason does not always prevail spontane
ously and without effort even in questions of belief ;
so far from it, that the question of faith against
reason may often be more properly termed the ques
tion of reason against imagination. It does not seldom
require faith to beheve reason, isolated as she may
be amid vast irrational influences, the weight of
custom, the power of association, the strength of
passion, the -vis inertias of sense, the mere force of
the uniformity of nature as a spectacle — those in
fluences which make up that power of the world
which Scripture always speaks of as the antagonist
of faith.

LECTUEE lY.
belief in a god.
Hebeews xi. 3.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by
the word of God.
JLHE peculiarity of the argument of miracles is
that it begins and ends with an assumption ; I mean
an assumption relatively to that argument. We as
sume the existence of a personal Deity prior to the
proof of miracles in the religious sense ; but -vrith
this assumption the question of miracles is at an
end ; because such a Being has necessarily the power
to suspend those laws of nature which He has Him
self enacted.
For the Divine power assumed, vain would it be
to throw the impossibility of such an interruption on
the Divine wUl — as if the act were contrary to the
Divine perfections ; and as if it argued inconsistency
and unsteadiness in the Deity, ha-ving estabhshed
the order of nature, to disturb it by exceptional acts.
For it can argue no inconstancy in the Di-vine wiU
to institute an order of nature for one purpose and

Lect. IV.] Belief in a God. 95
suspend it for another. The essential unifoimity
and regularity of Divine action is a purely arbitrary
conception, and certamly one not borrowed from
any criterion of excellence in human conduct. God
cannot depart indeed from His absolute purpose,
but it does not follow from that, that an unvaried
com'se of action is His purpose. The order of na
ture is not founded upon a theatrical principle, as
if it were a grand procession, any interruption of
which was in -itself desecration : its merit hes in
its utility ; it is necessary for human life, and ani
mal life too, which other-wise could not be sustained,
because there would be no kno-wing what to expect
or what to pro-vide against from hour to hour. But
for this practical use, nothing would signify less than
whether the whole material universe were in order
or disorder. But if the merit of the order of nature
lies in its use, there is no reason why it should not
be suspended, if there is use in suspending it.
The question of miracles is thus shut up within
the inclosure of one assumption, -viz. that of the
existence of a God. When we state this, however,
it is replied that this very conception of God, as
a personal omnipotent Being, is a peculiar conception
for which there is no evidence in material nature.
' Everybody,' it is said, ' must coUect from the order
and harmony of the physical universe the existence
of a God, but in acknowledging a God, we do
not thereby acknowledge this peculiar or doctrinal
conception of a God. We see in the structure of
nature a Mind, a universal Mind, but stUl a Mind

96 Belief in a God. [Lect.
which only operates and expresses itself by law.
Nature only does and only can inform us of mind
in nature, the partner and correlative of organized
matter. Nature, therefore, can speak to the exist
ence of a God in tliis sense, and can speak to the
omnipotence of God in a sense coinciding with the
actual facts of nature ; but in no other sense does
nature witness to the existence of an Omnipotent
Supreme Being. Of a Universal Mind out of na
ture nature says nothing, and of an Omnipotence
which does not possess an inherent hmit in nature,
she says nothing either. And therefore that con
ception of a Supreme Being which represents Him
as a Spirit independent of the physical universe,
and able from a standing-place external to nature
to interrupt its order, is a conception of God for
which we must go elsewhere. That conception is
obtained from revelation, which is asserted to
be proved by miracles. But that being the case,
this doctrine of Theism rests itself upon miracles,
and therefore miracles cannot rest upon this doc
trine of Theism.' (Note i.)
If the premiss then of this argument is correct,
and this doctrine of Theism is from its standing-
ground in nature thro-wn back upon the ground of
revelation, this consequence foUows ; and more, for
miracles being thro-wn back upon the same ground on
which Theism is, the whole e-vidence of revelation be
comes a vicious circle ; and the fabric is left suspended
in space, revelation resting on miracles and miracles
resting on revelation. But is this premiss correct 1

IV.] Belief in a God. 97
It is then to be admitted that historically, and look
ing to the general actual reception of it, this concep
tion of God was obtained from revelation. Not from
the first dawn of history to the spread of revelation in '
the world, do we see in mankind at large any belief
in such a Being. The vulgar believed in many gods,
the philosopher believed in a Universal Cause ; but
neither believed in God. The phUosopher only
regarded the Universal Cause as f e spring of
the Universal machine, which was necessary to the
working of all the parts, but was not thereby raised
to a separate order of being from them. Theism
was discussed as a phUosophical not as a religious
question, as one rationale among others of the origin
of the material universe, but as no more affecting
practice than any great scientific hypothesis does
now. Theism was not a test which separated the
orthodox philosopher from the heterodox, which
distinguished behef from disbelief; it established no
breach between the two opposing theorists ; it was
discussed amicably as an open question ; and weU
it might be, for of all questions there was not one
which could make less practical difference to the
phUosopher, or, upon his -view, to anybody, than
whether there was or was not a God. Nothing ^
would have astonished him more than, when he had
proved in the lecture hall the existence of a God,
to have been told to worship Him. ' Worship whom'?'
he would have exclaimed : ' worship what 1 worship
howl' Would you picture him indignant at the
polytheistic superstition of the crowd and mani-
H

98 Belief in a God. [Lect.
festing some spark of the fire of St Paul, " when he
saw the city wholly given to idolatry," you could
not be more mistaken. He would have said that you
did not see a plain distinction ; that the crowd was
right on the religious question, and the philosopher
right on the philosophical ; that however men might
uphold in argument an infinite abstraction, they could
not worship it ; and that the hero was much better
fitted for worship than the Universal Cause ; fitted for
it not in spite of but in consequence of his want
of true divinity. The same question was decided in
the same way in the speculations of the Brahmans.
There the Supreme Being figures as a characterless
impersonal essence, the mere residuum of inteUectual
analysis, pure unity, pure simphcity. No temple is
raised to him, no knee is bended to him. With
out action, without wUl, without affection, without
thought, he is the substratum of everything, himself
a nothing. The Universal Soid is the imconscious
Omnipresent Looker-on ; the complement, as co-exten
sive spectator, of the universal drama of nature ; the
motionless mirror upon which her boundless play and
sport, her versatile postures, her multitudinous evolu
tions are reflected, as the image of the rich and chang
ing sky is received into the passive bosom of the lake.
Thus the idea of God, so far from calling forth in the
ancient world the idea of worship, ever stood in
antagonism with it : the idol was worshipped because
he was not God, God was not worshipped because
He was. One smaU nation alone out of aU antiquity
worshipped God, believed the universal Being to be

IV.J Belief in a God. 99
a personal Being. That nation was looked upon as
a most eccentric and unintelligible specimen of hu
manity for doing so ; but this whimsical fancy, as
it appeared m the eyes of the rest, was cherished by
it as the most sacred deposit, it was the foundation
of its laws and polity ; and from this narrow stock
this conception was engrafted upon the human race.
But although this conception of the Deity has
been received through the channel of the Bible, what
communicates a truth is one thing, what proves it is
another : the truth once possessed is seen to rest
upon grounds of natural reason. The theory of a
blind plastic nature might account for some imagin
able world, but does not account for this world. For
we naturaUy attribute to the design of a personal
Being, a contrivance which is directed to the existence
of a personal Being ; if an elaborate bodily organiza
tion issues in the life of myself — a person, I cannot
avoid concluding that there is at the bottom of it the
intention of a personal Being that I should live.
From personahty at one end, I infer personahty at
the other ; and cannot suppose that the existence
which is contrived should be intelligent and moral,
and the contriver of it a blind irrational force. The
proof of a personal Deity does not rest upon physical
organization alone, but on physical organization
adapted to the wants of moral beings. The Bible
therefore assumes this truth rather than formaUy
communicates it ; the first chapter of Genesis pro
ceeds upon it as proved ; and the prophet though
he speaks as a prophet, stiU also speaks as a man on
H 2

100 Belief in a God. [Lect.
this subject. He proclaims this idea of God as a
plain truth of human reason, which the world did
not see only because it was blinded by foUy ; he
ridicules polytheism with indignation and sarcasm ;
he foreteUs the ultimate universal worship of the
One God. He sees with the eye of prophecy, and
of reason too, that the true idea of God cannot
remain for ever in a comer, but must some day find
access to the whole mind of the human race, which is
made for its reception ; to the expulsion of the false
religions of the world.
Not, however, that the existence of a God is so
clearly seen by reason as to dispense with faith
(Note 2) ; not from any want of cogency in the rea
sons, but from the amazing nature of the conclusion
— that it is so unparalleled, transcendent, and incon
ceivable a truth to beheve. It requires trust to com
mit oneself to the conclusion of any reasoning, how
ever strong, when such as this is the conclusion ; to
put enough dependence and reliance upon any pre
misses to accept upon the strength of them so immense
a result. The issue of the argument is so astonishing,
that if we do not tremble for its safety, it must be on
account of a practical principle in our minds which
enables us to confide and trust in reasons, when they
are really strong and good ones. Which principle of
trust is faith— the same principle by which we repose
ui a witness of good character who informs us of
a marvellous occurrence — so marvellous that the
trust in his testimony has to be sustained by a
certain effort of the reasonable will

IV.] Belief in a God. 101
The belief, therefore, in the existence of a God is
not because it is an act of reason, any the less an act
of faith. Because faith is reason, only reason acting
under particular circumstances. When reason draws
conclusions which are in accordance with experience,
which have their parallels in the facts which we are
conversant with in the order of nature and in com
mon hfe, then reason is caUed reason : when reason
draws conclusions which are not backed by experi
ence, and which are not paralleled by simUar facts
within our ordinary cognizance, then reason is called
faith. Faith, when for convenience' sake we do dis
tinguish it from reason, is not distinguished from
reason by the want of premisses, but by the nature
of the conclusions. Are our conclusions of the cus
tomary type ¦? Then custom imparts the full sense
of security. Are they not of the customary but of
a strange and unknown type 1 Then the mechanical
sense of security is wanting, and a certain trust is
required for reposing in them, which we caU faith.
But that which draws these conclusions is in either
case reason. We infer, we go upon reasons, we use
premisses in either case. The premisses of faith are
not so palpable as those of ordinary reason, but they
are as real and sohd premisses all the same. Our
faith in the existence of a God and a future state is
founded upon reasons, as much so as the behef in the
commonest kind of facts. The reasons are in them
selves as strong, but because the conclusions are mar
vellous and are not seconded and backed by kno-wn
parallels or by experience, we do not so passively

]02 Belief in a God. [Lect.
acquiesce in them : there is an exertion of confidence
in depending upon them and assuring ourselves of
their force. The inward energy of the reason has to
be evoked, when she can no longer lean upon the
outward prop of custom, but is thrown back upon
herself, and the intrinsic force of her premisses. Which
reason not leaning upon custom is faith : she obtains
the latter name when she depends entirely upon her
o-wn insight into certain grounds, premisses, and e-vi-
dences, and follows it, though it leads to transcen
dent, unparaUeled, and supernatural conclusions.
We may remark that when reason even in ordinary
hfe or in physical inquiry is placed under circum
stances at aU analogous to those of rehgion, reason
becomes, as a consequence of that situation, a Irind of
faith. We have a very different way of yielding to
reasons in common hfe, according as the conclusions
to which they lead accord -with or diverge from the
type of custom. We accept them as a matter of
course in the former case, it requii'es an effort to
accept them and place dependence upon them in the
latter ; which dependence upon them in the latter case
therefore is a kind of faith. Indeed, the remark may
be made that a kind of faith appears to be essential
for practical confidence in any reasoning whatever
and any premisses, when we are thro-wn back upon
ourselves and do not act mechanically in concert with
others. And we frequently see persons who, when
they are in possession of the best arguments, and,
what is more, understand those arguments, are stUl
shaken by almost any opposition, because they want

IV.] Belief in a God. 103
the faculty to trust an argument, when they have got
one ; which is not the case with those who can both
understand and trust too ; wherein we see the link
which connects faith -with self-confidence and strength
of wiU. In religion, then, where conclusions are so
totaUy removed from the type of custom, and are so
vast and stupendous, this applies the more strongly ;
but in truth all untried conclusions need faith, what
ever strong arguments there may be for them. When
a scientific man sees various premisses conspiring to
direct him to some new truth or law in nature, the
aptness with which these coincide and fall in with
each other may amount to such strong evidence, that
he may feel virtually certain of his discovery, and yet
he does not feel it quite secure tUl it has stood the
test of some crowning experiment. His reason, then,
in the interim is faith, he trusts his premisses, he
feels practicaUy sure that they cannot mislead him,
he sees in their whole mode of combining and con
curring a warrant for the issue, although the final
criterion is stUl in prospect. Such a condition of
mind is analogous to that of the religious believer,
who perceives in nature, moral and physical, (for we
are speaking only of natural religion at present,) the
strongest arguments for certain religious conclusions
— such as the existence of a God, and a future life ;
and yet waits for that final certification of these
great truths, which -wUl be given in another world.
" For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is
not hope : for what a man seeth, why doth he yet
hope for % But if we hope for that we see not, then

104 Belief in a God. [Lect.
do we with patience wait for it." Faith, then, is
unverified reason ; reason which has not yet received
the verification of the final test, but is stiU expectant.
Indeed, does not our heart bear witness to the fact
that to believe in a God is an exercise of faith ?
That the universe was produced by the will of a
personal Being, that its infinite forces are aU the
power of that one Being, its infinite relations the
perception of one Mind — would not this, if any truth
could, demand the application of the maxim — Credo
quia impossibile ? Look at it only as a conception,
and does the wildest fiction of the imagination equal
it 1 No premisses, no arguments therefore, can so
accommodate this truth to us, as not to leave the
belief in it an act of mental ascent and trust ; of
faith as distinguished from sight. Divest reason of
its trust, and the universe stops at the impersonal
stage — ^there is no God. And yet if the first step in
rehgion is the greatest, how is it that the freest and
boldest speculator rarely declines it 1 How is it that
the most mysterious of all truths is a universally
accepted one ? What is it which guards this truth ?
What is it which makes men shrink from denying it 1
Why is atheism a crime ? Is it that authority stiU
reigns upon one question, and that the voice of all
ages is too potent to be -withstood?
But this behef, however obtained, being assumed
in the argument of miracles, in discussing this ar
gument we have to do not -with the proof of a
personal Deity, but only with the natural conse
quences of this belief, supposed to be true. To ex-

IV.] Belief in a God. 105
tract consequences indeed out of admissions before
the sense of such admissions is defined or understood,
is an illegitimate proceeding ; and from the mere
admission of a God in some sense, we could not
thus argue. But if not only the existence of a Deity
in some sense is admitted, but if that sense is defined,
and the religious conception of the Deity as a moral
and personal Being is admitted to be true ; this is a
ground upon which we may fairly argue, and from
which we may deduce consequences ; that is to say,
we may examine what the belief means, and what is
necessarily and naturally implied in this belief sup
posed to be true.
But this conception of a God necessarily implies
omnipotence ; because the Universal Cause must have
power, and universal power, if He has -will ; which,
according to this rehgious and moral conception of
Him, He has. No will, no power indeed, for our very-
idea of power implies wUl ; but together with wUl
the Universal Being possesses power, and power com
mensurate with Himself; including the particular
power involved in a miracle. For any cause has as
such the power to suspend its own effects, depending
as these do altogether upon it, pro-vided only it has
the will; if voluntary power set them going the
same power can stop them. The Universal Cause
therefore has the same power ; and either God has wUl
and He can interrupt the order of nature ; or He has
not a "wiU and He is not in the rehgious sense God.
A personal Deity, therefore, can suspend the order
of nature ; but all admit a personal Deity who admit

106 Belief in a God. [Lect.
the principle of religious worship. We use the word
"^ ' personal' only to denote that in the Deity which
constitutes Him more than a force, to express that
He is a moral Being, a Being with -will. All worship
implies such a personal Being to whom it is ad
dressed. For I do not, of course, include under wor
ship that passionate contemplation of nature which
is sometimes caUed worship. The ecstasy of athe
istic poets at the sight of nature was the effect,
indeed, of beholding a real manifestation of the
Divine glory ; nor can we -witness -without emotion
their absorption in the sublime vision and spectacle,
which transfixed them and made them mute, im
parting to their wUd insatiable life its one solitary
rest ; but this ecstasy was not worship, because it
only contemplated the Divine glory as impressed
upon matter, and not in relation to its Fountain-
head. Worship as a religious act imphes a personal
object. Can we — I do not say ought, but can we
Avorship a force, a law, a principle 1 One who
professed to do so would stand con-victed not of a
foolish act, or of a fanciful act, or of a superstitious
act, but of a total mistake in imagining that he
had done the act at aU. Because it is an impossible
act. If men worship then, if they pray, if they
address themselves to the Deity, if they make
petitions to Him, they acknowledge Him in that
very act as a personal Deity. Whatever doubts
mere philosophers and inquirers may entertain, be
lievers and worshippers, those who admit, rather I
should say who demand religion, who feel it to be

IV.] Belief in a God. 107
necessary for them, a want of their nature, which
nothing else can supply — in a word, religious men —
grant a Deity in the special sense now mentioned ;
but in this special sense is involved the conse
quence now mentioned, viz. that a Deity in this
sense must possess omnipotence, and power over
nature, to suspend her laws.
The primary difficulty of phUosophy indeed re
lating to the Deity is action at all ; from the incon-
ceivableness of which, in connexion with the Divine
nature, it was that the ancient subtle philosophical con
ception of God as a mere universal substratum arose.
If action is conceded at aU, there is no difficulty
about miraculous action. But prayer certainly im
phes a Deity who can act, who can do something
for us ; prayer, therefore, concedes the first great
point relating to the Deity, and in conceding that
concedes the whole. What, indeed, is a Deity de
prived of miraculous action but a Deity deprived
of action ; and what is a Deity deprived of action
but an impersonal force which is no object of
prayer 1 (Note 3.)
Is this consequence then of the acceptance of a
personal Deity intercepted by saying that this special
conception of a Deity is derived from " mystery and
faith," and that "all rehgion as such ever has been
and must be a thing entirely sui generis ?"
(Note 4.) No : because the evidence or the founda
tion of a conception has nothing to do -vrith the
natural consequence of that conception if admitted ;
the pledge which is contained in beheving and acting

108 Belief in a God. [Lect.
upon that conception. Let the behever say that his
belief in such a Being is founded upon " mystery
and faith ;" well, but upon whatever ground he be
lieves this truth, he believes it ; and if he believes
it, he believes it -with its natural consequence in
volved in it. Can it be said that religion does not
interfere -with physics ? (Note 5.) Not, if religion be
the behef here mentioned ; for this belief is the be
hef in a God who can interfere with nature, — in a
Universal Cause who has a will ; and who has, with
that will, the p>ower to suspend physical effects.
On the fundamental question, indeed, of the Divine
Omnipotence, we assent to some known familiar hmi-
tations ; such as that God cannot do what is con
trary to His will and nature, and cannot do what
is contradictory to necessary truth : but these are
no precedents for the kind of limitation which the
¦withdrawal of an interrupting physical power from
the Divine Omnipotence is. Because these are only
verbal and apparent limitations ; power implying
will, it is no real restraint upon Divine power that
it cannot oppose wUl ; and a contradiction to neces
sary truth being nothing, nothing is taken away in
the abstraction of the power to effect it. Whereas
the other is a real and actual limitation of the
Divine power — unless indeed it is assumed that the
order of nature is necessary, and therefore its case
a case of necessary or mathematical truth. Upon
the assumption that these two cases stand upon
the same ground, it would indeed follow that the
denial of the Divine power to interrupt the order

IV.] Belief in a God. 109
of nature was no more a real limitation of it, than
the denial of the power to contradict a mathematical
truth. But this assumption is self-evidently un
tenable and absurd.
If, therefore, the power of interrupting the order
of nature is to be severed from the stock of the
Divine Omnipotence, it can only be done by one
of two conceptions, either the conception of an i')n-
personal Deity, or the conception of a confessedly
and avowedly limited Deity — limited in reality, I
mean, and not only verbally. With the former
I have upon my assumption nothing to do. The
latter is an attempted compromise between an Om
nipotent God and no God : denying Him absolute
power over the material universe, while professing
to leave Him such power as to constitute Him an
object of prayer and worship.
A limited Deity was a recognised conception of
.antiquity. Confounded and astonished by the vastness
of a real Omnipotence and the inconceivableness of
the acts involved in it, the ancients took refuge in
this idea as all that reason could afford of that God-
ship which reason could not deny. Two great diffi
culties lay at the bottom of this conception, the
creation of matter and the existence of evU ; the
former producing the doctrine of the coetemity of
matter with the Deity ; the latter producing the
doctrine of the coetemity of evU with the Deity, as
a rival, antagonist, and check upon Him : whether in
the modified form of an original irrational soul or re
fractoriness of matter ; or the more developed form

110 Belief in (( God. [Lect.
of Ditheism and Manichseanism. Of these two great
ancient difficulties one is now obsolete. A man of
science now only professes to ground an hesitation
to admit a beginning in nature upon observation,
not upon any antecedent objection to creation. It is
indeed an instructive fact, and shews how little
dependence can be placed upon first-sight notions of
impossibility which reign supreme in many minds
for their day, that this great impossibUity of an
tiquity, the difficulty of difficulties which had brooded
like a nightmare upon the phUosophers of ages, was
dismissed by Hume in these two words of a footnote, —
" That impious maxim of ancient philosophy ex nihilo
nihil fit, by which the creation of matter was ex
cluded, ceases to be a maxim according to this phi
losophy''." The existence of evil, however, is no
obsolete difficulty, but stiU retains its gromid, and
suggests even to modern perplexity the idea of a
limited Deity. One who excepts the physical world
from the Divine power may still appeal to the
alleged parallel of evU. ' Here, at any rate,' he
may say, ' is no shadow or fiction, or empty abstrac
tion ; evU is not, like a mathematical contradiction,
a nothing, however called so by the Schoolmen, but
plainly something, a fact, a palpable fact The in-
abihty to prevent evU, therefore, cannot be dealt with
as a verbal limit only to the Divine power, like the
inability to accomplish a mathematical contradiction ;
it is a real limit : and one real limit is a precedent for
another.' b Enquiiy concerning the Human Understanding, sect. 12.

IV.] Belief in a God. Ill
But the answer to this is, that with reference to
the higher ends of the universe, we do not know that
evil is not necessary, and its prevention a contra
diction to necessary truth — that we do not know,
therefore, that the inability to dispense -with it does
not come under the head of a verbal limit to Divine
omnipotence, like the inabUity to accomplish a mathe
matical contradiction.
Assuming the existing constitution of man, we see
the necessity here mentioned for evU. Any plain
man would say that for high moral virtue to be pro
duced without e-vU, either as a contingency in the
shape of trial or a fact in the shape of suffering, was
upon the existing constitution of man an utter im
possibility : that upon this datum e-vil was a con
dition of the problem.
Nor is this only a didactic truth of the moral
ist, but a descriptive one of poetry. Dramatic
poetry, by which I mean all which takes man and
human character as its subject, produces its capti
vating impression and effect, by a representation
of the issue of the struggle with evU ; by the
final image which it leaves on the mind of the
human character as it comes out of that struggle,
strengthened by difficulty, softened by grief, or
calmed by misfortune. The truth it communicates
is the same as the morahst's, only put into a pic
torial instead of a disciplinarian form, and intended
mainly to impart not the sense of responsibility,
but pleasure. The spectacle which delights is a
human character which is the production of trial.

112 Belief in a God. [Lect.
Secure for the moment ourselves, we enjoy the
sight of the sublime result of the contest with evil
in others, the conclusion in which the process of pain
issues. And thus it is that men admire the very
opposites of themselves. The proud who shrink
as from a knife from their own slightest humiliatio ,
are captivated by the spectacle of humUity in an
other. The moral images of the ambitious man,
which he raises in his o-wn mind to look at -with
affection, are they likenesses of himself ? No : they
are the suffering, the sad, the fallen, those who by
adversity have been raised above the world. He is
a pleased beholder of the moral effect of life's e-vils,
himself only grasping at its prizes; and the very-
deprivations which are death to himself, are his
gratification in their result upon the character of
another. He bears witness against himself, and " de
lights in the law of God after the inner man, but
sees another law in his members."
Assuming the existing constitution then of man,
we account for evil — for evil in the general, though
the particulars are beyond us — as a necessary con
tingency attaching to trial, a necessary fact for dis
cipline. The Bible in assuming this constitution of
man, assumes with it this solution of evU, and in
corporates evil in the Divine scheme. The ancient
philosopher had but an imperfect discernment of the
necessity of evU even upon this assumption, even
under the 'actual conditions of man's nature ; not
being able to rid himself completely of the idea
that human nature coiUd be cured by philosophy.

IV.] Belief in a God. -113
instead of by the chastening rod. He did but half
see that which the Christian philosopher sees -with
the utmost distinctness — the use in fact of evil ;
the want of which partial satisfaction was the cause
of the desperateness of his rationale of evil, as a
rival of the Deity ; for had he distinctly seen its
conditional necessity, he would not have despaired
about the root of the enigma.
It is indeed true that to the question why man
was so constituted as to render evil thus necessary,
no answer can be given. Upon this condition evil
is no insoluble mystery, but is accounted for ; upon
abstract grounds it is an insoluble mystery. The
argument, however, of the Di-vine Omnipotence does
not require that we should know that evil is
necessary ; but only that we should not know that
it is not: because even in the latter case we are
under the check of a prohibition ; we cannot assert
that the existence of e-vU does not stand upon the
same grounds as necessary truth, and therefore
that the inabUity to dispense with it is not, hke
the inabUity to contradict necessary truth, a mere
verbal limitation of the Di-vine power.
The same answer applies to the objection to the
Di-vine Omnipotence arising from man's free-will.
Is a physical limitation of that Divine attribute, it
may be asked, any greater limitation than the moral
one involved in the power of the human wUl to
resist the Divine 1 But although the existence o^
such a power in the creature is incomprehensible to
us, we do not know that his possession of this liberty

114 Belief in a God. [Lect.
is not necessary for the ultimate formation of his
moral character ; and therefore that the formation
of that character -vidthout it is not a contradiction
to necessary truth ; analogous to a mathematical
absurdity. Does an opponent demand the same rights of
ignorance on the side of his own position ? They
are not enough for him; for his argument requires
that he should make the positive assertion of a
contradiction to necessary truth in a suspension of
physical law ; nor indeed can he claim them, for
by our reason we see there is no such contradiction.
The conception of a limited Deity then, i.e. a
Being reaUy circumscribed in power, and not ver
bally only by a confinement to necessary truth, is
at variance -with our fundamental idea of a God ;
to depart from which is to retrograde from modern
thought to ancient, and to go from Christianity back
again to Paganism. The God of ancient rehgion
was either not a personal Being or not an omni
potent Being ; the God of modern religion is both.
For, indeed, civilization is not opposed to faith.
The idea of the Supreme Being in the mind of
European society now is more primitive, more
childlike, more imaginative, than the idea of the
ancient Brahman or Alexandrian phUosopher : it
is an idea wliich both of these would have derided
as the notion of a chUd — a negotiosus Deus, who
interposes in human affairs and answers prayers.
So far from the phUosophical conception of the
Deity having advanced with ci-vUization, and the

IV.] Belief in a God. 116
poetical receded, the philosophical has receded and
the poetical advanced. The God of whom it is
said, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings,
and not one of them is forgotten before God ; but
even the very hairs of your head are numbered," is
the object of modern worship. Nor, again, has
civilization shewn any signs of rejecting doctrine.
Certain ages are indeed called the ages of faith ;
but the bulk of society in this age beheves that it
hves under a supernatural dispensation ; and accepts
truths which are not less supernatural, though they
have more proof, than some doctrines of the middle
ages : and if so, this is an age of faith. It is true
most people do not live up to their faith now ;
neither did they in the middle ages.
Has not modem philosophy, again, shewn both
more strength and acuteness, and also more faith, than
the ancient ? I speak of the main current. Those
ancient thinkers who reduced the Supreme Being to a
negation, with all their subtlety wanted sfrength, and
settled questions by an easier test than that of modem
phUosophy. The merit of a modem metaphysician
is, Hke that of a good chemist or naturalist, accurate
observation in noting the facts of mind. Is there a
contradiction in the idea of creation 1 Is there a con
tradiction in the idea of a personal Infinite Being %
He examines his o-wn mind, and if he does not see
one, he passes the idea. But the ancient speculators
decided, without examination of the true facts of
mind, by a kind of phUosophical fancy ; and according
to this loose criterion, the creation of matter and a
I 2

116 Belief in a God. [Lect. IV.
personal Infinite Being were impossibUities ; for they
mistook the inconceivable for the impossible. And
thus a stringent test has admitted what a loose
but capricious test discarded ; and the true notion
of God has issued safe out of the crucible of modern
metaphysics. Reason has shewn its strength, but
then it has turned that strength back upon itself;
it has become its own critic ; and in becoming its
own critic it has become its own check.
If the belief then in a personal Deity lies at the
bottom of all rehgious and virtuous practice, and if
the removal of it would be a descent for human
nature, the withdrawal of its inspiration and sup
port, and a fall in its whole standard ; the failure
of the very breath of moral life in the individual
and in society ; the decay and degeneration of the
very stock of mankind ; — does a theory which
would -withdraw miraculous action from the Deity
interfere with that belief 1 If it would, it is but
prudent to count the cost of that interference.
Would a Deity deprived of miraculous action pos
sess action at alii And would a God who cannot
act be a God 1 If this would be the issue, such an
issue is the very last which rehgious men can desire.
The question here has been aU throughout, not whe
ther upon any ground, but whether upon a religious
ground and by religious believers, the miraculous
as such could be rejected. But to that there is
but one answer, that it is impossible in reason to
separate rehgion from the supernatural, and upon a
religious basis to overthrow miracles.

LECTURE Y.

testimony.

Acts i. 8.

Ye shall be witnesses unto Me loth in Jerusalem, and in all
Judaa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the
earth.
XHE force of testimony rests upon a ground of
reason ; because our reason enables us to discern
men's characters and understandings — that they are
honest men and men of sufficient understanding ;
which being assumed, the truth of their reports is
imphed and included in this original observation
respecting the men themselves, and may be depended
upon so far as this observation may be depended
upon. It is true we beheve many things which
are told us without previous knowledge of the
persons who are our informants, but ordinarUy
we assume honesty and competency in men, unless
we have reason to suppose the contrary.
But such being the nature of testimony, it may
be asked, ' Do we receive through this second-hand
channel of knowledge, truths upon which our eternal
interests depend % In other words, can we suppose

118 Testimony. [Lect.
that these truths would be embodied in visible oc
currences, which can only reach us through testi
mony 1 Can we think that our o-wn relations to
the Divine Being depend upon such a medium,
that is to say, upon facts brought to us through
it ¦? that human testimony interposes between our
selves and God, and that His communications to us
travel by this circuitous route, going back to a
distant point in history, and returning thence to
us by a train of historical evidence V The answer
to this is, that certainly testimony does not satisfy
all the wants of the human mind in the matter of
evidence, because upon the supposition that a most
wonderful event of the deepest importance to us
has taken place, we have naturally a longing for
direct and immediate knowledge of that event, as
distinguished from knowing of it through the
medium of other persons, especially if the inter
vening chain of testimony is long. In the matter
of evidence, however, the question is not what
satisfies, but what is sufficient ; and therefore if God
has adopted any medium or channel of evidence by
which to convey His communications to us, all that
we are practicaUy concerned to ask is — is it a reason
able one 1 is it a proof of a natural force and
weight, such as is accommodated to the constitution
of our minds ? If testimony be this kind of proof,
there is nothing incongruous in its being chosen to
convey even the most important spiritual truths to
us ; it is enough if, however secondary a channel, it
does convey them to us.

v.] Testimony. 119
It is to be admitted, however, that the force of
testimony has certain inherent limits or conditions
when applied to the proof of miracles. And first,
I would observe in limine, that that which testimony
is capable of proving must be something -within the
bounds of reason; i. e. something which, in the fair
exercise of reasonable supposition, we can imagine
possible. The question is sometimes put — ' What if
so many apparently competent witnesses were to
assure you that they had seen such and such a
miracle — ^mentioning the most monstrous, absurd,
fantastic, and ludicrous confusion of nature, of which
mere arbifrary conception could raise the idea in
the mind — would you believe themi' But the test
of mere conception is not in its own nature a legi
timate test of the force of testimony ; because con
ception or fancy is a simply -wUd and unlimited
power of imagining anything whatever, and putting
together any forms we please in our minds ; but
such a power is in no sort of correspondence -with
actual possibility in nature. In the universe, under
the Divine government, there can be nothing abso
lutely -wild or outlandish : if physical law does not
constitute the bound of possibility, some measure
of possibUity there must be, and our very idea of
God is such a measure. Pure, boundless enormity,
then, is itself incredible, and therefore out of the
reach of testimony, although it is imaginable. Nor
indeed is the supposition of sound and competent
testimony to such merely imaginable extravagancies
and excesses of de-viation from order a la-wful one,

120 Testimony. [Lect.
because it is practicaUy impossible that there should
be a body of men of good repute for understanding
and honesty to witness to what is infrinsicaUy in
credible. We are only concerned with the miraculous
under that form and those conditions under which
it has actually by trustworthy report taken place,
as subordinated to what has been caUed " a general
law of wisdom," i.e. to a wise plan and design in
the Divine Mind ; under which check the course of
miracles has, so to speak, kept near to nature, just
diverging enough for the purpose and no more.
But besides this preliminary limit to the force of
testimony, which excludes simple monstrosity and
absurdity, another condition has also been attached
to it by divines, which applies to it in the case of any
miracle whatever, viz. that all evidence of miracles
assumes the belief in the existence of a God, (Note i.)
It may be urged that, according to the argument
of design (which does not apply to the coincidences
in nature only, but to any case of coincidence what
ever), a miracle, supposing it true, proves and need
not assume a supernatural agent. But were this
granted, the evidence of a Universal Being must
still rest on a universal basis ; a miracle being only
a particular local occurrence ; and therefore for the
proof of a God we should stiU have to faU back upon
the e-vidence of nature. Even the imaginary case,
which has been put, of its being written in our very
sight on the sky by a wonder-working agency — There
is a God, could not upon this account prove the
existence of a God. But even could a miracle

v.] Testinfiony. 121
legitimately prove it, it must stiU assume the belief
in it to begin with ; because it could not prove it to
an atheist who had already withstood the proof of
it in nature. A mind that had not been convinced
by the primary evidence of a Deity, must consis
tently reject such a second e-vidence, and therefore
unless a man brings the belief in a God to a miracle,
he does not get it from the miracle.
But the admission of divines that the e-vidence of
miracles assumes the behef in a God was not made
-with a view to an imaginary instance, but with refer
ence to the actual situation of mankind at large upon
this subject, and the medium through which in the
nature of the case the e-vidence of miracles must
ordinarily be received, which is testimony. This
admission is based upon the relations in which an
atheist necessarily stands to human testimony upon
this subject, and the mode in which his want of
belief in a God affects the value of that testimony.
The effect, then, of atheism upon the value and
weight of human testimony to miracles must be,
as regards the atheist himself, that of invalidating
such testimony, and depri-ving it of aU cogency.
For consider the light in which an atheist must
regard the whole body and system of religious
belief in the world, and the whole mass of religious
believers, so far as they are affected by their belief
What other view can he take of religion but that
it is simple fanaticism, or of rehgious men but
that they are well meaning but unreasonable and
mistaken enthusiasts 1 Let a man decide, not that

122 Testimony. [Lect.
there is not a God, but only that there is no evidence
that there is one, and what is the immediate result 1
He looks around him, and he sees that a conclusion
which in his own judgment stands upon no rational
grounds, is embraced by all religious people with the
firmest practical certainty, and treated as a truth,
which it is almost madness to doubt of. But though
he could not condemn men as enthusiasts for taking
a different view of e-vidence from himself, provided
they only maintained their o-wn view of the question
as the preferable and more probable one, he must
look upon this absolute unhesitating and vehement
faith in that which he considers to be without ra
tional proof, as passionate and blind zeal. He must
regard systematic devotion, constant addresses, prayer
and service to a Being of whose existence there is
not evidence, as do-wnright fanaticism. But this
being the case, he must necessarily estimate the
testimony of such persons in matters specially con
nected with this credulous belief of theirs, at a very
light rate : upon his o-wn ground it is only reasonable
that he should treat with the greatest suspicion all
reports of miraculous occurrences from religious be-
hevers ; whose e-vidence upon ordinary subjects he
wUl admit to be as sound as his o-wn, inasmuch
as in the common affairs of life they shew discretion
enough ; but whom he must, upon his o-wn hypo
thesis, regard as utterly untrustworthy upon the
particular topic of religion. That is their weak
point, the subject upon which they go wild. Are
we to believe a man upon the very theme upon

v.] Testimony. 123
which he is deluded 1 No : upon other questions
he may be as competent a witness as anybody else,
but upon this particular one he is the victim of
hallucinations. Such is the unavoidable judgment of
an atheist, and upon his o-wn ground a correct judg
ment, upon the testimony of religious and devout
men to miraculous interpositions of the Deity.
Suppose one of these to come to him and say, 'I
have seen a miracle;' he would reply, 'I will be
heve you or not according to what you mean by a
miracle : if this miracle which you come to teU me
of is only an extraordinary natural fact, and has
nothing to do with religion, I wUl beheve you as
readUy as I would anybody else ; but if it is a
miracle in a religious sense, I do not consider you
a trustworthy witness to such a fact ; you are
in an unreasonable condition of mind upon the
question of religion altogether, and being under a
delusion upon the very evidence of a God at all, you
are not likely to possess discretion or sobriety as a
spectator, of what you call an interposition of His.
Upon that subject you are a partial, fanciful, and
flighty -witness.'
The e-vidence of miracles thus assumes the belief
in a God, because in the absence of that belief all
the testimony upon which miracles are received la
bours under an incurable stigma. And this it is
which constitutes the real argument of the celebrated
Essay of Hume. This Essay is a phUosophical
attempt, indeed, to decide the question whether
certain events took place eighteen centuries ago by

124 Testimony. [Lect.
a formula ; and as the inductive formula places a
miracle outside of possibility, Hume's evidential for
mula secures a balance of evidence against it. It
does this by estabhshing a common measure and
criterion of probabUity, by which both the miracle
and the testimony to it are to be tried, -viz. ex
perience. Because, although this phUosopher has
expunged the argument of experience out of the
tablet of human reason, he professes that he has
no other test of truth to faU back upon but that,
and that he must take either that or none. Tes
timony is therefore reduced from an original prin
ciple to a mere derivative of experience ; and then
the formula, that the falsehood of the testimony is
less contradictory to experience than the truth of
the miracle, settles the question. But a rule which
would oblige everybody to disbeheve fresh intelli
gence, whenever the facts were unprecedented, is
an impossible one ; it could not work in human
affairs ; and it in fact breaks do-wn in the writer's
own hands ; who gives in an hypothetical in
stance a formal specimen of that kind of marvel
which is capable of being proved by testimony;
and in so doing describes a fact which is totally
contrary to human experience. But though his
formula encounters the natural fate of infaUible
recipes and solutions, every reflecting reader must
see the force and the truth, upon the writer's o-wn
ground, of his assertion of the obliquity, the ex
aggeration, and the passion of religious testimony ;
and must admit that a phUosopher who tliinks that

v.] Testimony. 125
mankind are under a delusion in worshipping God,
has a right to think them under an equal delusion
when they testify to Divine interpositions.
Having stated the fundamental admission of di
vines that the evidence of miracles assumes the belief
in Supernatural Power, I next observe that this
condition of miraculous evidence gives us the dis
tinction between miracles and ordinary facts as
matters of credit A miracle differs from an ordinary
fact in the first place as a subject of credit, simply
as being an extraordinary fact, and we naturaUy
require a greater amount of e-vidence for it on
that account. There is, indeed, the greatest un
likeliness that any occurrence whatever, which
comes into our head by chance or intentional concep
tion, though it is of the commonest kind, -wiU reaUy
happen as it is imagined ; and from this great
antecedent improbability of the most ordinary events,
it has been inferred that no calculable difference
exists between the improbabUity of ordinary facts
and the improbabihty of miracles; or therefore
in the amount of e-vidence required for them.
But to draw such an inference is to confound two
totally distinct grounds of improbability. If all that
I can say of the likehhood of an event's occurrence
is that it comes into my head to imagine it, that is
no reason whatever for it, and the absence of all
reason for expecting an event constitutes of itself
the improbability of that event. But this kind of
antecedent improbability being simply the absence
of e-vidence, is immediately neutralized by the ap-

126 Testimony. [Lect.
pearance of evidence, to which it offers no resistance :
while that improbability which arises from the mar
vellous character of an event naturally offers a resist
ance to evidence, which must therefore be the stronger
in order to overcome such resistance. (Note 2.)
But if we take in the whole notion of a miracle
not as a marvellous event only, but the act of a
Supernatural Being, a miracle is still more widely
distinguished from an ordinary event as a subject
of credit and evidence. The evidence of an ordinary
fact does not assume any ground or principle oi faith
for the reception of it. It is frue that all belief in
testimony imphes faith in this sense, that we accept
upon the report of other persons the occurrence of
some event or the existence of some object which we
have not seen with our o-wn eyes. But common
testimony is so complete a part of the present order
of things and of the whole agency by which natural
life is conducted, and the behef in it is so necessary
and so matter-of-course an act in us, that we cannot
regard the mere behef in testimony as faith in the
received sense of that word. We may never have seen
a well-kno-wn place in our own country or abroad,
but if the place is universaUy talked of, if it appears
in all maps and books of travels and geography, and
if anybody would be considered to be out of his
mind if he doubted its existence ; it would be a mis
application of language to call the journey thither
an act of faith. The very merit of faith is that we
make something of a venture in it ; which we do
when we believe in testimony against our expe-

7.'] Testimony. 127
rience. But when the facts which are the subject
of testimony are in full accordance with our expe
rience, then, the testimony being competent and
sufficient, behef is unavoidable, it is as natural to i^
an atheist or a materialist as it is to a behever ;
and therefore in such cases belief in testimony
does not involve the principle of faith. But a
miracle in assuming the existence of supernatural
power, assumes a basis of faith. A miracle has
a foot, so to speak, in each world ; one part of it
resting upon edrth, while the other goes down
beyond our inteUectual reach into the depths of
the invisible world. The sensible fact is subject to
the natural law of testimony, the Divine intei-vention
rests upon another ground. A miracle is both an
outward fact, and also an in-visible and spiritual fact,
and to embrace the twofold whole, both testimony
and faith are wanted.
It has been a fault in one school of writers on
evidence, that in urging the just weight of testi
mony, they have not sufficiently attended to this
distinction, and have overlooked the deep gulf which
di-vides facts which assume a basis of religious
faith from ordinary facts as subjects of evidence.
These writers are too apt to speak of miracles as if
they stood completely on a par with other events
as matters of credit, and as if the reception of them
only drew upon that usual and acknowledged belief
in testimony by which we accept the facts of ordi
nary history. But this is to forget the important
point that a miracle is on one side of it not a fact

128 T'estimony. [Lect.
of this world, but of the invisible world ; the
Divine interposition in it being a supernatural and
mysterious act : that therefore the evidence for a
miracle does not stand exactly on the same ground
as the evidence of the witness-box, which only
appeals to our common sense as men of the world
and actors in ordinary life ; but that it requires
a great religious assumption in our minds to begin
with, without which no testimony in the case can
avail ; and consequently that the acceptance of a
miracle exercises more than the drdinary qualities
of candour and fairness used in estimating historical
evidence generally, having, in the previous admis
sion of a Supernatural Power, first tried our faith.
This admission of di-vines, again, that the evidence
of miracles assumes the belief in a Personal Deity,
supplies us with the proper ground on which to
judge of some positions which have been recently
promulgated on the subject of miracles and their
e-vidence. "No testimony," it has been said, "can
reach to the supernatural : testimony can only ap
ply to an apparent sensible fact ; that it is due to
supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the
previous belief and assumption of the parties."
(Note 3.) Does then this statement only mean to
distinguish in the case of a miracle between the fact
and the cause, that the fact alone can be a subject
of testimony, not the supernatural cause ? It is, in
that case, an undeniably true statement; for the
supernatural cause of a fact is a truth which in its
own nature cannot be reached by ocular e-vidence

v.] Testimony. 1 29
or attestation. Testimony does not pretend to in
clude in its report of an extraordinary fact the
rationale of that fact; it does not profess to pene
trate beyond the phenomenon, and put itself in con
tact with the source and original of it, and thence
bring back the intelligence that that source lies
outside of physical law in a special act of the Divine
will. This species of e-vidence has its own office,
which is to attest -visible and sensible occurrences ;
unless it is worthless testimony it can do no less,
and if it is the best conceivable testimony it can do
no more. What those facts amount to, how they
are to be interpreted, what they prove, depends upon
another argument altogether than that of testimony.
I accept upon the report of eye-witnesses certain
miraculous occurrences ; that these occurrences are
interpositions of the Deity depends upon the exist
ence of a Deity to begin with, and next upon the
argument of design or final causes ; because the
extraordinary coincidence of miraculous occurrences
with a professed Divine commission on the part of
the person who announces or commands them, proves
a Di-vine intention and act. That which constitutes
a miraculous occurrence a miracle in the common
or theological acceptation, is therefore not obtained
from simple testimony ; though it is obtained imme
diately by our reason from the data which testimony
supplies. Thus understood, the position to which
I have referred amounts to the statement that tes
timony is testimony, and not another kind of evi
dence ; it does not deny the supernatural cause of the
K

130 Testimony. [Lect.
occurrences in question, but only that testimony itself
proves it ; the supernatural explanation of a miracle
depending upon reasons which are at hand, but which
are not contained within the simple report of the
witness. The position, therefore, that "no testimony can
reach to the supernatural," if it accepts recorded
miracles a,s facts, and only excludes from the depart
ment of testimony their cause, is a true though an
unpractical distinction. Nor can this position be
objected to again if it is only to be understood as
meaning that testimony is not sufficient to prove
the facts, without the pre-vious assumption of Super
natural Power or the existence of God in the mind
of the receiver of such testimony. For in that case
it only amounts to the admission which di-vines have
always made upon the very threshold of the subject
of miracles. The great truth upon which the e-vi
dence of all lesser instances of supernatural power
depends is the truth of the supernatural origin of
this world — that this world is caused by the -will
of a Personal Being ; that it is sustained by that
will, and that therefore there is a God who is the
object of prayer and worship. A man who does not
hold the existence of this Supernatural Being cannot
reasonably be expected to attach much weight to
reports of amazing preternatural occurrences, laid
before him as religious facts connected, with their
own religious interests and feelings and persuasions
by earnest believers in religion, who can only figure
in his eye as devotees and enthusiasts. And if

v.] Testimony. 131
atheism thus invalidates the testimony to miracles,
the belief in a God is wanted as a condition of its
validity. But is the statement that " no testimony can reach
to the supernatural" made upon the ground that the
miraculous fact is intrinsicaUy incredible and impos
sible, and that a violation of physical law is no more
capable of being proved by testimony than a mathe
matical absurdity 1 In that case the position is both
rehgiously and phUosophicaUy untenable. Here in
deed, again, we are met by a distinction between
the miraculous fact and the violation of law ; in
accordance -with which we should have to interpret
this statement as stUl lea-ving -within the province of
testimony the proof of the miraculous fact, and only
excluding from it the explanation of that fact as
a contradiction to physical law. The miraculous
occurrence, it is intimated, even if true, need not be
in reahty a physical anomaly, but only an instance
of an unkno-wn operation of law ; and therefore in
denying the possibility of a violation of law, and
excluding the supernatural as a subject of testimony,
we do not disquahfy testimony for pro-ving the
miraculous occurrence itself " It is not the mere
fact," it is said, " but the cause or explanation of it,
which is the point at issue." (Note 4.) But such
a distinction is practicaUy untenable, because what
ever may be said of some kind of miracles, others
are — ^the facts themselves are — plainly violations of
physical law, and can be nothing else ; they are
plainly outstanding and anomalous facts, which
K 2

132 Testimony. [Lect.
admit of no sort of physical explanation. Admit the
real external occurrence of our Lord's Resurrection
and Ascension, and the interpretation of it as a
miracle or contradiction to the laws of nature is
inevitable. Language has been used indeed as if aU
the facts of the Gospel history could be admitted and
the miracles denied ; but when we examine the sense
in which the word ' fact ' is used in that language,
we find that it is not used in the ordinary sense but
in the sense of an inexphcable erroneous impression
on the minds of the -witnesses.
For, indeed, this distinction is no sooner made than
abandoned ; it is admitted that some kind of mira
culous facts are intrinsically as facts incredible ; and
in the place of the distinction between the miraculous
fact and the violation of law, is substituted the dis
tinction between the fact, and the impression of the
fact upon the minds of the witnesses. (Note 5.) Tes
timony, it is said, can prove the impression upon
the minds of the -vsdtnesses, but cannot "from the
nature of our antecedent coii-victions " prove the
real occurrence of the fact, that "the event reaUy
happened in the way assigned." This indeed, upon
the supposition of the intrinsic incredibUity of the
facts, is the only hypothesis left to account for honest
testunony to them. We have no alternative then
but to fall back upon something unknown, obscure,
and exceptional in the action of human nature, in
the case of the -witnesses ; some hidden root of delu
sion, some secret disorganization in the structure of
reason itself, or interference with the medium and

v.] Testimony. 133
channel between it and the organs of sense ; whence
it must have arisen that those who did not see certain
occurrences, were fully persuaded that they did see
them. But such an explanation requires the in
trinsic incredibility of the facts, and is Ulegitimate
without it : because if they are not in their o-wn
nature incredible, no occasion has come for resorting
to such an explanation ; there is no reason why
I should resist the natural effect of testimony, and
institute this unnatural divorce between the im
pression and the fact at all.
The position then that " no testimony can reach to
the supernatural," is correct or incorrect according as
it is based upon the impossibUity of the supernatural,
or the inadequacy of mere testimony — ^its inherent
defectiveness upon such subject-matter, unless sup
plemented by a ground of faith within ourselves.
We allow the need of a pre-vious assumption to give
force to the evidence of miracles ; at the same time
we are prepared to vindicate the vahdity and the
force of testimony, upon that pre-vious assumption
being made. Upon the supposition of the existence of
a God and of Supernatural Power in the first instance,
competent testimony to miraculous facts possesses an
obhgatory force ; it becomes by virtue of that suppo
sition the testimony of credible witnesses to credible
facts ; for the facts are credible if there is a power
equal to being their cause ; and the -witnesses are
credible if we assume the truth and reasonableness
of their religious faith and worship. Untrustworthy
and passionate informants upon the atheistic theory,

134 Testimony. [Lect.
liable to any delusion and mistake, because upon
this theory their very belief in religion in the first
instance is a delusion ; upon the assumption of the
truth of rehgion they become sound informants ; the
change of the hypothesis is a change in the character
of the testimony ; the stigma which attached to it
upon the one basis is reversed upon the other, and
what was bad evidence upon the irrehgious is good
upon the religious rationale of the world. In this
state of the case, then, testimony, when it speaks to
the miraculous, has a natural weight and credit of
the same kind as that which it possesses in ordinary
matters : and the attested visible fact is the im
portant thing, upon the truth of which the con
clusion that it is a miracle foUows by the natural
laws of reasoning. For I have she-wn it to be a
practicaUy untenable distinction that "it is not the
mere fact, but the cause or explanation of it, which
is the point at issue."
But if the e-vidence of miracles demands in the
first instance, as the condition of its vahdity and
force, the behef in the existence of a God ; if it begs
the question at the very outset of Infinite and Super
natural Power, as involved in a personal Author of
the universe ; it may be urged that so great, so
inconceivable an assumption as this amounts to
placing miracles upon a ground of faith instead of
a ground of historical evidence. You profess, it may
be said, to prove the credibihty of the supernatural,
and you do so by assuming in limine the actual
existence of it — the existence of supernatural power.

v.] Testimony. 135
Let this only be understood then and there need be
no further controversy on this subject. "A miracle
ceases to be capable of investigation by reason or
to own its dominion : it is accepted on religious
grounds, and can appeal only to the principle and
influence of faith." (Note 6.)
I reply that miracles undoubtedly rest upon a
ground of faith so far as they assume a truth which
it requires faith to adopt, viz. the existence of a
God : but that such a ground of faith is compatible
with historical evidence for them. Do we mean by
faith, a faculty wholly distinct from reason, which
without the aid of premisses founds conclusions purely
upon itself, -which can give no account of itself, or
its own convictions 1 Is faith, in short, only another
word for arbitrary supposition 1 In that case to re
legate miracles to a ground of faith is simply to
deprive them of all character of matters of fact. A
matter of faith is then speciaUy not a, matter of fact,
and mfracles could only take place in the region and
sphere of faith by not taking place at all. The in-
di-vidual uses the totally distinct principles of faith
and reason according to the subject-matter before
him. In the world of reason he judges according
to evidence, he believes whatever he beheves on
account of certain reasons ; in the world of faith he
believes because he beheves. Faith in this case is
no basis for a matter of fact ; a miracle of this sphere
is not an occurrence of time and place, within the
pale of history and geography, but an airy -vision
which evaporates as the eye of reason rests upon

136 Testimony. [Lect.
it and melts into space. The fact of faith is adapted
to the eye of faith only.
But does faith mean belief upon reasonable
grounds 1 Is it as much reason as the most prac
tical common sense is, though its grounds are less
sensible and more connected with our moral nature 1
In tliis sense faith can support matter of fact, and
a miracle in resting upon it, is not thereby not an
event of history. If a God who made the world
is not a mere supposition, a notion of the mind, but
a really existing Being, this Being can act upon
matter either in an ordinary way or in an extra
ordinary way ; and His extraordinary action on
matter is a visible and historical miracle. " For e-vi
dence," it has been said, " of a Deity working miracles,
we must go out of nature and beyond reason."
(Note 7.) If this is true, a miracle cannot rest upon
rational evidence ; but if an Omnipotent Deity is
a conclusion of reason, it can.
But if a miracle is itself a trial of faith, how, it
is asked, can it serve as the evidence of something
farther to be believed ? " You admit," it is said, " that
this e-vidence of a revelation is itself the subject of
evidence, and that not certain but only probable
e-vidence ; that it is received through a chain of
human testimony ; that the belief in it is against
all our experience, and demands in the first in
stance the assumption of the existence of super
natural power ; in a word, that a miracle must be
proved in spite of difficulties iteelf, before it can
prove anything else. But how can a species of

v.] Testimony. 137
evidence which is thus encumbered itself, be effec
tive as the support of something else 1 So far from
miracles being the evidence of revelation, are they
not themselves difficulties attaching to revelation?"
(Note 8.)
This double capacity, then, of a miracle as an
object of faith and yet evidence of faith, is inherent
in the principle of miraculous e-vidence ; for belief
in testimony against experience being faith, a miracle
which reaches us through testimony is necessarUy
an object of faith ; while the very purpose of the
miracle being to prove a revelation, the same miracle
again is evidence of faith. But the objection to this
double attitude of a miracle admits of a natural
answer. My own reflexion indeed upon my own
act of behef here, my o-wn consciousness of the kind
of act which it is in me, is witness enough that belief
in a miracle is an exercise and a trial of faith. But
if faith is not mere supposition, but reasonable belief
upon premisses, there is no reason why a conclusion
of faith should not be itself the evidence of something
else. It is sufficient that I am rationaUy convinced
that such an event happened ; that whatever diffi
culties I have had in arri-ving at it that is my con
clusion. That being the case, I cannot help myself,
if I would, using it as a true fact, for the proof of
something farther of which it is calculated hi its
o-wn nature to be proof. A probable fact is probable
evidence. I may therefore use a miracle as e-vidence
of a revelation, though I have only probable e-vidence
for the miracle. The same fact may try faith in one

138 Testimony. [Lect.
stage and ground faith in another, be the conclusion
of certain premisses and the premiss for a further
conclusion ; i. e. may be an object of faith and yet
an evidence of faith.
It is not indeed consistent with truth, nor would
it conduce to the real defence of Christianity, to
underrate the difficulties of the Christian evidence ;
or to disguise this characteristic of it, that the very
facts which constitute the evidence of revelation have
to be accepted by an act of faith themselves, before
they can operate as a proof of that further truth.
More than two centuries ago this subject exercised the
deep thoughts of one whom we may almost caU the
founder of the phUosophy of Christian evidence ; and
who now in the -writings of Bishop Butler rules in
our schools, gives us our point of view, and moulds
our form of reflexion on this subject. The answer
of Pascal to the objection of the difficulties of the
Christian evidence, was that that evidence was not
designed for producing belief as such, but for pro
ducing belief in connexion with, and as the token of,
a certain moral disposition ; that that gave a real in
sight into the reasons for and the marks of truth in the
Christian scheme, and brought out proof which was
hidden without it : which proof therefore, though it
did not answer every purpose which evidence can an
swer, answered its designed purpose : in other words,
that the purpose of evidence was qualffied by the
purpose of trial ; it being the Di-vine intention that
the human heart itself should be the illuminating
principle, throwing light upon that evidence, and

v.] Testimony. 139
presenting it in its real strength a. This position then
requires the caution to go along with it,that we have
no general liberty in individual cases of unbelief to at
tribute this result to moral defects, because we do not
know what latent obstructions of another kind there
may have been to the perception of truth ; but with
this caution it is a valid reply to the objection made ;
because it supplies a reason which accounts for the
want of more fuU and complete evidence than we
possess, and a reason which is in consistency with
the Divine attributes. One school of writers on Chris
tian evidence has assumed too confidently that any
average man, taken out of the crowd, who has suffi
cient common sense to conduct his o-wn affairs, is a fit
judge of that evidence — such a judge as was con
templated in the original design of it, as under
Providence hmited and measured for our use. One
great writer especially, of matehless argumentative
powers, betrays this defect in his point of -view ; and
in bringing out the common-sense side of the Chris
tian evidence — the value of human testimony — ^with
» " II n'^tait done pas juste qu'il parut d'une maniere manifeste-
ment divine et absolument capable de convaincre tons les hommes ;
mais U n'^tait pas juste aussi qu'il -vint d'une manifere si cach^e,
qu'il ne put ^tre reconnu de ceux qui le chercheraient sinclrement.
II a voulu se rendre parfaitement connaissable S, ceux-la ; et ainsi,
voulant paraitre h, d6couvert S, ceux qui le cherchent de tout leur
coeur, et cach^ si ceux qui le fuient de tout leur coeur, il tempore sa
connaissance en sorte qu'il a donn^ des marques de soi visibles 5,
ceux qui le cherchent, et obscures 3, ceux qui ne le cherchent pas.
II y a assez de lumiSre pour ceux qui ne d^sirent que de voir, et
assez d'obscurite pour ceux qui ont une disposition contraire." —
Pascal, ed. Fanigere, vol. ii. p. 151.

140 Testimony. [Lect.
irresistible truth and force, allows his very success
to conceal from him the insufficiency of common
sense alone.
The ground of Pascal is in effect that, as an
original means of persuasion, the Christian e-videnee
is designed for the few, and not for the many. Be
cause Christianity is the religion of a large part of
the world, and prophesies its o-wn possession of the
whole world, it does not foUow that the e-vidence
of it must be adapted to con-vince the mass ; — I mean
to convince them, on the supposition of their coming
without any bias of custom and education to decide
the question by evidence alone. It is enough if that
argument is addressed to the few, and if, as the
few of every generation are con-vinced, their faith be
comes a permanent and hereditary belief by a natural
law of transmission. The Christian body is enlarged
by growth and stationariness combined ; each suc
cessive age contributing its quota, and the acquisition
once made remaining. This is the way in which, as
a matter of fact, Christianity became the rehgion of
the Roman empire. In no age, from the apostohc
do"wnwards, did the e-vidence of the Gospel profess
to be adapted to convince the mass ; it addressed
itself to the few, and the hereditary belief of the
mass foUowed. Christianity has indeed at times
spread by other means than its e-vidences, by the
sword, and by the rude impulse of unci-vUized people
to foUow their chiefs ; but whenever it has spread by
the power of its evidences, this has been their scope.
The profession of the world has been the result, but the

V.j Testimony. 141
faith of the few has been the original mark of the
Gospel argument ; though doubtless many who would
not have had the strength of mind to acknowledge
the force of that argument, by an original act of their
o-wn, have by a Christian education grown to a real
inward perception of it ; and hereditary behef has
thus, by providing a more indulgent trial, sheltered
individual faith. And the same principle of growth
can at last convert the world ; however slow the pro
cess, the result -wUl come, if Christianity always keeps
the ground it gets ; for that which always gains and
never loses must ultimately -win the whole.

LECTURE YI.
UNKNOWN LAW.
St. John v. 17.
My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
JMlRACLES are summarUy characterized as viola
tions of the laws of nature. But may not the Scrip
ture miracles, however apparently at variance with
the laws of nature, be instances of unknown law 1
This question is proposed in a different spirit by
different persons ; by some as a question upon which
their behef in these miracles depends, by others only
as a speculative question, though one answer to it
would be more in accordance -vrith their inteUectual
predUections than another.
In entering upon this question, however, we must
at the outset settle one important preliminary, -viz.
what we mean by the Scripture miracles. The dis
tinction proposed in our question is a distinction be
tween those mhacles as facts, and those miracles as
miracles, in the popular sense ; but if we only caU
the miracles facts at first, we must stUl know what

Lect. VL] Unknown Law. 143
those facts are respecting which the question, whether
they are properly miraculous, i.e. violations of law or
not, is raised. Are we to take those facts as they
stand in Scripture, or as seen to begin -with through an
interpretative medium of our o-wn, reduced to certain
supposed true and original events, of which the Scrip
ture narrative is a transcendental representation 1
As a previous condition of the consistency of those
facts -with law, are the facts themselves to undergo
an alteration 1 I reply, that in an inquiry into the
particular question whether the Scripture miracles
may or may not be instances of unkno-wn law, the
question whether those miracles originaUy took place
or not, in the way in which they are recorded, in
other words, the question of the authenticity of those
miracles, is one -with which I have nothing to do.
Whether or not the facts of the Scripture narrative
are the true and original facts which took place is
a question which belongs to the department of e-vi
dence, and one which must be met in its o-wn place ;
but a philosophical inquiry into the consistency or not
of the Scripture miracles with law must take those
miracles as they stand. If not, what are the facts,
the physical interpretation of which is in dispute 1
We have not got them before us, and the inquiry
must stop for want of material. It is important to
understand the necessity which there is for separating
these two questions, because the mind of an iaqiurer
at first is very apt to confuse them, and to suppose
that the speculation upon the question of unkno-wn
law gives him a right in the first instance partiaUy to

144 Unknown Law. [Lect.
reduce the facts of Scripture, in order to acconx-
modate them to the inquiry. It must therefore be
understood that the ulterior question as to law in
miracles assumes the miraculous facts as recorded.
Even if the unkno-wn law affects the facts them
selves, as, upon the theory that they are only im
pressions upon the minds of the witnesses, it does,
still the facts which are supposed to be accounted
for by impression, are the facts stated in Scripture,
and not other facts.
Upon the question then of the referribleness of
miracles to unkno-wn law, we must first observe that
the expression ' unknown law,' as used here, has two
meanings, between which it is important to dis
tinguish ; ie. that it means either unknown law, or
unkno-wn connexion -with known law. I -will take
the latter of these two meanings first.
I. With respect then to unknown connexion -with
kno-wn law, the test of the claim of any extra
ordinary isolated and anomalous fact to this con
nexion is, whether it admits of any hypothesis being
made respecting it, any po sible physical explana
tion, which would bring it under the head of any
kno-wn law. A law of nature in the scientific sense is
in its very essence incapable of producing single or
insulated facts, because it is the very repetition and
recurrence of the facts which makes the law, which
law therefore implies and is a class of facts. It
foUows that no single or exceptional event can come
by direct observation under a law of nature ; but
that if it comes under it at aU it can only do so

VI.] Unknown Law. 145
by the medium of some explanation, by which it
is brought out of its apparent isolation and singu
larity into the same situation with a class of facts,
i.e. some explanation which shews that the excep
tional character of the fact is owing to a pecuharity
in the situation of its subject-matter, and not in the
laws which act upon it. It may be that there is
something extraordinary in the position of a natural
substance, upon which, however, the known laws of
nature are operating aU the time, producing their
proper effects only under unwonted circumstances ;
as in the case of the explained descent of a meteoric
stone, where the laws which act are «» the common
laws of gravity and motion, and the only thing singular
is the situation of the stone. The common current
facts of nature, where not yet reduced to law, are
brought under law, if they are brought under it, by
direct observation ; by fixing upon the invariable
conjunctions of antecedent and consequent, which are
really happening, and only are not as yet observed.
The weather, e.g. is part of the order of nature of
which the law alone is unkno-wn to us, the facts
being of constant occurrence ; the weather therefore
comes under law, to whatever extent it does come
under it at present, by direct observation ; the in
variable conjunctions being of real occurrence, and
only requiring to be se^n. By tracing those con
junctions back we should have the law of weather
from that point ; and could we trace them back up
to the point at which they hnk on to the ascertained
series of natural causes, then we should have the fuU

146 Unknown Law. [Lect.
law of weather. But single or exceptional facts
only come under a law of nature by the medium
of an explanation or hypothesis, which connects the
deviation -with the main line, and engrafts the
anomaly upon a kno-wn stock.
There is, indeed, besides a regular hypothetical
explanation of an anomalous fact in the physical
world, another and more obscure condition in which
a fact may he -svithout suffering total disjunction
from law : — when no formal hypothesis is at present
forthcoming, but the fact holds out a promise of one ;
presents the hints or beginnings of one, though they
cannot yet be worked up into a scientific whole. The
phenomenon is not wholly dark and wanting in aU
trace and vestige of physical type, but is said to
await solution. It "wiU be enough, however, if "with
out express mention we understand this modification
as included under the head of an explanation or
hypothesis. So long then as an eccentric fact admits of an ex
planation in keeping -with known law, we are not jus
tified in pronouncing it to be contradictory to known
law ; for though the explanation is hypothetical, so
long as it is admissible, we are prohibited from assert
ing the absolute lawlessness of the fact. But, on the
other hand, take a supposed or imaginary anomalous
occurrence — and many such are conceivable — to
which this whole ground of scientific explanation
and anticipation would not apply, and in the case of
which it would be all obviously out of place. Such
an anomalous occurrence would be lawless, and a con-

VI.] Unknown Law. 147
tradiction to known law, and must be set down as
such. Thus, according as there is room or no room for
scientific anticipation, one kind of physical miracle
is in latent connexion -with the system, another is
not. A scientific judgment discriminates between
different types of physical marvels. An eccentric
phenomenon within the region of man — his bodily
and mental affections and impressions — is set do-wn
as an ultimately natural fact, because there the
system of nature is elastic, and such as by its elas
ticity to accommodate and afford a place for it ;
whUe no such prospect is held out to an imagined
instance of irregularity in inanimate nature, be
cause the system there is rigid and inflexible, and
refuses to accommodate the alien. The most extra-
orduiary case of suspended animation is an ultimately
natural fact ; a real violation of the law of gravity,
by the ascent of a human body into the sky, is an
ultimate anomaly and outstanding fact. (Note i.)
Upon the question, then, whether the Gospel
miracles may have an unknown connexion -with
known law, the criterion to be apphed is whether
they admit or not of a physical hypothesis being
constructed about them, an explanation being given
of them, upon which this connexion would follow.
Upon this question then I observe, to begin -with,
that a whole class of Gospel miracles meets us in
which the material result taken by itself, and apart
from the manner and circumstances of its production,
cannot be pronounced absolutely to be incapable
of taking place by the laws of nature. Indeed,
L 2

148 Unknown Law. [Lect.
this observation may be said to embrace the largest
class of miracles ; I refer to the bodUy cures and
restorations of the functions of bodily organs, by
which the blind received their sight, the lame walked,
the lepers were cleansed, and the deaf heard. Sup
pose in any of these cases the physical result to
have taken place as a simple occurrence "without
any connexion -with a personal agent — ^there is no
thing in the nature of the fact itself to exclude
the supposition that it was owing to some unkno-wn
natural cause. A blind man, even one bom blind,
suddenly recovers his sight. Were such an occur
rence to be reported upon good e-vidence at the
present day, it would not be received as anything
physicaUy incredible, but would be set do-wn, how
ever extraordinary, even if quite unique, as refer-
rible to some natural cause : and scientffic men might
proceed to suggest hypothetical explanations of it.
The same may be said of a sudden restoration of
hearing, of a sudden recovery of speech, of a sudden
recovery of the use of a limb, of a sudden recovery
from an issue of blood, from palsy, from madness.
But to say that the material fact which takes
place in a miracle admits of being referred to an
unknown natural cause, is not to say that the
miracle itself does. A miracle is the material fact
as coinciding -with an express announcement or -with
express supernatural pretensions in the agent. It
is this correspondence of two facts which consti
tutes a miracle. If a person says to a blind man,
' See,' and he sees, it is not the sudden return of

VI.J Unknown Law. 149
sight alone that we have to account for, but its
return at that particular moment. For it is morally
impossible that this exact agreement of an event
¦with a command or notification could have been
by a mere chance, or, as we should say, been an
extraordinary coincidence, especially if it is repeated
in other cases.
The chief characteristic, indeed, of miracles and
that which distinguishes them from mere marvels,
is this correspondence of the fact -with a notffi-
cation ; — what we may call the prophetical prin
ciple. For indeed, if a prophecy is a miracle, a
mfracle too is in essence a prophecy ; the essence
of which is the correspondence, not the futurity,
of the event. And consequently, a miracle can i
afford to dispense with the full supernatural cha
racter of its physical result, in consideration of
this other source of the miraculous character. No
violation of any law of nature takes place in either
of the two parts of prophecy taken separately ;
none in the prediction of an event, none in its
occurrence ; but the two taken together are proof
of superhuman agency ; and the two parts of a
miracle, the event and the announcement of it,
even if the former be in itself reducible to law, ^
are, taken together, proof of the same.
It is evident then that, supposing the miraculous
facts of Scripture to stand as they are recorded,
no physical hypothesis can be framed which would
account for the knowledge and power involved even
in this class of miracles. But it must also be re-

150 Unknown Law. [Lect.
membered that no hypothesis which even accounted
for a certain portion of the Scripture miracles, if
one such could be imagined, would be of any ser
vice on this side, unless it also accounted for the
whole. But coidd any scientffic hypothesis be constructed,
which would account for the conversion of water
into wine, the multiphcation of the loaves, and the
resurrection of dead men to life 1 Undoubtedly
if the supposition coiUd be entertained that these
miracles as recorded in the Gospels were untrue
and exaggerated representations of the facts which
really took place, a physical explanation might be
proposed, and might even be accepted as a very
probable one, of the facts which were supposed to
be the real ones. But in that case the reduction
of the Gospel miracles to physical law would have
been indebted for its success, not to any hypothesis
of phUosophy, but simply to an alteration of the
facts, in accordance -with a supposed more authentic
and historical estimate of them.
Upon one theory alone, if a tenable one, could
such facts be reconcUeable with kno-wn law ; and
that is the theory that they were not facte but
impressions upon the minds of the -witnesses —
though impressions so strong and perfect that they
were equivalent to facts to those who had them.
This explanation, then, resorts for its ground to
that more elastic and obscure department of nature
above mentioned — the mixed bodily and mental
organization of man with ite habUity to eccentric

VL] Unknown Laio. 151
and abnormal conditions, and "with them to delu
sions, and disordered relations to the external world.
But this is a theory which is totally untenable upon
the supposition of the truth of the facts of Scripture
as they are recorded. An abnormal condition of the
senses is in the first place connected with positive
disease, and "with particular diseases ; or else — if
such a strange result has reaUy ever arisen from
such processes — "with professedly artfficial conditions
of the man, produced by premeditated effort and
skill ; of which even the asserted effecte are very
limited and fragmentary. But that numbers of men
of serious character, and apparently in their ordinary
natural habit, should be for years in a disordered
state of relations to the outward world ; in par
ticular that they should think that for a certain
period they had been frequently seeing and con
versing "vrith a Person, whose disciples they had been,
who had returned to hfe again after a pubhc death,
when they never saw Him at that time, or spoke
to Him, — this is absolutely incredible. And there
fore the theory of impression is untenable upon the
facts of Scripture as they stand, and supposes dif
ferent facts. I speak of the theory of impression
as a physical theory : some speculative divines have
proposed the hypothesis of a miraculous impression
produced for the occasion upon the minds and senses
of the witnesses, as one mode of the production of
miracles in certain cases ; but such a theory, to what
ever criticism it may be open, has nothing in common
"with the physical explanation here noticed. (Note 2.)

] 52 Unknown Law. [Lect.
2. But now let us shift the inquiry from the
ground which it has taken hitherto, to the other
and diiferent question, whether miracles may not
be instances of laws which are as yet whoUy un
known ;— this defers the question of the physical
explanation of a miracle to another stage, when not
only the connexion of a particular fact -with law
has to be discovered, but the law with which it is
connected has to be discovered too.
This question, then, is commonly called a question
of " higher law." " AU analogy," we are told, " leads
us to infer, and new discoveries direct our expecta
tion to the idea, that the most extensive laws to
which we have hitherto attained converge to some
few simple and general principles, by which the
whole of the material universe is sustained a.." A
" higher law," then, is a law which comprehends
under itself two or more lower or less -wide laws :
and the way in which such a rationale of higher
law would be apphcable to a miracle would be
this ; — ^that if any as yet unkno-wn law came to
light to which upon its appearance this or that
miracle or class of miracles could be referred as
instances ; in that case we could entertain the ques
tion whether the newly discovered law under which
the miracles came, and the old or kno-wn law under
which the common kind of facts come, were not
both- reducible to a stiU more general law, which
comprehended them both. But before we can en
tertain the question of " higher law" as apphcable
¦' Babbage's Ninth Bridgwater Treatise, p. 32.

VI.] Unknown Law. 153
to miraculous and to common facts, we must first
have this lower law of the miraculous ones. Could we
suppose, e. g. the possibihty of some higher law into
which both electricity and gravitation might merge ;
yet the laws of electricity and the law of gravita
tion both exist in readiness to be embraced under
such higher law, should it ever be discovered. And
in the same way, if miracles and the laws of nature
are ever to be comprehended under a higher law, we
must first have both the laws underneath the latter,
both the laws of nature and the laws of the miracles.
Could we then suppose the possibihty of any un
known laws coming to hght which would embrace
and account for miracles, one concomitant of this
discovery is ine-vitable, -viz. that those fresh laws -wUl
involve fresh facts. A law of nature, in the scien
tffic sense, cannot exist "without a class of facts which
comes under it ; because it is these facte which are
the law. A law of nature is a repetition of the
same facts "with the same conjunctions ; but in
order for the facts to take place -with the same
conjunctions, they must in the first instance take
place. A law of miraculous recoveries of sight
without such recoveries of sight, a law of real sus
pensions of gravitation "without such suspensions of
gra"vitation, a law of miraculous productions of ma
terial substances -without such productions, a law of
resuirections from the dead without resurrections
from the dead, — these laws are absurdities. To
make an imaginative supposition — Could we con
ceive that in a future age of the world it were

154 Unknown, Law. [Lect.
observed, that persons who had passed through cer
tain extraordinary diseases wliich had then shewed
themselves in the human frame, returned to life
again after shewing the certain signs of death ; —
this observation, made upon a proper induction from
recurring instances, would be a law of resurrection
from the dead ; but nothing short of this would be :
and this would imply a new class of facts, viz. re
curring resurrections.
No new class of facte, indeed, is required when
an exceptional phenomenon is explained by a known
law ; for a kno-wn law only involves known facts :
and no new class of facts is required when frequent
phenomena are traced to a new law, because the
new discovered law is already provided "with the
facts which come under it, which have been seen
always themselves though their law has been un
known ; but when both the phenomenon is ex
ceptional and its law new, that new law imphes
a new class of facts ; for facts a law must have ;
which therefore if they do not now exist, must come
into existence in order to make the law**-
b It is true that old and familiar classes of miraculous facts, so to
call them, exist in that constant current of supernatural pretension
which is a feature of histoi-y, and has been a running accompani
ment of human nature. And it is true also that a vague attempt
has always been going on to connect this supernaturalism with law.
The science of magic in its way made this profession ; it mixed this
object indeed with relations to demons and unearthly beings ; but
still it treated supernaturalism as a secret of nature, and pretended
to search and in some degree to have penetrated into this secret.
Again, the more exalted kind of heathen thaumaturgy connected
miraculous powers with the development of human nature, and

VL] Unknoivn Law. 155
But such being the case, what does this whole sup
position of the discovery of such an unknown law of
miracles amount to, but to the supposition of a future
new order of nature ? It would indeed be difficult
to say what was a new order of nature, if recurrent
miracles "with invariable antecedents did not consti
tute one. But a new order of nature being involved
in this supposition, it immediately foUows that this
whole supposition is an irrelevant, a futUe, and nu
gatory one as regards the present question. A law
of nature in the scientffic sense has reference to our
experience alone : when I speak of a law of nature,
I mean a law of nature with this reference. A
miracle therefore as a violation of the laws of nature
assumes the same condition, and is relative to our
knowledge. A miracle is thus not affected by any
imaginary supposition of a future different order of
nature, of which it would not be a "violation ; it is
irrespective of such an idea. For no new order of
things could make the present order different : and
a miracle is constituted by no ulterior criterion, no
criterion which hes beyond the course of nature as
it comes under our cognizance, but simply by this
deduced them from a higher humanity, as a specimen of which the
celebrated Apollonius Tyanseus had them assigned to him. And the
belief of rude tribes has subordinated mystical gifts of prophecy and
second sight to the law of family descent. But, making allowance
for exceptional cases in which it may have pleased the Divine power
to interpose, the mature judgment of mankind has set aside the
facts of current supernaturalism, except so far as they are capable of
being naturally accounted for ; and has, with the facts, set aside all
pretension to acquaintance "with the law of them.

156 Unknown Law. [Lect.
matter-of-fact test. It is opposed to custom, — to
that universal custom which we caU experience. But
experience is the experience wliich we have. A mi
racle, could we suppose it becoming the ordinary fact
of another different order of nature, woiUd not be
the less a "violation of the present one ; or therefore
the less a violation of the laws of nature in the
scientffic sense.
Bishop Butler has indeed suggested " that there
may be beings in the universe whose capacities and
knowledge and -views may be so extensive as that
the whole Christian dispensation may to them appear
natural, i e. analogous or conformable to God's deal
ings with other parts of His creation, as natural as
the "visible kno"wn course of things appears to us •=."
And with respect to the beings who are here sup
posed, who have the knowledge of other parts of
the universe, and of God's dispensations there, this
suggestion holds good ; for the occurrence of the same
dispensations -with the same antecedents in the dif
ferent parts of the universe would constitute an
order of nature in the universe to those who were
acquainted "with it. But we do not possess this
knowledge, and an order of nature being relative
to knowledge, in the absence of this condition there
does not exist this naturalness.
The relation of a miracle to the laws of nature
also fixes its relations to general laws. The only
inteffigible meaning which we can assign to general
laws, is that they are the laws of nature with the
<= Analogy, Part i. ch. i.

VL] Unknown Law. 157
addition of a particular theory of the Divine mode
of conducting them ; the theory, viz. of secondary
causes. The question whether the Deity operates
in nature by second causes, or by immediate single
acts, is not a question which at all affecte the laws
of nature in the scientffic sense. Those laws being
simply recurrent facts, are exactly the same, what
ever be the Divine method employed in producing
those facts. But di"vines take up the subject at the
point at which natural science stops, and inquire
whether the Deity operates in the laws of nature
by a constant succession of direct single acts, or
through the medium of general laws or secondary
causes, which, once set in motion, execute themselves.
This is an entirely speculative question then, and,
inasmuch as the real mode of the Di-vine action
is inconceivable, an insoluble one. The unifoimity
of aU the facts which constitute a law of nature is
suggestive of one originating act on the part of the
Deity, but it is also consistent -with a series of similar
single aets ; nor is a universal action in particulars in
the abstract more inconceivable than a Universal
Being. The language of religion, however, has been
framed upon the principle of what is most becoming
to conceive respecting the Deity ; and therefore has
not attributed to Him an incessant particular action
in the ordinary operations of nature, which it hands
over to secondary causes ; but only assigned this
direct action to Him in His special interpositions.
(Note 3.)
General laws, then, being only the laws of nature

158 Unknown Law. [Lect.
with a particular conception appended to them ; if
miracles are not reducible to the laws of nature,
they are not reducible to general laws. Nor in
deed, considering what has been said, would such
a reduction be very consistent with the reason upon
which general laws stand. For if general laws have
been separated from the direct action of the Deity
for the very purpose of reserving the latter as the
peculiar mark of His special interpositions, to re
duce these special interpositions back again from
direct action to general law would be to undo the
object of this distinction, and after dra"wing a line
of demarcation to efface it again.
The notion of general laws naturally fits on indeed
to God's uniform operations, but is a forced addition
to irregular and extraordinary acts. The subordina
tion of miracles indeed to " general laws of "wisdom"',"
if we understand by that phrase a plan or scheme
in the Di"vine Mind which controls the production
of miracles, those considerations of utUity which
regulate their frequency as weU as limit and check
their type, may well be aUowed ; but this is a
different use of the term.
The inquiry has, indeed, been raised whether in
the original design and mechamsm of creation, the
law or principle of the system may not have been
<! Bishop Butler observes that " God's miraculous interpositions
have been all along by general laws of wisdom. Thus, that mi
raculous powers should be exerted at such times, upon such
occasions, in such degrees and manners, and with regard to
such persons rather than to others, &c., all tins may have been
by general law?." — Analorjy, Part ii. ch. iv.

VL] Unknown Law. 1 59
so contrived that miracles when they occur are as
much the inevitable consequences of that law as
ite regular and ordinary effects ; the same cause
or original plan which produces the order of nature,
producing also the exceptions to it. It is observed,
in the first place, that the history of our planet
being composed of successive stages or periods of
animal and vegetable hfe widely different from each
other, these several orders of nature may have been
but the gradual evolution of one primary law, im
pressed upon nature on its first construction ; the
highest law of the system being such that it in
cludes all these changes under it, and that no
one formation singly but the whole series consti
tute the fuU and adequate expression of it. And
from this apphcation to successive orders of nature,
the same rationale is then apphed to the order
of nature and the de"viation from it, or miracle.
Neither the order of nature nor the exception to
it alone, it is suggested, but both together, express
that highest generalization in the structure of nature
which is the law of the system and the whole. A
calculating machine is so adjusted as to produce
one unbroken chain of regularly succeeding num
bers, when the law which governed the series faUs,
and another law comes in, producing another suc
cession of numbers or operating only in a single
instance ; after which it gives way again to the
first law. Neither of the two successions alone, nor
the succession or the insiUation alone, expresses
the highest law of the machine, which includes

160 Unknown Law. [Lect.
them both. So, it is said, the order of nature and
the exception to it or miracle may both be in
cluded under the original law which was impressed
upon the structure of nature. " That one or more
men at given times shaU be restored to life may
be. as much a consequence of the law of existence
appointed for man at his creation, as the appear
ance and reappearance of the isolated cases of
apparent exception in the arithmetical machine*."
(Note 4.)
If this hypothesis, then, of the origin of miracles is
entertained as a truth of natural science, an inter
mitting law of nature as much imphes reciurent facts,
with the same invariable antecedents, as any other law
of nature does ; for if the exception is not as regular
as the rule, the exception is not kno"wn as a rule or law
at aU. A clock is so constructed as to strike every hour
but one, when it omits the stroke ; but it always omits
the same hour. A calculating engine injects into a
lengthened series of regularly succeeding numbers
an insulated de-viation ; but upon the same adjust
ment of the machine the deviation is repeated. Upon
first seeing the exceptional number our impression
would be that the machine was out of order, i. e.
that this was an occurrence contrary to the law of
the machine, nor should we be persuaded that it was
not but by the repetition of the same exception in
the same place. But miracles do not thus recur at
the same physical junctures, and therefore do not
come under an intermitting law of nature.
«¦ Passages fi-om the Life of a Philosopher, p. ^90.

VL] Unhnoum Law. 161
This hypothesis, then, of the origin of mu-acles
cannot be maintained as a truth of natural science,
and can only be entertained as a speciUation re
specting the action of the Deity, the mode of opera
tion attributable to the Universal Cause in the pro
duction of a miracle — that His action in the matter
is not contemporary but original action. It can only
be entertained as a speculation respecting the mode
of the causation of a miracle : this being a distinct
question for that of a miracle's referribleness to a
law of nature, wliich law is concerned not -with
causation but -with facts. But as a speculation re
specting the Di"vine action, and the mode of the
causation of a miracle, this hypothesis would not,
if adopted, make the slightest difference in the
nature and character of a miracle. The date of
its causation would be put back, but the miracle it
self would remain exactly what it was before upon
the ordhiary hypothesis ; it would be as much an
exception to the order of nature as before ; an ex
ception as much the result of the Divine intention
and design as before ; and to answer the same spe
cific object which it answered before. Indeed, it is
not the design of this hypothesis to make any dffier-
ence in the miracle itself, or explain it away, but
only, leaving it as miraculous as ever, to suggest a
more philosophical rationale of its origin. Nor must
such an hypothesis be confounded with attempts at
physical explanations of miracles.
I have throughout this inquiry taken the term
' law of nature' in the scientffic sense, as referring
M

162 Unknown Law. [Lect.
to that order of nature of which we have experience ;
but if by the laws of nature we understand the laws
of the universe, we then amve at a totaUy different
conclusion upon the question of the contrariety of
miracles to the laws of nature. In that case, " No
thing," as Spinoza says, " can take place in nature
which is contrary to the laws of nature," and a sus
pension of the laws of nature is a contradiction in
terms. A law cannot be suspended but by a force
which is capable of suspending it ; and that force
must act according to its o"wn nature ; and the
second force cannot suspend the first unless the law
of its nature enables it to do so. The law of the
Divine nature enables it to suspend aU physical
laws ; but, the existence of a God assumed, the law
of the Di"vine nature is as much a law of nature
as the laws which it suspends.
Is the suspension of physical and material laws
by a Spiritual Being inconceivable 1 We reply, that
however inconceivable this kind of suspension of
physical law is, it is a fact. Physical laws are
suspended any time an animate being moves any
part of its body ; the laws of matter are suspended
by the laws of hfe. If there is anything I am
conscious of, it is that I am a spiritual being, that
no part of my tangible body is myself, and that
matter and I are distinct ideas. Yet I move matter,
i. e. my body, and every time I do so I suspend
the laws of matter. The arm that would otherwise
hang down by its o"wn weight, is lifted up by this
spiritual being — myself. It is true my spirit is

VI.] Unknoivn Law. 163
connected with the matter which it moves in a
mode in which the Great Spirit who acts upon
matter in a miracle is not ; but to what purpose
is this difference so long as any action of spirit
upon matter is incomprehensible. The action of
God's Spirit in the miracle of walking on the water
is no more inconceivable than the action of my o"wn
spirit in holding up my own hand. Antecedently
one step on the ground and an ascent to heaven
are alike incredible. But this appearance of incre-
dibffity is answered in one case hteraUy ambulando.
How can I place any rehance upon it in the
other ¦?
The constitution of nature, then, disproves the
incredibility of the Divine suspension of physical
law ; but more than this, it creates a presumption
for it. For the laws of which we have experience
are themselves in an ascending scale. First come
the laws which regulate unorganized matter ; next
the laws of vegetation ; then, by an enormous leap,
the laws of animal hfe with its voluntary motion,
desire, expectation, fear ; and above these, again, the
laws of moral being wliich regulate a totaUy different
order of creatures. Now suppose an inteUigent being
whose experience was limited to one or more lower
classes in this ascending scale of laws, — ^he would be
totaUy incapable of concei-ving the action of the
higher classes. A thinking piece of granite would
be totaUy incapable of conceiving the action of
chemical laws, which produce explosions, contacts,
repulsions. A thinking mineral would be totally
M 2

164 Unknown Law. [Lect.
incapable of concei-ving the laws of vegetable gi'owth ;
a thinking vegetable could not form an idea of the
laws of ammal life; a thinking animal could not
form an idea of moral and inteUectual tmth. AU this
progressive succession of laws is perfectly conceiv
able backward, and an absolute mystery forward;
and therefore when in the ascendmg series we arrive
at man, we ask. Is there no higher sphere of law
as much above him as he is above the lower natures
in the scale ¦? The analogy would lead us to expect
that there was, and supplies a presumption in favour
of such a behef
And so we arrive again by another route at the
old turning question ; for the question whether man
is or is not the vertex of nature, is the question
whether there is or is not a God. Does free agency
stop at the human stage, or is there a sphere of
free--wiU above the human, in which, as in the human,
not physical law but spirit moves matter % And does
that free-wUl penetrate the umversal frame in-visibly
to us, an ommpresent agent "? If so, every miracle
in Scripture is as natural an event in the universe
as any chemical experiment in the physical world ;
if not, the seat of the great Presiding Will is empty,
and nature has no Personal Head : man is her highest
point ; he finishes her ascent ; though by this very
supremacy he faUs, for under fate he is not free
himself; aU nature either ascends to God, or de
scends to law. Is there above the level of material
causes a region of Pro-vidence 1 If there is, nature
there is moved by the Supreme Free Agent ; and of

VL] Unknown Law. 165
such a realm a miracle is the natural production.
(Note 5-)
Two rationales of miracles thus present themselves
to our choice ; one more accommodating to the
physical imagination and easy to fall in with, on
a level with custom, common conceptions, and ordi
nary history, and requiring no ascent of the mind to
embrace, "viz. the solution of miracles as the growth of
fancy and legend ; the other requiring an ascent of
the reason to embrace it, "viz. the rationale of the
supremacy of a Personal Will in nature. The one
is the explanation to which we fall when we dare
not trust our reason, but mistake its inconceivable
truths for sublime but unsubstantial visions ; the
other is that to which we rise when we dare trust
our reason, and the e"vidences which it lays before
us of the existence of a Personal Supreme Being.

LECTURE YII.
MIRACLES EEGAEDED IN THEIR PRACTICAL RESULT.
Romaics vi. 17.
But God be thanked, that ye were tJie servants of sin, but ye
have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which
was delivered you.
In judging of the truth of miracles the revelation
of which they were designed to be the proof ne
cessarUy comes into consideration ; and specially the
practical result of that revelation. Without assuming
the truth of revelation, we can consider this result.
It is a reasonable inquiry which arises in the mind
upon first hearing of an era of miracles — What is
the good of them % what end and purpose have they
answered % If, then, some who had diseases were
cured, that is something. But if there has been a
permanent, enormous, and incalculable practical re
sult, such a result that no other change in the
world is to be compared with it, that is a very
serious tiling to take into account. We cannot
avoid attaching weight to it, gi-ving it a place in
the proof, and feeling impressed by the importance

Miracles regarded in their Practical Result. 167
of such a circumstance, in relation to the question.
Without usuig — which we have no right to do —
this result as direct evidence of the facts in dis
pute, if the miraculous system has been a prac
tical one, "with immense practical effects upon man
kind, it plainly ought to have the benefit of this
consideration in the estimate of ite claims to be
received as true.
It is admitted, then, that Christianity has pro
duced the greatest change that has been ever kno"wn
in the world, with reference to moral standard and
moral practice ; and when we inquire further, we
find this change attributed by universal consent to
the power of the great doctrines of Christianity
upon the human heart ; which doctrines could not
have been communicated "vidthout the e"vidence of
miracles. And, first, a religion founded on miracles as com
pared with a religion founded upon the evidences
of a God in nature, has a much superior motive
power in the very fact of ite supernatural origin.
Undoubtedly the love of the supernatural may be
come a mere idle pleasure, and when it does it is
condemned in Scripture. " If they hear not Moses
and the Prophets, neither wiU they be persuaded
though one rose from the dead." But, on the other
hand, this affection is in itself rehgious, and a power
ful instrument of rehgion. A supernatural fact, a
communication from the other world, is a potent in
fluence ; it rouses, it solemnizes ; it is a strong motive
to serious action. The other world stands before us

168 Miracles regarded [Lect.
m a more real aspect immediately. The notion of
God as a Personal Being must be beyond aU com
parison greater in a rehgion founded upon miracles,
than in one founded upon nature : because a miracle
is itself a token of personal agency, of a WUl and
Spirit moving behind the veU of matter, in a way
and manner in which the works of nature are not.
The tendency of a rehgion founded on nature, or
Deism, is to establish as the world of God and
man nature alone, the rehgious principle being
adopted but made to coincide -with the sphere of
this world. Such a rehgion is weak in influence.
The voice of God must come out of another world
to command with authority ; such a voice spake
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; their rehgion had
its root in the Invisible ; but a God in nature
only does not strike awe. One single real miracle
is another ground in religion ; if the walls of na
ture have been broken through but once, we are
di"vided by a whole world from a mere physical
basis of rehgion. Do we in imagination assign a
certain extraordinary depth and seriousness to those
who have seen supernatural facts 1 The language
of the Apostles embodies our idea and type of
the effect of so unearthly an experience upon the
recipients. But the remarkable change which Christianity
made in the world was owing mainly not to ¦ the
miracles, but to the doctrines of which they were
the proof
Undoubtedly the principal portion of the Gospel

VIL] in their Practical Result. 169
miracles were, besides being proofs of doctrine, also
acts of mercy, sympathy, and beneficence ; and at
tention has been properly directed to the phUan-
tliropical character of them — that they were not
mere acts of power but acts of love. Indeed, the
philanthropical purpose was the primary and prin
cipal purpose of each of these miracles as a single
act, and -with reference to the occasion on which
it was "wrought : while the evidential object belongs
to them only as a body and a whole. The evidential
object of miracles, indeed, was naturaUy achieved
by the medium X)f the phUanthropical object ; the
general purpose was fuMUed by the very same acts
which also served the special, particidar, and occa
sional purposes. The one object adapted itself to
the times and opportunities of the other, foUowed,
waited upon, and linked itself on to them ; the proof
of a dispensation was communicated in the form of
nuracles for the temporary rehef and benefit of in
dividuals. The evidential object of miracles was not
executed in a forced and unnatural way, by set feats
of thaumaturgy, and exhibitions of miraculous power
as such, chaUenging the astonishment of beholders :
it was accomplished in correspondence with the whole
scale of the Divine character ; the acts of power were
performed for those purposes wliich love pointed out,
were elicited naturally by the several occasions, and
fitted on to the course of events, the incidents of the
hour, and the cases of infirmity which came in the
way. StUl, however naturaUy and in whatever con
nexion Avith other objects the eAadential function of

170 Miracles regarded [Lect.
miracles was introduced, that function was not the
less the principal object of mircles ; that on which
they depended for any advantage ensuing from them
extending beyond the original and local occasions
themselves which elicited them, any permanent ad
vantage to the world at large, any result affecting
the interests of mankind. Will it be said that these
philanthropical miraculous acts were a revelation of
the character of God to man as a God of mercy and
love 1 They could not be that, however, except by
the medium of the evidential function. For they
could only be a revelation in act of the Divine cha
racter, on the supposition that the Person who
"wrought them was " God manifested in the flesh " —
a result for which the doctrine of the Incarnation,
to prove which this evidential function is necessary,
is assumed.That the Gospel miracles, then, founded a system
of doctrine which was lasting, and did not pass
away like a creature of the day, is justly noticed
by Avriters on evidence as an important note in
favour of them ; but what I remark now is not
the permanent doctrine which was the effect of the
miracles, but the great permanent change which was
the effect of the doctrine ; that this doctrine did not
leave mankind as it found them, but was a fresh
starting-point — (cKpop/iT^) — of moral practice, whence
we date, not certainly the complete regeneration of
the world, but such an alteration in it as diAddes
the world after the Christian era from the world
before it.

VIL] in their Practical Result. 171
The Epistle to the Romans is in substance a
declaration of this power and effect of Christian doc
trine, a prophecy, if we may caU it so, of the actual
result which has foUowed it. This Epistle is dis
tinguished as the great doctrinal Epistle, and truly ;
but this is not an adequate description of it, be
cause the writer sets forth there Christian doctrine,
. not in itself as truth merely, but as that great
new motive to action which was the prominent
and conspicuous want and need of mankind. The
Epistle to the Bomans is one long assertion of
this power of doctrine as a motive to action. First
comes the statement that the world up to that
moment had been, moraUy speaking, a faUure, and
had utterly disappointed the design for which it
was made ; not because man was Avithout the know
ledge of his duty, but because, the knowledge ex
isting, there was between knowledge and action a
total chasm, which nothing yet had been able to
fUl up. The Apostle looks upon that as yet un-
bridged gulf, this incredible inability of man to do
what was right, Avith profound wonder ; yet such
was the fact. The sublime moral maxims of Oriental
nations strike us now ; it is impossible to deny
the light, the height of pure knowledge which they
shew ; but can the transcendent code of duty get
itself acted on ? Is it looked upon even in that
point of view 1 Has it even a practical intention
that deserves to be caUed so 1 No ; it is a beau
tiful erection of moral sentiment, but there it ends.
Man possesses a moral nature, and, if he has in-

172 Miracles regarded [Lect.
teUect enough, he can put his moral ideas into
words, just as he can put metaphysical ideas ; nor
is his doing so any test of his moral condition.
Take any careless person of corrupt habits out of
the tliick of his ordinary life, and ask him to
state in words what is Ms moral creed ? Has
he any doubt about it ? None : he immediately
puts down a list of the most sublime moral truths
and principles. But as regards their being a law
to himself, he feels that he has no more to do with
them than with anything else which is impossible.
Between them and action there exists in his eyes
an mipassable interval ; and so far as relates to
himself, as soon as ever these truths are formaUy
and properly enunciated, their whole design and
purpose is fuffiUed.
Such was the contrast which met St. Paul in
the condition of the whole world Jew and Gentile
— knowledge Avithout action. What was there to
£U up this void, and effect a junction between
these two 1 Now when a man feels something to
be whoUy out of his reach, and that he has no
thing to do Avith it, because he cannot do it ;
the first notion of a remedy for this sense of utter
impotence is an appeal to his wiU — Beheve that
you can do it, and you can do it. But how can
a man believe simply because he is told to do
so 1 Beheve upon no foundation "? On the other
hand, if you can teU him anything new about
himseLf, any actual fresh source of strength from
Avhich he has not drawn but now may diaAv, this

VII.] in their Practical Residt. 173
is a ground for a ncAV belief about himself and
what he can do. And this ground for a new be
lief about himself is what St. Paul proceeds to
lay before impotent and despairing man, whose
cry was, " To avUI is present with me, but how
to perform that which is good I find not. For
the good which I would I do not, but the caoI
which I would not that I do. Who shall dehver
me from the body of tliis death V Nothing but
some wholly new agency, some effective and power
ful motive not yet knoAvn to the world, could set
this nature in action ; but that motive St. Paul
could supply.
The force, then, which Christianity applied to
human nature, according to St. Paul, and by which
it was to produce this change in the moral state
of man, was a new doctrine. This new impulse
and inspiration to goodness, able to hft him above
the power of sin, the love of the world, and the
lusts of the flesh, was contained in the great
truth of the Incarnation and Death of the Son
of God. God was by this transcendent act of
mediation reconcUed to man, pardoned him, and
sent him forth anew on his course, Avith the gift
of the Holy Spirit in his heart. This new foun
dation, then, upon which human hfe is raised is
an actual event which has taken place in the in-
Adsible world, but inasmuch as God communicates
the advantage of that event to man by the me
dium of man's own knowledge of and belief in
it, this event necessarUy becomes a doctrine ; and

174 Miracles regarded [Lect.
that doctrine is the new impulse to human nature.
" The righteousness of God is manifested unto all
and upon all them that believe." The knowledge
of and faith in the new sujiematural relation in
which he stands to God, is henceforth the moral
strength of man, that which enables him to obey
the Divine law. That new relation does not pro
duce its effect without his OAvn convictions, but
knoAving it and beheving it, he experiences a move
ment from it so forcible, so elevating, and so kind
ling, that he is raised above himself by it. " Sin
has not dominion over him." " The law of the
Spirit of life hath made him free from the law
of sin and death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God send
ing His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : that the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us."
" He that raised up Christ from the dead shaU
quicken our mortal bodies, by His Spirit that
dweUeth in us." "He that spared not His own
Son, but dehvered Him up for us aU, how shall
He not with Him also freely give us all things^'?"
He appeals to men's behef in the great facts and
doctrines of the Gospel, as that which is hence
forth to constitute the motive power to urge them
to and fix them in moral practice. The prefaces,
"How shaU we," "Know ye not," "Reckon your
selves," "Ye are debtors to," "Ye are servants to,"
^ Rom. viii. 2, 3, 11, 32.

VIL] in their Practical Result. 175
express the sense of an impossibility of acting
against such a belief if it is genuine.
If we examine the mode in which the doctrine
of the Incamation and Death of the Son of God is
adapted to act upon moral conduct, first comes the
influence and the motive contained in the character
of the Divine Being, of which this is a new and
striking revelation. The Atonement stamps upon
the mind with a power, with which no other fact
could, the righteousness of God. To trffie Avith a
Being who has demanded this Sacrffice is madness ;
and hence arises awe : but from the acceptance of
the Atonement arises the love of God. A strict
master is a stimulus to service if he is just ; servants
wish to please him : his pardon, again, is the greater
stimulus, on account of Ms very strictness, because
it is the greater prize. Thus the behef in the Atone
ment becomes that inspiring motive to action wffich
St. Paul represents it as bemg. Man appears in his
Epistles as a pardoned being, — pardoned by that
very God of whom he thus stands in awe, — and as a
pardoned being a rejoicing being ; rejoicmg, not be
cause he has nothing to do, but because having much
to do, he feels himself possessed of a high spirit,
and strength enough to do it. The sense of pardon
is the inspiriting thing. " For if when we were
enemies we were reconcUed to God by the death
of His Son, much more being reconcUed we shall
be saved by His life^" From that event man
^ Rom. V. lo.

176 Miracles regarded [Lect.
dates his adoption, his glorious hberty, the law of
the Spirit of hfe, the Avitness of that Spirit in
his own heart, the expectation of that glory which
shaU be revealed in him, and the gift of eternal
life. We thus observe it as a remarkable characteristic
of Scripture, and speciaUy of St. Pard's language,
that it takes what may be caUed the high view of
human nature ; i. e. of what human nature is capable
of when the proper motive and impulse is applied to
it In this sense St. Paul, if I may use the expres
sion, believes in human nature ; he thuiks it capable
of rising to great heights even in this life, he sees
that in man which reaUy can triumph over the world,
the flesh, and the devU ; which can struggle, and
wliich can conquer in the struggle. His is what
may be caUed the enthusiastic Adew of human nature,
though tempered by the Avisdom of inspiration. He
sees m Christian doctrine that strong force which
is to break down the vis inertioB of man, to kindle
into hfe the dormant elements of goodness in him,
to set human nature going, and to touch the spring
of man's heart. Hence it is that the writer is borne
along at times breathless AAdth vehemence and Avith
rapture, as the visions of hope rise up before him,
and man is seen in the prospect over all the face
of the earth, ascending in mind to heaven. Hence
it is that the flood of thought becoming too rapid
for the medium which conveys it, struggles Avith and
interrupts itself Though at the same time he is
equally arrested by the mystery of limitation which

VIL] in their Practiv<d Re.inlt. 177
adheres to Divine grace, and sees the true Church
of God as separate from the world.
How marked the contrast, when from this high
estimate of, this ardent faith in, the capabilities of
human nature which a doctrinal foundation imparts,
we turn to the idea of man presented to us in a
religion of pure Deism. The religion of Mahomet is
not a doctrinal rehgion ; it is Avithout an Incarna
tion, without an Atonement ; no sacrifice for sin
reveals the awful justice of God, no pardon upon
a sacrffice His awful mercy ; in the high court of
heaven the Deity sits enthroned in the majesty of
ommpotence and omniscience, but Avithout the great
sjrmbol of His Infinite Righteousness by His side —
the Lamb that was slain. And now observe the
effect of this doctrinal void upon the idea of God
and the idea of man in that rehgion. If one had
to express m a short compass the character of its
remarkable founder as a teacher, it would be that
that great man had no faith m human nature.
There were two things wMch he thought man could
do and woiUd do for the glory of God — transact
religious forms, and fight ; and upon those two points
he was severe ; but Avithin the sphere of common
practical life, where man's great trial lies, his code
exhibits the disdamful laxity of a legislator, who
accommodates his rule to the recipient, and shews
his estimate of the recipient by the accommodation
Avhich he adopts. Did we search history for a con
trast, we could hardly discover a deeper one than that
between St. Paul's overfloAvmg standard of the capa-
N

178 Miracles regarded [Lect.
bffities of human nature and the oracular cymcism of
the great false Prophet. The Avriter of the Koran does
indeed, if any discemer of hearts ever did, take the
measure of mankind ; and his measure is the same
that Satire has taken, only expressed with the ma
jestic brevity of one who had once lived in the realm
of Silence. " Man is weak," says Mahomet And
upon that maxim he legislates. " God is mmded to
make his rehgion light unto you, for man was
created weak " — " God would make his rehgion an
ease unto you" — a suitable foundation of the code
which foUowed, and fit parent of that numerous
oftsprmg of accommodations, neutralizing quahfica-
tions, and thinly-disguised loopholes to the fraud
and rapacity of the Oriental, wMch appear in the
Koran, and shew, where they do appear, the author's
deep acquaintance with the besetting sins of Ms de
voted foUowers. The keenness of Mahomet's insight
into human nature, a Avide knowledge of its temp
tations, persuasives, influences under which it acts,
a vast immense capacity of forbearance for it, half
grave half genial, half sympathy half scorn, issue
in a somewhat Horatian model, the character of
the man of experience who despairs of any change
in man, and lays doAvn the maxim that we must take
him as we find him. It was indeed his supremacy
in both faculties, the largeness of the passive nature,
and the splendour of action, that constituted the secret
of ffis success. The breadth and flexibUity of mind
that could negotiate with every motive of interest,
passion, and pride in man is surprising ; there is bound-

VIL] in their Practical Result. 179
less sagacity ; what is wanting is hope, a belief in the
capabilities of human nature. There is no upward
flight in the teacher's idea of man. Instead of which,
the notion of the power of earth, and the impossibility
of resisting it, depresses his whole aim, and the
shadow of the tomb falls upon the work of the great
false Prophet (Note i.)
The idea of God is akin to the idea of man. " He
knows us," says Mahomet. God's knowledge, the vast
experience, so to speak, of the DiAdne Being, His
infinite acquamtance Avith man's fraUties and tempta
tions, is appealed to as the ground of confidence. " He
is the Wise, the KnoAving One," " He is the KnoAving,
the Wise," " He is easy to be reconciled." Thus is
raised a notion of the Supreme Being wHch is rather
an extension of the character of the large-minded and
sagacious man of the world, than an extension of
man's virtue and holiness. He forgives because He
knows too much to be rigid, because sm umversal
ceases to be sin, and must be given way to. Take
a man who has had large opportunity of studymg
mankind, and has come into contact Avith every form
of human weakness and corruption ; such a man is
indulgent as a simple consequence of his knowledge,
because uothmg surprises him. So the God of
Mahomet forgives by reason of His vast knowledge.
The absence of the doctrine of the Atonement makes
itself felt in the character of that Bemg who forgives
without a Sacrffice for sm ; shewing that without
that doctrme there cannot even be high Deism.
So knit together is the whole fabric of truth ; with-
N 2

180 Miracles regarded [Lect.
out a sacrifice, a pardoning God becomes an easy
God : and an easy God makes a low human nature.
No longer awful in His justice, the Wise, " the
KnoAving One," degrades His OAvn act of forgiveness
by converting it mto connivance ; and man takes full
advantage of so tolerant and convenient a master.
" Man is weak," and " God knows hini," — these two
maxims taken together constitute an ample charter
of freedom for human conduct. " God knows us,"
says man ; He knows that we are not adapted to
a very rigid rule. He does not look upon us in that
light. He does not expect any great things from us ;
not an inflexible justice, not a searching self-denial,
not a punctihous love of our neighbour ; He is con
siderate. He is wise. He knows what we can do, and
what we cannot do ; He does not condemn us. He
makes allowance for us, " He knows us." So true is
the saymg of Pascal that "without the knowledge
of Jesus CMist we see nothmg but confusion in the
nature of God and m our oAvn nature c."
The force wMch Christianity has applied to the
world, and by which it has produced that change in
the world wMch it has, is, m a word, the doctrine of
grace. There has been a new power actually work-
mg in the system, and that power has worked by
other means besides doctrine ; but stUl it is the law
of God's deahngs Avith us to apply His power to us
by means of our faith and behef m that power ; i. e.
by doctrme. Faith in Ms OAvn position, the belief
<^ Pensees, vol. ii. p. 317.

VIL] in their Practical Result. 181
at the bottom of every Christian's heart that he
stands in a different relation to God from a heathen,
and has a supernatural source of strength — this it is
which has made him act, has been the rousing and
elevating motive to the Christian body, and raised
its moral practice.
If we go into particulars, the force of the great
Example of the Incarnation, which we include in
the effect of the doctrine of the Incarnation, has
founded the great order of Christian, as distmguished
from heathen virtues. It is evident what power the
great act of forgiveness in the Atonement has had
in stamping the great law of forgiveness upon human
hearts ; what power the Incarnation, as a great act
of humffiation, has had in creating another estimate
of human rank and glory ; what effect again the
same great doctrine has had m producmg that in
terest in the poor and whole difference of relations
to them which has characterized Christian society.
For whence has that idea of the poor and their
claims come, but from the idea of man's brother
hood to man wMch the Incamation has founded,
and the recommendation of a low estate contained
in the Humffiation of the Incarnation. There has
been deep m men's mmds the notion that they
were unitmg themselves to that Act, and attachmg to
themselves the benefit of it, by copymg it ; by trans-
ferrmg it to Christian life, and reproducmg it, so to
speak, in an act of their OAvn,— the descent from their
OAvn position to that of a lower feUow-creature. The
doctrine of the Holy Spirit, again, has enlightened

182 Miracles regarded [Lect.
man Avith respect to his body, and the respect due
to it as the temple of that Divine Spirit ; and has
thus produced that different estimate of sms of the
body which so distmgmshes the Christian from the
heathen world. The doctrine of a future hfe, as
attested by the miracle of the Resurrection, was
practically a new doctrine in the world : it has m-
spired a belief and a conAdction of a world to come,
altogether distmct from any notion entertamed by
the heathen ; and it has acted as the most powerful
motive to moral practice.
It must be observed that the great pubhc .causes,
wMch have produced the moral movements of com
munities and of society in the modem world, have
leaned upon doctrine ; and rehed upon that power
for the propagatmg energy necessary for them.
Hence has arisen the moculation of hearts, the ex
citement of genmne mterest. The cause of the
poorer classes, as just stated, has had a doc
trinal foundation. The cause of the slave has had
the same. The doctrine of the Incarnation has
through the idea of man's brotherhood to man,
also founded the rights of man. Christiamty tole
rated slavery m the days of the Apostles, and it
does so now because it tolerates aU conditions of hfe
wMch admit of Christian devotion and practice bemg
conducted in them. But Christianity has always
opposed this abuse : the Church was the great manu-
mitter and improver of the condition of the serf in
the middle ages ; and m the present age rehgious
feeling has been at the bottom of the great move-

VIL] in their Practical Residt. 183
ment against slavery. For was that being to be
bought and sold whose nature Christ assumed, and
for whom Christ died 1 Thus the public effort wMch
ended in reheving this country from the stigma of
the capture and ownership of slaves, received its
impulse from doctrme, and the great leader of it was
himself the leader of a doctrinal revival. Pubhc
education has been partly a movement of charity and
benevolence to man, and partly a movement for the
advance of science. As a movement of charity to
impart knowledge to and elevate the mmds of the
poor, it has been mdebted prmcipaUy and primarily
to a religious motive ; for George III caught the
animus of society and represented it correctly m his
well-known prophecy of the day " when every man
in England would be able to read Ms Bible." And
whence has the relief of sickness obtamed its digmty
and loftmess as a duty under Christiamty 1 Whence
but from the same great doctrine which makes man
kind one body, as members of " Him who fiUeth all
in all 1" Hence every individual member partakes of
the dignity of the whole ; and the act of ministering
to him becomes a noble service, paid to the whole
body, and to its Head. " I was sick and ye Adsited
Me, I was m prison and ye came unto Me." The
idea of the dignity of man as such, the equality of
man with man in the sight of God, the nobihty of
mmistry and service to him, for the rehef of Ms wants
and diseases, did not exist in the world before the
Gospel ; the heathens had no A^alue for man as such,
but only for man under certain flattering circum-

184 Miracles regarded [Lect.
stances, as developed by knowledge, or greatness. -
Reduced to his own nature, he was nothmg in their
eyes : the slave was another being from Ms master.
The light of truth first broke through this blindness
and stupor in the doctrine of the Incarnation, and
that doctrine is the historical date of the modern -
idea of man. To say that the mspiration of the
missionary cause has been the behef in Christian
doctrme is almost superfluous ; because we can
hardly in imagmation conceive missionary enter
prise without it. Zeal m this cause is essentially
the chUd of faith ; and without the conviction m the
Church of a supernatural truth to commumcate, and
a supernatural dispensation to spread, Christiamty
must give up the very pretension of propagatmg
itself in the world. The great pubhc causes which
are part of modem history and distmguish modern
society from ancient, thus Avitness to the power of
doctrine ; but public causes are but one channel in
which CMistian action has flowed ; they do but
exMbit in aggregate forms that Christian disposition
and practice wMch goes on prmcipaUy m private.
Christiamty simply regarded as a code of morals
wiU not account for this moral change in the world ;
for men do not do right thmgs because they are told
to do them. Mere moral instruction does not effect its
purpose unless it is seconded by some powerful force
and motive besides the lesson itself. Nor is this
change m the world accounted for by the natural
law of example, by saying that a body of men of
high moral character and aims, under a remarkable

VIL] in their Practical Result. 185
leader, set up a high model, which model spread
originaUy and transmitted itself age after age by its
OAvn power and influence as a model and pattern.
The force of example has a. natural tendency to wear
out. We see this in institutions and in states.
Particular societies have in different ages been set
going by earnest men, who mfused at first their own
spirit and put men of their own type into them ; but
the force of example became gradually weaker in
the process of transmission ; at every stage of the
succession somethmg of it was lost, tiU at last the
body wholly degenerated. So a great example set
by founders and their associates has imparted a
mould and character to pohtical communities, which
has lasted some time ; but this moiUd has altered
as the original influence by little and little died
away ; and the state has become corrupt. Thus the
pattern of pubhc spirit and devotion to the public
good which was origmaUy stamped upon Sparta,
Rome, and Venice, graduaUy lost its hold, and those
states degenerated. The force of example, then, is
not self-sustainmg ; and therefore when a moral
change in society is made for a perpetuity, and is
a permanent characteristic, lasting through and sur-
viAdng aU other changes or transitions, this effect
must be OAving to some other principle than that
of example, some permanent force from another root,
by which example itself is kept up. I may add
that the source of Christian practice m Christian
truth does not agree with any settled principle
of decay in Christian practice, and Avith extreme-

186 Miracles regarded [Lect.
statemente of the inferiority of modem CMistians
to ancient. For though doubtless, Avith the same
truth to move the human heart, its energies may be
brought out m one age more than in another, stiU
the idea of a regular tendency of Christian practice
to degenerate Avith time, combmes Avith the explana
tion of example as its cause, rather than Avith the
operation of a constant cause in revealed truth.
What I remark, then, is that the prophecy in the
Epistle to the Romans has been fuffilled, and that
doctrine has been historicaUy at the bottom of a
great change of moral practice in mankind. By a
prophecy I mean that St. Paid assigns a certain
property and effect to doctrine, viz. that of eliciting
the good element in man, setting man's moral nature
m action ; and that tMs property has been realized.
The world, he says, has been hitherto a failure,
everytMng has gone Avrong, because man has not
been able to act ; he could not do the thing that
he would ; he has laboured under an msurmountable
weakness, and defect of some motive power adequate
to tell upon him. But this is what is to change
man ; this is what is to touch the seat of action
in Ms heart, the truth which is now revealed from
heaven — the doctrine of the Incarnation and Death
of CMist This doctrine wUl rouse and awaken
human nature, and give it what it now wante — ^the
great practical impulse. TMs account, I say, of the
power of doctrme in St. Paul has been fulfilled by
the fact. The history of man comcides with tMs
assertion of St Paul's of the property of doctrine.

V^Il.J in their Practical ResuU. 187
Not that the lesult has been by any means a com
plete one, or that St. Paul expected it to be ; far
otherwise. His doctrine of election shews that ; that
doctrine evidently represents the body of really good
and holy men in the world, the spiritual Church, as
always insulated in the world, always a smaU number
in comparison with the great mass of mankind ; and
a dark shadow rests upon one portion of the field of
prophecy, contrastmg remarkably with the light and
glory of the other. But the issue of the Gospel,
though not a complete result, has still been a great
result ; such a result as divides the world after
the Christian era morally from the world before
it. A stimulus has been given to human nature,
which has extracted an amount of action from
it wMch no Greek or Roman could have believed
possible, but which, had it been placed m idea be
fore him, he would have set aside as the dream
of an enthusiast.
Undoubtedly the doctrines of false religions have
extracted remarkable action out of human nature ;
especiaUy the doctrines of Oriental religions. The
Hindoo doctrme of Absorption, e.g. has produced
a great deal of extraordinary action. But what sort
of action is it 1 Is it action upon the scale of our
whole moral nature, worthy of that nature, or the
fulfilment of the law as the Scripture caUs it 1 No,-
it is such wUd, eccentric, one-sided energy of the
erratic wUl as is more allied to pMenzy than morals.
The fruits of the doctrine of Absorption are gigantic
feats of self-torture and self-stupefaetion, ending in

188 Miracles regarded, [Lect.
themselves, and unconnected Avith charity to man :
a frmt Avorthy of its source. For the doctrine of
Absorption is itself a falsehood : no man can wish
for the loss of his own personality, ie. his own
anmhilation : no man ever did wish for it, whatever
length of torture he may have undergone to obtam
it. The conception is a counterfeit ; it wants truth,
and " the tree is knoAvn by its frmts." Do men
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of tMstles ? So
neither can moral practice issue out of the doctrine
of Absorption ; but a fiction produces the wUd and
poor frmt of extravagance. (Note 2.)
In attributing this effect to Christian doctrme, we
must at the same time remember that the old Law
foreshadowed that doctrme. The religion of the
Jew was not Deism. In the first place it was
founded on miracles, and on that Mgher revelation
of the personality of the Deity which miracles are.
In the next place it was accompanied by the m-
stitution of sacrffice, which was a pecuhar revelation
of the righteous character of God, as a rite ; and
an intimation of the real Atonement as a type.
From these sources was derived the deep doctrine
of repentance and forgiveness, wMch penetrates the
Psalms and Prophecy ; the sense of the necessity
of an act of pardon on God's part, in order to aUay
the trouble m man's heart, and reinstate him in
peace of mmd ; the intimate commumon Avith God
upon this sense of the necessity of His favour and
acceptance ; the language of tender complamt and
remonsfrance with Him founded upon what we may

VIL] in their Practical Result. 189
call the devotional fiction of His hardness and in-
flexibUity — the affectionate irony of prayer. In this
whole relation to God lay the motive power of the
old Law, the stimulus to goodness in it ; to the
force of which the Jew was indebted for raising him
above the pagan m morals ; and which actuaUy
issued in producing a body or class of holy men in
every generation of the people. Whereas paganism
had high individual examples, but not a class. But
this relation under the old Law was an anticipation of
Christian hght. The Law as such could not "give
hfe," nor " could righteousness come by the LaAV," as a
law ; but so far as the old Law contamed the germ
of Gospel truth, so far it gave hfe ; so far it supphed
an effective motive to rouse the heart of man to
exertion. (Note 3.)
The relation of religion to morals has indeed been
exemplffied most conspicuously under Christianity.
Morality may m the abstract exist without rehgion,
and is not identical -with it ; but religion has been
the practical producer of it ; the practical motive
to morals in the world. Our moral nature is not
its OAvn moAdng principle ; it is so at least very
inadequately ; and so we find that in pomt of fact
doctrine has been the impulse which has set it in
action. It is not in human nature to set about its
work whoUy in the dark ; it wants a vision of
the mvisible world, a revelation of God and of
its OAvn prospects and destmy, to set it to work.
The revelation of God m Jesus Christ, and of hfe
: eternal in the same Jesus Christ, is this vision or

190 Miracles regarded [Lect.
supernatural truth which has produced action. The
strong need of the sense of favour with God, which
the Gospel manifestation of Him has created ; the
overpowering disclosure of man's destmy, that he was
made for a state of endless glory and happiness, has
forced men, in spite of themselves, to do good acts.
And therefore doctrme has been a part of human
progress, a fresh groundwork, a Mgher level gamed ;
analogous m morals to ciAdlization m social and
political life. And to give up doctrine would be
a retrograde movement for the human race, the
surrender of ground made, a relapse from a later
to an earher stage of humamty ; the abandonment
of a superior motive power which commands the
spring of action in the human heart, for an inferior
one which did not touch it.
But stffi it Avill be asked — Would not aU this
result of Christiamty have been just the same
Avithout the peculiar doctrines 1 are not these
merely the accidental appendages of a spirit wMch
rose up m man, wMch has been the energizmg
power tMoughoutl But though it is always open
to men, when great resulte have taken place m
connexion Avith certam apparent causes, to say that
they would have taken place aU the same without
those causes, this cannot m the nature of the case
be more than a conjecture. We have an obvious
and matter-of-fact comcidence of a higher state of
mankmd Avith doctrme ; which comcidence is of
itself a strong argument. And we have, moreover,
man's OAvn Avitness to doctrine, as being the cause

V^IL] in their Practical Result. 191
which has produced this effect. If we are to take
men's own account of their own action, and their
OAvn power of action, this has been the impulse to
them : the call which has awakened them to moral
hfe has been a doctrinal one ; what has enabled
them to maintain this action has been the support
of certam truths, m the absence of which they
would not have been able to do what they ffid.
In tMs state of the case, to say that aU this change
would have gone on without doctrme, is unsatis
factory, and suppositional only. Let us conceive for
a moment Christian doctrine obliterated, and man
kind starting afresh Avithout it, with only the belief
in a Benevolent Deity, and a high moral code. With
the fact before us of what has been the workmg
power of doctrine upon man's heart, and what has
been the weakness of our moral nature without
doctrine, could we commit mankind to a moral
Deism without tremblmg for the result ? Could
we deprive human nature of this powerful aid and
inspiring motive, and expect it to act as if it had
it ¦? Could we look forward Avithout dismay to the
loss of this practical force which has been acting
upon human nature for eighteen centuries 1 Would
any one in Ms heart expect that Christianity de
prived of its revealed truths would retam its old
strength, would produce equal fruits, the same
self-sacrfficmg spirit, zeal, warmth, earnestness "? that
it would give the same power of liAong above the
world 1 that its effects on the heart, its spiritualizing
iiffiuence, would be the same Avithout its doctrmes 1

192 Miracles regarded [Lect.
No ! When men speculate they want to get rid
of doctrine ; but when they want practical results
to be produced, then they fall back upon doctrine,
as that alone wMch can produce them, which can
awaken man from his lethargy, and supply a con
straining motive to him. I do not mean to say that
many have not taken an active part in the great
objects and movements of Christian society who
have not accepted Christian doctrme ; but such
men have acted upon an idea obtained from re
velation, although they have ceased to believe the
revelation from wMch it came. Example is not
the fuU account of the origin of Christian practice,
but stffi that practice existmg, its example tells,
and moculates many who reject the creed. A
moral standard is imbibed with the atmosphere of
hfe. Such men are the production of Christian
doctrine, however they may disclaim it : — so far at
least as concerns this practical zeal.
What is offered as a substitute for the doctrme
of the Incarnation, to set man's moral nature in
action, is the enthusiastic philosophical sentiment
of the divimty of human nature. But though I
would not say that tMs, hke other ideas which
have an element of truth in them, has not given
a high impulse to some minds ; that it has been
a forcible engine for impeUmg mankind to the prac
tice of duty would be plamly overratmg its results.
And there is a reason for its weakness and want
of power, viz. that the idea does not stand the test
of observation. For let us suppose a sagacious man

^11. J in their Practical Result. 193
of great experience and knowledge of the "^orld,
vvho had had opjiortunity of observing human nature
upon a large scale^its expressions and its disguises,
the corruption of men's motives, and aU those weU-
known traits and characteristics of mankmd wMch
acute men have embodied in various saymgs — ^let us
suppose such a person havmg laid before Mm for his
acceptance the above idea of the divinity of human
nature. He woiUd treat it Avith derision and ridi
cule ; representing that though men of the pro-
foundest sagacity have in aU ages behoved m
mysteries, it is another thmg to ask them to believe
that facts themselves are different from what they
are seen to be. But let us suppose again, the same
penetratmg observer not whoUy satisfied Avith the
low estimate of man as the fuU account of Mm, but
catching also obscure signs of a different element
in the being, working its way under great disad
vantages, and not to be left out of the calculation,
though he cannot teU what it may turn out to be,
and what it may shadow and prognosticate m
the destiny of tMs creature. Were then, at this
stage, the idea of a design that this creature
should be partaker of the Divine nature to be
offered to Mm, whatever astomshment the thought
might excite, conscious that he had no solution of
his OAvn of the emgma before him, he would not
wholly reject it ; but one condition he woxdd think
indispensable — he would not hsten to the notion
of this creature's exaltation except tMough the
passage of some deep confession first, by which
o

194 Miracles regarded [Lect.
he woidd condemn himself utterly, and in con
demning cast off his old vileness. Without this
tribute, this sacrifice to truth, such an idea wotdd
appear a mockery.
Such a distinction as this divides one doctrine
of exalted humanity from another. A deffication
of humanity upon its own grounds, an exaltation
which is aU height and no depth, wants power
because it wants truth. It is not founded upon
the facts of human nature, and therefore issues m
vam and vapid aspiration, and injures the sohdity
of man's character. That serious doctrine of man's
greatness, wMch lays hold on man's moral nature,
and brmgs it out, is one which lays its foundation
first m Ms guUt and misery ; his exaltation is
remedial, a restoration from a faU. Thus the school
of experience accepts man's Aoleness m the Gospel
portrait, the sangume school his loftmess ; the one
depresses man, the other inflates him ; the Gospel
doctrme of the Incamation and its effects alone umtes
the sagacious Adew of human nature with the en
thusiastic. It is the offiy doctrine of man's exalta
tion wMch the observer of mankmd can accept ;
whUe also it is only as a mystery transacted m
the Mghest heaven that man's exaltation has ever
been cared for by himself, ever commanded Ms
serious energies. (Note 4.)
But if, as the source and mspiration of practice,
doctrme has been the foundation of a new state
of the world, and of that change wMch distin
guishes the world under CMistianity from the world

VIL] in their Practical Result. 195
before it ; miracles, as the proof of that doctrine,
stand before us in a very remarkable and peculiar
hght. Far from bemg mere idle feats of power to
gratify the love of the marveUous ; far even from
bemg mere particular and occasional rescues from
the operation of general laws ; they come before us
as means for accomphshing the largest and most
important practical object that has ever been ac-
comphshed in the history of mankmd. They he
at the bottom of the difference of the modern from
the ancient world; so far, ie. as that difference is
moral. We see as a fact a change m the moral
condition of mankind, wMch marks ancient and
modem society as two different states of mankind.
What has produced tliis change, and elicited tMs
new power of action 1 Doctrme. And what was
the proof of that doctrine, or essential to the proof
of it ? Miracles. The greatness of the result thus
throws light upon the propriety of the means ; and
shews the fittmg object wMch was presented for
the mtroduction of such means ; the fittmg occasion
which had arisen for the use of them ; for mdeed
no more weighty, grand, or solemn occasion can be
conceived, than the foundation of such a new order
of thmgs in the world. Extraordmary action of
DiAone power for such an end has the benefit of
a justifying object of mcalculable weight ; which
though not of itself mdeed proof of the fact, comes
Avith striking force upon the mind m connexion Avith
the proper proof. It is reasonable, it is mevitable
that we should be impressed by such a result ; for
o 2

196 Miracles regarded [Lect.
it shews that the miraculous system has been a
practical one ; that it has been a step in the ladder
of man's ascent, the means of mtroducing those
powerful truths which have set Ms moral nature
m action.
Nor, must it be observed, can professed subsequent
miracles for the conversion of particular popiUations,
after the origmal miraculous proof and propagation
of the Gospel, avail themselves of the argument
which apphes to those original miracles themselves.
Because the argument for these miracles, which is
thus extracted from the great result of them, is
based upon the necessity of those miracles for tMs
result. But though the original miracles are neces
sary for the proof of doctrine, subsequent miracles
cannot plead the same necessity ; because when that
doctrine has been once attested, those original cre
dentials, transmitted by the natural channels of CAd-
dence, are the permanent and perpetual proof of that
doctrine, not wantmg reinforcements from additional
and posterior miracles ; wMch are therefore Avithout
the particular recommendation to our behef, of bemg
necessary for the great result before us. The Anglo-
Saxon nation was doubtless as important a nation
to convert as the Jewish or Greek ; but the miracles
of our Lord and His Apostles were necessary to con
vert the Jews and the Greeks ; St. Augustme's re
puted miracles were not necessary to convert the
Anglo-Saxons. First miracles in proof of a new
dispensation, and miracles in a subsequent age for
the spread of it, stand upon different grounds in tMs

VIL] in their Practical Residt. 197
respect ; the latter are without that particffiar note
of truth wMch consists in a necessary connexion
with great permanent ends. First credentials cannot
be dispensed with, second ones can be. It may be
said that second ones are useful for facffitatmg and
expeditmg conversion ; but we are no judges of the
Divine intentions Avith reference to the speed or
gradualness of the conversion of mankmd to the
Gospel ; wMch considerations therefore stand on a
different ground from the fundamental needs of a
dispensation. The saying of our Lord, " Blessed
are they that have not seen and yet have beheved,''
CAddently contemplates the future groAvth of the
Christian faith by means of testimony to, as distm
guished from the actual sight of, the miraculous
CAddences of the Gospel.
TMs view of miracles, as the mdispensable means
for producmg that great result wMch we have be
fore us, and that new moral era of the world under
which we are hAong, meets agam another objec
tion wMch is sometimes raised against the truth of
miracles. ' The general sense of society,' it is stated,
rejects the notion of miracles takmg place now-
a-days ; these extraordinary actions of Ommpotence
are convemently located m the past. But why this
sort of general consent th^t a supernatural event is
impossible now, if it was reaUy possible then f It is
evident that the imagmation is only less scandalized
by a miracle now than by a miracle then, because it
realizes present time, and does not realize past.
But if so, the modern acceptance of miracles is con-

198 Miracles regarded [Lect.
Adcted of bemg unreal : and therefore whatever specu
lative arguments may be urged for the possibihty of
such events, the matter-of-fact test of human edu
cated behef rejects them.' (Note 5.)
It is, then, to be admitted that the mmd of society
now is adverse to the notion of an hodiernal super
natural event. But I remark m the first place
that tMs position is taken Avith a reserve. For,
not to mention the undoubtmg behef in spe
cial Providences now, let a reported mstance of a
communication in later times between the world of
departed spirits and the Adsible world be discussed;
a fair representative of the estabhshed standard
of belief does not commit himself to any absolute
position agamst the possibffity of such an occurrence.
The relations between the seen and the unseen
worlds, the state of the dead, and what chaimels
are capable of being opened between unclothed
spirit and the mind wMch stiU tenants the frame
of the flesh — aU this lies so completely out of our
knowledge, that to dechne to lay doAvn the principle
of an impassable boundary between one portion of
the Divme dominion and another, is felt to be not
superstition, but caution.
Of the weight, importance, and signfficance of a
reserve, mdeed, different* estimates wffi be formed.
To some a reserved ground appears but a hght
appendage to a dommant decision, a formahty, a
piece of argumentative etiquette, not to be taken
mto account m the general calculation ; but to
others, a reserved ground is a weighty thmg : it

VIL] in their Practical Result. 199
represents some claun which is only weak in the
scale at present because it happens to be distant,
but wMch is strong in its own place, and which we
may have some day to meet m that place. An
argumentative reserve speaks to them with the
force of sUent prophecy ; it points to some truth
whose turn avUI come some day, perhaps when we
least expect it, and remmd us of our proviso. All
mmds that reqmre to be individually satisfied about
the matter of their belief, must hold some truth or
other under the form of a reserve. All truths do
not come equaUy beneath our focus ; but if m
tMs state of the case a mmd ignores whatever
hovers about the dim region of the circumference
and meets the Adsion unperfectly, it condemns itself
to that barrenness which results from seeing a very
httle clearly, and seeing nothmg else at aU. A
thoughtful mmd sees m these distant reserves of the
reason the skirts of great arguments, the borders of
large regions of truth ; and the shadowy and imperfect
vision supports the clear, enricMng it Avith additional
signfficance and important bearings. Thus in the
wider circuit of rehgious doctrine we may see
enough in one or other particular matter of behef
to tMnk that there may be more which we do not
see ; and a theological mmd wffi make allowance
for ite own defect of scope, admit such matter par
tially into ite system, and give the benefit of a
reserve to truths which he m the distance and m
the shadow.
When, then, it is said that society neutralizes its

200 Miracles regarded [Lect.
behef in past miracles by a practical disbelief m the
possibUity of present, Ave reply that society does
not reject the idea of the hodiernal supernatural,
but expresses its judgment on that subject Avith
a reserve. But we next observe, that if the mmd
of Christian society at the present day is adverse
to the notion of hodiernal miracles, and scrutinizes
Avith great rigour aU pretensions of that kmd,
there is a sound and sufficient reason which may
be assigned for tMs fact ; viz. that the great end
for wMch miracles were designed is now accom
plished ; and that we are now hvmg under that
later proAddential era, and amidst those results, to
wMch miracles were the first step and introduction.
If we do not expect miracles now, there is a
natural reason for it, viz. that the great purpose
of them is past. Of our different attitude to past and
present time upon this point, one account is, that
our behef m the miraculous does not stand the
touchstone of the actual present ; but there is an
other explanation of it wMch is just as obvious, and
wMch a behever can give, viz. that any set of means
whatever unavoidably becomes retrospective and a
tMng of the past when the end is achieved. So
far as miraculous agency is regarded as a past
agency by us, there is a reason to give for this
view of it, arising from the facts of the case. We
are liAdng amid mighty and deep influences, wMch
were origmaUy set gomg by that agency ; but which
having been set gomg, no longer want it ; and at
such a stage it is natural to us to look upon the

VIL] in their Practical ResuU. 201
irregular and extraordmary expedients employed m
laymg the foundation as superseded ; just as we
remove the scaffoldmg when the edifice is raised,
and take away the support of the arch when the
keystone has been inserted.
The preparatory and introductory period to a final
dispensation is a natural period of miracles ; whUe
the period subsequent to that final gift is not. In
the antecedent state there was a great want felt, a
void which the existing dispensation did not satisfy ;
and the religious thought of the day was cast for
ward into a mysterious future, not as CMdstian
thought is now, but toward a final communication
from God to man here below. The ancient Jew saw
in Ms own dispensation an imperfect structure, the
head of which was still wantmg — the Messiah : aU
pointed to Him ; its ceremonial was typical ; and
the whole system was an adumbration of a great
approacMng Divine kingdom, and a great croAvnmg
Divine act. The very heart of the nation was thus
the seat of a great standmg prophecy ; aU was
anticipation and expectation ; prophets kept ahve
the sacred longmg ; miracles confirmed the pro
phetical office ; and the miraculous outbreak of
Divine power in the great consummation itself
closed the prospect. But tMs whole expectant
attitude is in our case reversed. Ours is not a
state of expectancy, and a day of forecastings and
foreshadowmgs : we feel no void, throwmg us on
the future. On the contrary, we repose in Christian
doctrme as the final stay of the human soul, and

202 Miracles regarded in their Practical Result.
we are conscious that in tMs doctrme is contained
aU that can develop man ; we know that it has
developed man, and that Christianity has made a
moral change m the state of the world. With us,
then, miracles are passed so far as they are con
nected Avith the prmcipal object with which miracles
are concerned — revelation. It would be whoUy un
natural, it would be contrary to the very account
which we give of our own position, for us at this
day to simulate the expectant state of the old Law,
and throw ourselves back into the prospective stage.
TMs would be domg Adolence to our whole know
ledge and sense of reality. Though we cannot
restrict the scope of miracles to one object, stUl, to
cease to expect them when their cMef end is gained,
is offiy to do justice to the greatness of that end,
to appreciate the truth and power of the Christian
dispensation, and to observe what Christian doctrine
has done for man.

LECTUEE YIII.
FALSE MIRACLES.
Matt. vii. 22.
Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in Thy name ? and in Thy name Jiave cast out
devils ? and in Thy name done many wonderful works ?
A LARGE class of miraculous pretensions is not
confined to one religion, or even to religion altogether,
but belongs to human nature. Does man desire a
miracle as a proof that a revelation is true \ That
is a legitimate want. Does he desire one merely
to gratify his curiosity and love of the marvellous,
for excitement and not for use ? That is a morbid
want. For though the innate love of the super
natural in man's heart is legitimately gratffied by
a miracle, man has no right to ask for miracles m
order to gratify this affection, any more than he
has to ask for them even as evidence, idly and trea
cherously, when he does not mtend to accept them
as such even when done. ^ On both accounts " an
adffiterous generation " which " sought after signs "
was once rebuked. This morbid want, however.

204 False Miracles. [Lect.
jomed to the eager expectation that God would con
stantly interpose to prevent the injurious effects of
His general laws, has produced a constant stream
of miracffious pretension in the world, which accom-
pames man wherever he is found, and is a part of
his mental and physical history. Curiosity, imagi
nation, misery, helplessness, and mdolence, have aU
conspired to throw him upon this support, which he
has sought m order to penetrate into the secrets
of the future, to hft up the veil of the mAdsible world,
and to obtain under calamity and disease that rehef
which God either did not design to give at all, or
only to give through the instrumentality of human
skill and mdustry.
This perpetual phenomenon of miraculous pre
tension, this runmng accompaniment of human nature,
takes indeed ffifferent forms, accordmg to the reli
gious belief, or the prevaUing notions and movements
of dffierent ages ; to wMch it joms itself on, and wMch
supply it Avith a handle. The affection for the mar
vellous has been successively heathen. Christian, and
phUosophical or scientffic. Heathemsm had its run-
nmg stream of supernatural pretensions in the shape
of prophecy, exorcism, and the miraculous cures of
diseases which the temples of Esculapius recorded
with pompous display. The Christian Church mhe-
rited the common features and characteristic impffises
of human nature, for CMistians were men, and became
a scene of the same kind of display : — I speak of
the miracles of the early and later Church so far as
they come under the head of this standing result

VIII.] False Miracles. 205
of human nature, without mquiring at present which
of them have evidence of a peculiar and distin
guishable kmd. The doctrme of the Incarnation was
the instrument of this human affection under Chris
tianity ; it joined itself on to that doctrine, and used
the virtues of the saints, or the fruits of man's
participation tMough the Incarnation of the Divine
nature, for its own purpose. The same affection in
our own day, abandoning its connexion with doctrme,
and even Avith rehgion, adopts pMlosopMcal ground,
and avails itself of a scientffic handle ; and, the trace
of an occult law of our sentient bemg having been
discovered, wMch resulted in some extraordmary
bodily conditions and affections, has raised upon tMs
basis a Avild superstructure of Supernaturalism, ex-
tendmg at last to a systematic intercourse Avith the
mvisible world. This strong human affection has
thus flourished successively upon heathen, upon
CMistian, and upon scientffic material ; because m
truth it is neither heathen, nor Christian, nor scien
tffic, but human. Springing out of the common
stock of humanity, which is the same in all ages,
it adapts itself to the belief, the spectdations, and
the knowledge of its own day. It avaUs itself of
every opening wMch rehgious truth or obscure laws
of nature may afford, and every fresh growth of
supernaturalism borrows the type of the age. And
thus is produced that constant succession of mira
culous pretensions, which, varying m shade and
form, and taking its colour from heathen mythology,
or CMistian truth, or GotMc or Celtic fancy, or

206 False Miralces. [Lect.
scientific mystery, is a perpetual and standmg phe
nomenon of human natore ; ite CAddences bemg of
one homogeneous tjrpe and one urnform level, which
hes below a rational standard of proof
The criterion, therefore, wMch evidential miracles,
or miracles which serve as evidence of a revelation,
must come up to, if they are to accomplish the object
for wMch they are designed, mvolves at the very
outset this condition, — that the evidence of such
miracles must be distingmshable from the CAddences
of tMs permanent stream of miracffious pretension
in the world ; that such miracles must be separated
by an interval not only from the facts of the order
of nature, but also from the common running mira
culous, wMch is the simple offshoot of human nature.
Can evidential miracles be mserted m tMs pro
miscuous mass, so as not to be confounded with it,
but to assert their OAvn truth and ffistinctive source 1
If they cannot, there is an end to the proof of a
revelation by miracles : if they can, it remams to
see whether the Christian miracles are thus distm-
guishable, and whether their nature, their object,
and their evidence vindicate their claim to tMs
distmctive truth and DiAdne source.
I. The first great pomt, then, m the comparison
of one set of miracles with another, is the nature
and character of the facts themselves. Supposing
both sets of facts to be true, are we equally certam
that both of them are miracles ? Now on this head
we have to notice first a spontaneous admission and
confession on the part of the runnmg miracffious.

VIII.] False Miracles. 207
viz. that the believers in it appear, m the case of
a clear and undoubted miracle, i. e. a fact which
if it is a true occurrence is such, to see almost as
strong a distmction between such a miracle and
their OAvn supernaturahsm as they do between that
miracle and the order of nature. When the heathens
of the patristic age were confronted by the assertion
of CMist's Resurrection, they answered at once that
it was impossible that a dead man shoffid come to
life again, although they had their OAvn current
supernaturalism gomg on. But this was to admit
a broad interval between the latter and the genume
miraculous. JcAvish supernaturahsm was indeed
going on side by side with our Lord's miracles ;
and thence the inference has been drawn that His
miracles coffid not m the very nature of the case
be evidences of His distmctive teacMng and mission,
inasmuch as miracles were common to Himself and
His opponents. But the same record which refers
to Jewish thaumaturgy, also reveals the enormous
distmction wMch those who practised or behoved
that thaumaturgy themselves made between it and
our Lord's miracles. The restoration of sight to
the man bom bhnd was ob"viously regarded as a
miracle in a sense qffite distmgffished from that
in wMch they would have applied the term to a
Jewish exorcism : it excited much the same resistance
m their mmds as if they had not had their OAvn
standmg supernaturalism as a rival at all. And
when our Lord's prophecy of His own resurrection
was reported to the Roman governor, the statement

208 False Miracles. [Lect.
was — "Sir, this deceiver said." Why "deceiver'?"
Wliy was this reported as a pretended miracle and
an imposture, if the real mfracle would have made
no difference to them, bemg neutralized and reduced
to the measure of an ordmary current instance of
supernaturalism by their own thaumaturgy 1 * Wliy
instead of mvolving themselves in difficulties by
resisting testimony to the facts of our Lord's mi
racles, did the Jews not accept the facts, and offiy
deny the argument from them 1 What reason coffid
there be but one. Adz. that they recognized a true
miraculous character m our Lord's miracles which
was wantmg in their OAvn 1 And so when we come
to the current mfracles of the early Church, we
meet Avith the same admission and confession of
the broad distinction between them and the Gospel
miracles, only not extracted unwittingly from CMis
tian Avriters, but volunteered with fuU knowledge.
The Fathers, wMle they refer to extraordinary Divme
agency going on in thefr OAvn day, also with one
consent represent mfracles as having ceased smce
the Apostolic era. But what was this but to confess
that though events wMch pointed to the special
hand of God, and so approximated to the nature
of the mfracffious, were still of frequent occurrence
in the Church ; mfracles of that decisive and positive
character that they declared themselves certaiffiy to
be miracles no longer took place ? (Note i .)
But this spontaneous admission on the part of
the runnmg miracffious having been noticed, we
next see that the very nature and type of the facts

Vni.] False Miracles. 209
themselves account for and explain the admission.
A deep latent scepticism accompanies the current
supernaturalism of mankind, which betrays itself in
the very quality and rank of the reputed marvels
themselves, — that they never rise above a low level,
and repeat again and again the same ambiguous
types. There is a confinement to certain classes
of occurrences, which, even if true, are very ambi
guous mfracles. The adhesion to tMs neutral, doubt
ful, and indecisive type, CAdnces a want of belief
at the bottom in the existence of a real right in
the system to assert a true domimon over nature.
The system knows what it can do, and keeps withm
a safe hne. Miraculous cures, vaticinations, visions,
exorcisms, compose the current miracles of human
history ; but these are just the class which is most
susceptible of exaggerating colour and mterpretation,
and most apt to owe its supernatural character to
the imagmations of the reporters. Hence the con
fession of inferiority, when tMs running superna
turalism was confronted by real miracles ; the
admission of the distmction which existed between
itself and the latter. The heathen saw that a
resurrection from the dead was a fact about which,
if it was true, there coffid be no mistake that it was a
mfracle ; whereas that some out of the crowds of sick
that were carried to the temple of Escffiapius after
wards recovered, was, notvrithstandmg the msertion
of thefr cures in the register of the temple, no proof of
mfracffious agency to any reasonable man. Exorcism,
which is the contemporary Jewish miracle referred to
p

210 False Miracles. [Lect.
in the Gospels, is evidently, if it stands by itself and
is not confirmed by other and more decided marks
of Divine power, a miracle of a most doubtfffi and
ambiguous character. However we may explain
demoniacal possession, whether we stop at the na
tural disorder itself, or carry it on to a supernatural
cause, m either case a sudden strong impression
made upon the patient's mind, such as woffid
awaken his dormant energy and enable him to re-
coUect the scattered powers of his reason, woffid
tend to cast off the disorder. The disease bemg
an obstruction of the rational facffities, whatever
resuscitated the facffities thoroughly would expel
the disease ; and an agency Avhich was not mfra
cffious but offiy moral, might be equal m certain
cases to thus reawakenmg the faculties : a moral
power might dismiss the demon that brooded upon
the understandmg, as it does the demon that tempts
to sin. Exorcism therefore, even the legitimate
practice, ffid not necessarily mvolve miracffious
power ; and the Jewish practice was replete with
imposture. When we come to the miracles of the early Church
we have to deal with a body of statement which
demands our respect, on account of the piety and
faith of those from whom we receive it ; but it
is stUl open to us to consider the rank and pre
tension of these mfracles, — whether the very type
and character of them does not, upon the very
point of the claim to be miraculous, radicaUy dis
tinguish them from the Gospel miracles ; as the

> VIII.] False Miracles. 211
very confession of the Fathers, just noticed, implies.
The current miracles of the pati'istic age are cures
of diseases, visions, exorcisms : the higher sort of
mfracle being alluded to only in isolated cases, and
then Avith such vagueness that it leaves a doubt as
to the fact itself mtended. But these are of the
ambiguous type which has been noticed. Take one
large class — cures of diseases in answer to prayer.
A miracle and a special proAddence, as I remarked
in a previous Lecture**, differ not m kind but in
degree ; the one being an interference of the Deity
Avith natural causes at a point removed from our
observation ; the other being the same brought
dfrectly home to the senses. When, then, the Fathers
speak of sudden recoveries, m answer to prayers of
the Church or of emment samts, as miracles, they
appear to mean by that term special providences
rather than clear and sensible mfracles. And re
markable visions woffid come under the same head.
The very type, then, of the facts themselves which
compose the current miracles of human history, the
uniform low level wMch they maintam, stamps the
impress of uncertamty upon them, in striking con
trast -with the freedom and range of the Gospel
mfracles. About the latter, supposing them to be
true, there can be no doubt, — that they are a clear
outbreak of miracffious energy, of a mastery over
nature ; but we cannot be equally assured upon
this point m the case of the current miracles of the
a page 8.
P 2

212 False Miracles. [Lect.
first ages of the Church, even supposing the truth
of the facts.
It wffi be urged perhaps that a large portion
even of the Gospel miracles are of the class here
mentioned as ambiguous : cures, visions, expffisions
of evil spfrits : but this observation does not affect
the character of the Gospel mfracles as a body,
because we judge of the body or whole from its
highest specimens, not from its lowest. The question
is, what power is it which is at work in this whole
field of extraordinary action ? what is its nature,
what is its extent? But the nature and magmtude
of this power is obviously decided by ite greatest
acMevements, not by its least. The greater mfracles
are not canceUed by the lesser ones ; more than
this, they interpret the lesser ones. It is evident
that this whole mfracffious structure hangs together,
and that the same power which produces the Mghest,
produces also the lowest type of mfracle. The lower,
therefore, receives an mterpretation from its con
nexion with the higher wMch it woffid not receive
by iteelf If we admit, e. g. our Lord's Resurrection
and Ascension, what coffid be gamed by strugghng
m detail for the interpretation of minor mfracles ;
as if these could be judged of apart from that
great one "?
The difference, again, m the very form of the
wonder-workmg power in the case of the Gospel
mfracles, as compared with later ones, makes a
difference in the character of the mfracles them
selves. A standing miracffious power lodged in a

VIIL] False Miracles. 213
Person, and through Him m other persons expressly
admitted to the possession of it ; not makmg trials,
in some of which it succeeds in others not, but
always accomplisMng a miracle upon the will to
do so, — this, which is the Gospel fact or phenomenon
asserted, is undoubteffiy, if true, miraculous. But
when the wonder-working power comes before us
as a gift residmg in the whole Christian multitude
and sown broad-cast over the Church at large, the
mfracles which issue out of this popular mass are
offiy a certam number of attempts which have
succeeded out of a vastly greater number which
have faUed. But such tentative mfracles are de
fective in the mfraculous character from the very
nature of the facts ; because chance accounts for
a certain proportion of comcidences happenmg out
of many which did not happen.
When the runmng miraculous is raised above the
low level, which betrays its own want of confidence
m itself and its professed command over nature, it
is by a peculiarity wMch convicts it upon another
count. There is a wUdness, a puerUe extravagance,
a grotesqueness, and absurffity in the type of it such
as to disqualify it for bemg a subject of CAddence.
The sense of what is absurd, ridicffious, and there
fore impossible as an act of God, is part of our
moral nature : and if a mfracle even seen with our
OAvn eyes, cannot force us to accept anything con
trary to morality or a fundamental truth of religion,
stffi less can professed CAddence force us to believe m
Divme acts, which are upon the face of them un-

214 F'alse Miracles. [Lect.
worthy of the Divine authorship^. It is true that of
this discreditinor feature there is no definite standard
or criterion, and that when we refuse to believe in
a mfracle on accomit of the absurffity and puerility
in the type of it, we do so upon the responsibffity
of our oAvn sense and perceptions ; but many impor
tant questions are determined m no other way than
tMs ; indeed all morality is ultimately determmed
by an mward sense.
A fact, however, is not in itself ridicffious, because
a ridiculous aspect can be put upon it. The dumb
brute speaking with man's voice to forbid the mad
ness of the prophet, the dismissal of a legion of
foffi spfrits out of their usurped abode in man mto
b We observe indeed in the region of God's animate creation,
various animal natures produced of a grotesque and wild type ;
but to argue from this that we are to expect the same type in
bodies and classes of miracles, is to apply the argument of analogy
without possessing that condition which is necessary for it — a
parallel case (see p. 47). We can argue from one Divine act to
the probability or not improbability of another like it, provided the
cases with which the two are concerned are parallel cases ; but the
creation of an animal is no parallel case to the Divine act in a
miracle ; nor therefore can wildness, enormity, and absurdity in
a miracle plead the precedent of the singular types which occur
in the animal kingdom. The latter has been diversified for reasons
and for ends included within the design of creation : but a miracle
is not an act done by God as Creator ; it is a communication to
man, it is addressed to him, and therefore it must be suited to him
to whom it is addressed, and be consistent with that character
which our moral sense and revelation attribute to the Divine Beino-.
Upon this ground a solemn, a high stamp must always recommend
a miracle, while a ridiculous type is inconsistent with the in
trinsic dignity of a Divine interjjosition.

VIII .J False Miracles. 215
a herd of swine, — whatever be the peculiarity in
these two mfracles which distinguishes them from
the usual scriptural model, it is no mean, trivial,
or vulgar character. Did we meet Avith these two
simply as poetical facts or images in the great reli
gious poem of the midffie ages, they would strike
us as fuU of force and solemnity, and akin to a grand
eccentric type which occurs not rarely in portions
of that majestic work, and serves as a powerful
and deep instrument of expression in the hands of
the poet. Looking then simply to thefr type, these
mfracles stand their ground. While it must also
be observed that m the case of miracles of an ec
centric type, the quantity of them and the proportion
wMch they bear to the rest is an important con
sideration. The same type which in unlimited pro
fusion and exuberance marks a source m human
fancy and delusion is not extravagant as a rare and
exceptional feature of a dispensation of miracles, just
emergmg and then disappearing again, as a frag
mentary deviation from a usual limit and pattern,
to wMch it is m complete subordmation. One or
two mfracles of a certam form in Scripture have
mdeed been taken full advantage of, as if they sup
phed an ample justffication of any number and
quantity of the most extravagant later miracles ;
but, supposmg in our estimate we CA^en reduced the
eccentricity of the latter to this exceptional Scripture
type, quantity and degree make aU the ffifference
between what is impressive and what is puerile,
what is weighty and what is absurd. The mfraculous

216 False Miracles. [Lect.
providence of Scripture, it must be remembered,
covers the whole period from the creation of the
world to the Christian era. The very rare occurrence
of a type in a long reach of Providential operations,
is no precedent for it as the prevailmg feature of
whole bodies and classes of mfracles. The temper
of the course and system of supernatural action is
shewn by the proportion preserved in it, and by
the check and limit under which such a type
appears. 2. In comparing two different bodies of miracles
their respective objects and results necessarUy come
mto consideration. I have, however, m a previous
lecture considered the great moral resffit of the Gos
pel mfracles, exhibited in that new era of the world
and conffition of human society which they were the
means of founding. Any comparison of tMs great
result with the objecte of current supernaturalism
can offiy reveal the immense mferiority of the latter ;
— even when these objects are not volatile, morbid,
or mean. But m how large a proportion do motives
of the latter kind prevail ! Motives of mere curiosity
and idle amusement ! Motives even worse than these
— ^impatience and rebeUion agamst the boundaries
which separate the visible and invisible worlds !
What is the chief avowed object, e.g. of the super
naturalism of this day ? To open a regular sys
tematic intercourse between the livmg and the dead !
But how does such a fantastic and extravagant
object, as that of breakmg doAvn the barriers of
our present state of existence, at once convict and

VIIL] False Miracles. 217
condemn such pretensions themselves as fallacious !
As much so as, on the other hand, their grand and
serious moral resffit recommends and is an argument
for the Gospel miracles.
3. When from the type and character of the pro
fessed mfracles of subsequent ages, and their objects,
as compared with the miracles of Scripture, we turn
to the evidence on wMch they respectively rest, we
meet with various ffistmctions wMch have been very
ably brought out and commented on by writers on
CAddence. And in the first place, a very large pro
portion of the mfracles of subsequent ages stop short
of the very first introduction to valid evidence, that
preliminary conffition which is necessary to qualify
them even to be examined ; — Adz. contemporary testi
mony. That certain great and cardmal Gospel
mfracles — wMch if granted clear away all antecedent
objection to the reception of the rest — possess contem
porary testimony, must be admitted by everybody, at
the peril of mvahdatmg all historical evidence, and
mvolving our whole knowledge of the events of the
past m doubt. That the first promulgators of Chris
tianity asserted as a fact wMch had come under the
cognizance of thefr senses the Resurrection of our
Lord from the dead, is as certam as anything in
history. But the great mass of later miracles do not
fuffil even this prelimmary condition, or reach even
this prcAdous stage of evidence.
But the level of contemporary testimony gained,
the character of the witnesses, and the extent to
which thefr veracity is tested by pain and suffermg.

218 False Miracles. [Lect.
make an immense difference in the value of that
testimony. I. In estimating the strength of a witness we
must begin by putting aside as irrelevant all those
features of his character, however admirable, striking,
and impressive, wMch do not bear upon the particular
question whether Ms report of a fact is hkely to be
correct. We have only to do Avith character m one
point of view, viz. as a guarantee to the truth of testi
mony ; but a reference to this simple object at once
puts on one side various traite and quahties m men
which in themselves are of great mterest and excite
our admfration. We value an ardent zeal m itself,
but not as a security for this further object, because
men under the influence of enthusiasm are apt to
misstate and exaggerate facte wMch favour thefr OAvn
side. So, again, an affectionate disposition is beau-
tifffi and admfrable m itself, but it does not add
weight to testimony ; and the same may be said of
other Mgh and noble moral gifts and dispositions —
generosity, courage, enterprismg spirit, perseverance,
loyalty to a cause and to persons. Even faith, offiy re
garded as one specific gift and power, m wMch hght
it is sometimes spoken of m Scripture, the power, viz.
of Advidly embracing and reahzmg the idea of an un
seen world, does not add to the strength of a Avitness,
though m iteelf, even as thus limited, a Mgh and
excellent gift. And thus might be constructed a
character which would be a striking and interestmg
form of the rehgious mind, woffid lead the way in
high undertakings, would command the obedience of

VIIL] False Miracles. 219
devoted followers, and woffid be m iteelf an object
of smgffiar admiration ; but wMch woffid not be
valuable as addmg sohd weight to testimony. Perfect
goodness is imdoubtedly goodness in all capacities
and functions, and stands the test of relation to all
purposes ; but, takmg human nature as we find it,
a good man and a good Avitness are not qffite iden
tical For all tMs assemblage of high qualities may
exist, and that particular characteristic may be ab
sent upon wMch we depend when we rely upon
testimony m extreme and crucial cases.
That characteristic is a strong perception of a
regard to the claims of truth. Truth is a yoke. If
we woffid Avish facts to be so and so, and they are
not, that is a trial ; there is a disposition to rebel
against tMs trial ; and this ffisposition has always a
ready mstrument m the facffity of speech, to whose
pecuhar nature it belongs to state facts either as
they are or as they are not, vrith equal facffity. To
submit then to the yoke of truth under the tempta
tion of this smgffiarly simple and ready agency for
rejecting it, requfres a stem and rigorous fidehty to
fact in the mmd, as part of our obeffience to God.
But where there are many exceUent affections and
powers, sometimes tMs solid and fixed estimate of
truth is wantmg ; wMle, on the other hand, there are
characters not deficient m these affections and powers,
into whose composition it deeply enters, and whose
general moral conformation is a kind of guarantee
that they possess it.
Such a character is that wMch hves m the pages

220 False Miracles. [Lect.
of the New Testament as the Apostolic character.
If we compare that model with the model set up
m later times, the popffiar pattern of Christian per
fection which ruled in the middle ages, we find
a great difference. There is undoubteffiy deep en
thusiasm, if we may call it so, in the character of
the Apostles, an absorption m one great cause, a
depth of wonder and emotion, high impffise, ardent
longing and expectation ; and yet with all this what
striking balance and moderation, which they are able
too — a very strong test of thefr type — to mamtam
amid cfrcumstances just the most calculated to upset
these Adrtues ! At war with the whole world, lifted
up above it, and tramphng its affections beneath
thefr feet ; living upon heavenly hopes, and caring
for one thing alone, the spread of the Gospel, —
thefrs was mdeed a grand and elevatmg situation ;
but at the same time it was just one adapted
to throw them off thefr balance, and narrow thefr
standard. Mere enthusiastic men woffid have been
carried away by their antagonism to the whole
existmg state of society to set up some visionary
model of a CMistian hfe, wholly separated from
aU connexion with the cares and busmess of earth.
But although the Apostles certamly give scope to
and assert the duty of an extraordinary and isolated
course of life, under certain cfrcumstances and with
reference to particular ends, their standard is whoUy
free from contraction ; their Adew of life and its
duties is as sensible and as jufficious as the Avisest
and most prudent man's ; nor do they say — ' You

VIIL] False Miracles. 221
may be an inferior Christian if you live in the world,
but if you want to be a higher Christian you must
quit it ;' but they recognize the highest Christian
perfection as consistent with the most common and
ordmary form of life. Their great lessons are, that
goodness hes in the heart, and that the greatest
sacrffices which a man makes in life are his mternal
conquests over vain, desires, aspfrations, and dreams
of this world ; which deepest mortffications consist
with the most common outward circumstances. This
plam, solid, unpretendmg view of human life in con
junction with the pursffit of an ideal, the aim at
perfection, is indeed most remarkable, — if it was not
a new combination m the world. What I would
observe, however, now is that such men are weighty
witnesses ; that thefr testimony has the force of
statements of fact from men of grave and sohd tem
perament, who could stand firm, and mamtam a
moderate and adjusted ground agamst the strong
tendencies to extravagance inherent m their whole
situation and aim.
On the other hand, when I come to a later type
of character wMch rose up in the Christian Church,
I see m it much wMch is splendid and striking —
Mgh aim and enterprise, courageous self-denial, as
piring faith, but not the same guarantee to the truth
of testimony. Ambition or exaggeration m character
is m its OAvn nature a divergence from sfrict moral
truth ; which, though it is more effective in chal
lenging the eye, and strikes more mstantaneously
as an image, detracts from the authority of the

222 False Miracles. [Lect.
character, and the dependence we place upon it for
the purpose now mentioned.
The remark may be made, again, that the origmal
promulgation of Christianity was one of those great
undertaMngs which react upon the mmds of those
engaged in it, and tend to raise them above msin-
cerity and delusion. The cause itself was, so far
as any cause can be, a guarantee for the truthfffiness
of its champions ; its aim was to renovate the human
race sunk in corruption ; it proclaimed a revelation
indeed from heaven, but that revelation was stffi
in connexion with the most practical of all aims.
But tMs cannot be said of most of the later causes
in behalf of which the professed evidence of mfracles
was enlisted : spurious and corrupt developments of
Christian doctrine do not give the same security for
the truthfulness of thefr propagators. The quality
of the cause, the nature of the object, is not in fact
wholly separable from the character of the witness ;
and one of these heads runs into the other. But
this consideration of itself goes far to ffispose of
whole boffies of later mfracles ; for if we hold certam
later doctrines, the deification of the Virgin Mother,
Transubstantiation, and others to be corruptions of
Christianity, we are justffied in depreciating the
testimony of the teachers and spreaders of these
doctrines to the alleged mfracles in support of them.
The nature of the cause affects our estimate of the
propagators. Indeed, let the human intellect once
begm to busy iteelf not offiy about false deductions
from Christian doctrine, but even about doubtful

VIIL] False Miracles. 223
ones, nay even about ti-ue but minute and remote
ones, and the spirit and temper of the first pro-
mffigators of Christianity is soon exchanged for
another. Propagandism has not a reputation for
truthfffiness. As doctrine diverges from the largeness
of the Scripture type into narrow points, the active
dissemination of it intereste, excites, and elates as
a speculative triumph.
When from the character of the witnesses to the
Gospel mfracles we turn to the ordeal which they
underwent, we fmd another remarkable peculiarity
attaching to thefr testimony, aoz. that it was tested
m a manner and to an extent which is without
paraUel : because, in truth, the whole life of sacrffice
and suffering which the Apostles led was from be-
ginnmg to end the consequence of thefr behef in
certam miracffious facts which they asserted them
selves to have witnessed ; upon wMch facts thefr
whole preacMng and testimony was based, and without
which they would have had no Gospel to preach. In
all ages, mdeed, different sects have been persecuted
for thefr opimons, and given the testimony of thefr
suffering to the smcerity of those opimons ; but here
are whole lives and long hves of suffering in testi
mony to the truth of particular facts ; the Resur
rection and Ascension bemg the warrant to wMch
the Apostles appeal for the authority and proof of
thefr whole mmistry and doctrine.
On the other hand, those mere current assertions
of supernatural effects produced, wMch prevail in aU
days, and in our OAvn not least, but which are made

224 False Miracles. [Lect.
irresponsibly by any persons who choose to make them,
Avithout any penalty or risk to the assertors to act
as a test of thefr truthfuMess, have harffiy, m strict
right, a claim even upon our grave consideration ;
because m truth upon such subjects untested evidence
is worthless evidence. We can conceive a certain
height of character wMch woffid of itself command the
assent of indiAdduals, but the world at large cannot
reasonably be satisfied without some ordeal of the
Avitnesses. We apply an ordeal to testimony even
to ordmary facts, when the life or liberty of another
depends upon it, and m this case cross-examination
in a court is the form of ordeal ; but pain and sacri
fice on the part of the witnesses is also mtrinsically an
ordeffi and probation of testimony ; which condition
current supernaturalism does not fffifil, but wMch
the Gospel mfracles do. The testimony to the latter
is tested evidence of a very strong kind ; because
the trials wMch the Apostles endm'ed were both
lastmg, and also OAving dfrectly to thefr behef m
certam facts, to which they bore Avitness; thus gomg
straight to the pomt as guarantees for the truth
of that attestation. But it woffid be ffifficffit to
ffiscover any set of later miracles which stand upon
evidence thus tested ; wMch can appeal to lives
of trial and suffering undergone by the Avitnesses
as the direct resffit of thefr belief in and witness to
such mfracles. (Note 2.)
One consideration, however, of some force remains
to be added. It is confessed that the meffiseval
record con tarns a vast mass of false and spurious

VIIL] False Miracles. 225
miracles, — so vast indeed that those who wish to
claim credence for some particular ones, or who,
without mentioning particular ones, argue that some
or other out of the whole body may have been
true, still virtuaUy abandon the great body as inde
fensible. The medijeval record therefore comes before
us at the very outset as a maimed and ffiscredited
authority — discredited because it has adopted and
thrown its shield over an immense quantity of ma
terial admitted to be untrue and counterfeit, and
so identified itself with falsehood. So far as any
mformant takes up and commits himself to false
intelligence, so far he destroys his own credit. An
immense mass of admitted spurious miracles there
fore adopted by the mediaeval record tMows doubt
upon all the accounts of such facts transmitted to
us tMough the same channel ; because to that extent
it affects the general character of the record as an
informant, and mvalidates its authority. The Scrip
ture record, on the other hand, does not at any rate
come before us vrith this admitted blot upon its
credit m the first mstance. The mformation it con-
tams has doubtless to be examined Arith reference
to the evidence upon which it rests ; that is to say,
the authority of the record has to be mvestigated ;
but it does not present itself Avith any admitted
discrediting stam m the first mstance ; whereas such
an admitted stam does in limine attach to the
mediaeval record. 'But this consideration receives
adffitional force when we take mto account two great
causes of miracffious pretensions which were deeply
Q

226 False Miracles. [Lect.
rooted in the character of the middle ages, but from
which Christianity at its original promulgation
was free.
I. It is but too plain that in later ages, as the
Church advanced in worldly power and position, be
sides the mistakes of imagination and impression, a
temper of deliberate and audacious fraud rose up
withm the Christian body, and set itself m action for
the spread of certam doctrines, as well as for the
great object of the concentration of Church power
in one absolute monarchy. Christiamty started with
the sad and ommous prophecy that out of the very
bosom of the religion of humihty should arise the
greatest form of pride that the world should ever know
— one, " as God, sittmg in the temple of God, shewing
himself that he is God" ;" the complete fulfilment of
which, if yet in store, has certaiffiy not been with
out its broad foreshadowmgs ; for mdeed Christian
pride has transcended heathen by how much CMis-
tiamty is a more powerful stimffius to man than
heathenism, givmg a depth to his whole nature,
wMch imparts itself even to Ms passions, to his
ambition and love of dominion, and to his propa
gation of opimon. But this formidable spfrit once
arisen in the Church, falsehood, which is the tool
of the strong even more than of the weak, is its
natural instrument. Hence the bold forgeries of
the midffie ages, which were the acts of a proud
Avffi, determined that nothing should stand in the
way between it and certam objects, and that if facte
<= 2 Thess. ii. 4.

VIIL] False Miracles. 227
did not exist on its side, they should be made. And
hence also counterfeit miracles. But mere historical
criticism must admit that this spfrit of daring, deter
mined, and presumptuous fraud, which compiled false
authorities, and constructed false mai-vels simply be
cause they were wanted, was the manifestation of a
later age, and that the temper of the first promffi-
gators of the Gospel was whoUy free from such a
stain. (Note 3.)
2. Another great cause of miracffious pretensions
in later ages was the adoption of miracles as the
criterion and test of Mgh goodness ; as if extra
ordmary sanctity naturaUy issued in a kind of
dominion over nature. This popular idea dictated
that rffie of canonization which required that before
a saint was mserted m the Calendar, proof should be
given of miracles either performed by him in Ms
lifetime or produced by the vfrtue of his remains.
Such a criterion of sanctity is mtrinsically irrelevant ;
for in formmg a judgment of a man's character, mo
tives, and ffispositions, the extent of his charity and
self-denial and the like, what can be more beside the
question than to inqufre whether or not these moral
manifestations of him were accompanied by suspen
sions of the laws of nature. The natural test of
character is conduct ; or, which is the same thing,
moral goodness is its OAvn proof and evidence. The
man is before us ; he reveals himself to us not only
by his formal outward acts, but by that whole mani
fold expression of himself, conscious and unconscious,
in act, word and look, wMch is synonATnous with life.
Q 2

228 False Miracles. [Lect.
The very highest form of goodness is thus a dis
closure to us Avhicli attests itself, and to which
miracles are wholly extrinsia But what I remark
now is that the adoption of such a test as this
must in the nature of the case produce a very large
crop of false miracles. The criterion havmg been
adopted must be fuffilled ; providence does not fuffil
it because providence is not responsible for it, and
therefore man must ; he who mstituted the test must
look to its verffication. But this whole notion of
mfracles as a test of sanctity was a complete inno
vation upon the Scripture idea. The Bible never
represents mfracles as a tribute to character, but as
foUowmg a principle of use, as means to certain ends.
One samt possesses the gift because it is wanted for
an object ; as great a samt does not because it is
not wanted. The frffits of the Spfrit always figure
as thefr own witnesses m Scripture, superior to all
extraordmary gifts, and not requfrmg thefr attesta
tion. The CMistian is described as gifted Avith dis
cernment. There needs no miracle to teU him who
is a good man and who is not ; he knows Mm by
sure signs, knows him from the hypocrite and pre
tender ; " he that is spiritual judgeth all things,"
is a scrutmizer of hearts, and is not deceived by
appearances. (Note 4.)
Between the CAddence, then, upon wMch the Gos
pel miracles stand and that for later mfracles we
see a broad distmction, arismg — not to mention
agam the nature and type of the Gospel mfracles
themselves — from the contemporaneous date of the

VIIL] False Miracles. 229
testimony to them, the character of the Aritnesses,
the probation of the testimony ; especially when
we contrast with these points the false doctrine and
audacious fraud which rose up in later ages, and
m connexion with which so large a portion of the
later mfracles of Christianity made their appearance.
But now to carry the argument into another stage.
What if — to make the supposition — it was dis
covered, when we came to a close examination of
particulars, that for one or two, or even several, of
the later miracles of Christianity there was evidence
forthcommg approximating in strength to the evi
dence for the Gospel miracles — ^what would be the
result 1 WouM any ffisadvantage ensue to the Gos
pel mfracles, any doubtfffiness accrue to thefr position
as a consequence of this discovery, and additional
to any previous mtrmsic ground of difficulty 1 None :
all the resffit would be that we should admit these
mfracles over and above the Gospel ones : but the
position of the latter would not be at aU affected
by this conclusion : they would remam, and thefr
CAddence woffid remam, just what they were before.
We reject the mass of later miracles because they
want CAddence ; not because our argument obliges
us to reject all later miracles whether they have
CAddence or not. The acceptance of the Gospel
miracles does not commit us to the deffial of aU
other ; nor therefore woffid the discovery of strong
evidence for some other mfracles at all imperil the
ground and the use of the Gospel ones. Many of
our own diAdnes have admitted the truth of later

230 F\dse Miracles. [Lect.
miracles, only raising the question of the date up to
which the continuance of miracffious poAvers in the
Church lasted, some fixing this earlier, and some
later. But Avere our ffivincs therefore precluded from
using the Gospel mfracles as evidences of Chris-
tiaffity "? Do our brethren even of the Roman com
mumon, because they accept a much larger number
of later miracles than oui' divines do, thereby cut
themsel\'es off from the appeal to the mfraculous
evidences of Christiaffity 1 Pascal accepted a mfracle
of his OAvn day, of which he Avrote a defence ; and
yet he prepared the foundation of a treatise on the
Evidences of Christianity, and the CAddences of
mfracles with the rest : nor was he guilty of any
error of logic m so doing. It is true our divmes
may have been under a mistake m accepting some
miracles which they ffid ; and certaiffiy our Roman
Catholic bretliren are m our judgment very much
mistaken in a great number of miracles which
they accept : but a mistake as to the particffiar
later miracles accepted does not affect the general
question of the consistency of behef m and use
of the Gospel mfracles ivith the behef in later
ones. (Note 5.)
The apphcation of the fact of the crowd of later
and mediaeval miracles to neutralize the evidences of
the Gospel mfracles proceeds upon one or other of
two assumptions. One assumption is, that the re
jected later mfracles do in reality rest upon evidence
as strong as that of the Gospel mfracles : the other
assumption is that we are obliged to reject aU later

VIIL] False Miracles. 231
miracles. The argumentative effect of the former
is dfrect, and has been met in the body of the re
marks offered in this Lecture. But the latter assump
tion, tliat we are obhged to reject all later miracles
upon whatever evidence resting, has also a hostile
bearing upon the position of the Gospel miracles ;
because, should upon examination any later miracles
be discovered to have a certam amount of real evi
dence, in proportion as that evidence approaches
to the evidence of the Gospel miracles, in that pro
portion by rejectmg the one we imperU the creffit
of the other too. This latter assumption, however,
is without authority. We assert indeed that none
of the later mfracles haA-e equal evidence \rith the
miracles on wMch the Gospel is based ; that the
great mass have not even contemporary testimony,
and that in the case of those wMch have, neither
the character of the witnesses nor their probation
is equal to that of the Apostohc witnesses. But a
Avitness may not be equal to an Apostle, and yet Ms
testimony may go for something; nor therefore are
we prepared to say that there may not be particular
later mfracles the CAddence of wMch is substantial
in its character and approximates to the evidence of
the Gospel miracles. But such an admission does
not tend m the shghtest degree to endanger the
position of the latter, for one set of mfracles is
not false because other mfracles are true. Could it
even be shcAvn that one or other of the later
mfracles had CAddence fuUy equal to that of the
Gospel ones, no consequence unfavourable to the

232 False Miracles. [Lect.
latter would ensue. The result in that case would
be not that we shoffid reject the later miracle, and
so in consistency be obliged to reject the Gospel
mfracles, but that we shoffid accept the later miracle ;
which would entail no consequence whatever un
favourable to the Gospel mfracles.
One conclusion, however, there is which is a tempt
ing one to deduce from the mffititude of spurious
miracles, viz. the impossibUity of distinguishmg the
true ones. 'We cannot,' it may be said, 'go mto
particffiars or draw mmute distinctions. Here is
a vast crowd of mfracffious pretensions, the product
of every age of CMdstianity, including that of its very
birth. Of this an overwhelming proportion is con
fessed to be false. But how can we distinguish be
tween what is false and what is frue of this pro
miscuous mass 1 Mfracffious CAddence in such a con
dition defeats itself and is imavailable for use ; and
practicaUy we must treat CMistianity as if it stood
Avithout it.'
Nothing then can be more certain than that,
granted true imi'acles, so long as man is man, these
true mfracles must encounter the rivalry of a groAvth
of false ones, and the evidential ffisadvantage, what
ever it be, thence ensumg. And therefore tMs posi
tion amounts to saying that pennanent mfraculous
evidence to any religion is an impossible con
trivance. But such a wholesale inference as this from the
existence of spurious miracles is contrary to all
prmciples of evidence, and to the whole method in

VIII.J False Miracles. 233
practice among mankind for ascertaining the truth of
facts. Do we want to dispose of all casas of recoi ded
miracles by some summary rffie which decides them
aU in a heap, the rule that a sample is enough, that
one case settles the rest, and that the evidence of one
is the evidence of all ? We have no such rule for
ordmary questions of moral evidence relating to
human actions and events. If any one principle is
clear in this department, it is that every case which
comes under rcAdew is a special case. In civil justice,
e.g. every case is determined upon its OAvn merits,
and accordmg to our estimate of the quality of the
testimony, the situation of the parties, and the con
nexion and comcidence of the facts in that parti
cular case. No two sets of Avitnesses, no two sets
of circumstances are exactly alike. Inasmuch, then,
as these constitute in eveiy case the grounds of
decision, every case of evidence m our courts is a
special case. Two successive causes or trials might
be pronounced upon a prima facie view to be
exactly alike as cases of evidence ; they look the
same precise mixtures of evidence and counter
evidence, probabilities and counter probabUities ;
and a person would be tempted to say that one
decided the other. Yet upon a close examination
the greatest possible difference is discovered in the
two fabrics of evidence, and consequently the judg
ment is different In proportion as the examination
penetrates into each case and comes into close quar
ters with the witnesses, the circumstances, the con
nexion of facts in it, the common tj^e of the two is

234 False Miracles. [Lect.
cast off, the special characteristics of each come out
into stronger and stronger light, the different weight
of the testimony, the different force of the facts.
There are miiversal rules relating to the punish
ment when the crime is proved, and to the right
when the conditions are proved, but of what con
stitutes proof there is no rule. This is a special
conclusion, according to the best judgment, from the
special premisses. There is no royal road to truth m
the evidence of facts ; every case is a special case.
It is true that mam features of fact, as well as
types of testimony, repeat themselves often ; but
m eveiy case they demand and we give them a
fresh inspection.
It only requires the advantage of this prmciple to
bring out the strong pomts, the signfficant features,
and the effective weight of the evidence for the Gos
pel miracles. Upon the summary supposition mdeed
that the evidence of miracles is a class of evidence,
which, after the sight of some samples, dispenses
Avith the examination of the rest, those miracles
woffid stand little chance ; but we have no right
to this summary supposition ; the evidence of the
Gospel miracles is a special case which must be
decided on its own grounds. Were the annals of
mankind crowded even much more than they are
with spurious cases, we should stiU have to take
the case of the Gospel mfracles by itself The general
pMase in use, "the value of testimony," conceals
degrees of strength ; the term " competent witness "
Mdes aU the interval which lies between an average

VIIL] F'alse Miracles. 235
Avitness who appears m court, and the sublimest im
personation of the grave, the holy, the simple and
truthful character. The pMase " ordeal of testi
mony" covers all the degrees in severity and dura
tion of such ordeal. This degree m the strength
of testimony is, however, in truth the critical and
turffing-point in the evidence of mfracles ; for mira
cles are a weight restmg upon the support of that
evidence ; but whether a support can bear a par
ticffiar weight must depend on the degree of strength
residmg m that support. To ascertam the degree
of strength then which belongs to the evidence for
the Gospel mfracles, we must go into the special
case of that evidence ; and what we maintain is,
that when we do go specially into the evidence for
those miracles, we fmd this high degree of strength
in it : that its foundation hes so deep in the won
derful character and extraordmary probation of the
Avitnesses, and in the uffique character and result
of the revelation, that it sustams the weight which
it is requfred to sustam.
The truth of the mfracffious credentials of CMis-
tiaffity rests upon various arguments, the mutual
coherence and uffion of which forms the evidence
of them. Nor in a case of evidence must we narrow
the term ' argument ; ' any thmg is an argument
wMch naturally and legitimately produces an effect
upon our minds, and tends to make us think one
way rather than another. Nor m judgmg upon the
force and weight of these arguments, can we dis
pense with a proper state of the affections. It is

236 False Miracles. [Lect. VIII.
no condition of a sound judgment that there shoffid
be an absence of feeling in it ; our affections are
a part of our judgment ; an argument only sinks
into us properly, and takes proper hold of our
minds, by means of the feelmgs wMch take it up
and carry it mto the understandmg. One man
thinks nothing of an argument, another a great
deal of it, because feelmg enables the one to see
the argument, the other wants this hght by which
to see it. It is thus a great mistake to suppose
that those who are absorbed in the pleasurable
exertion of the mteUect and are without the reli
gious emotions, who do not hope, who do not fear
as spfritual beings, are the best judges of religious
evidences. For the truth is, in such a state a man
is not possessed of his whole nature ; a man is
only half himself; nay, he is but a miserable frag
ment of himself. Hope and fear are strong im
pulses to and enhveners of the understanding ; they
quicken the perceptions ; under their purifying and
sharpenmg influence we see the force of truths
and arguments wMch otherAvise we are too duU to
see. Thus half of a man's nature rruay reject the
Christian evidence, but the whole accepts it. When
every part of us is represented in our state of mind,
when the religious affections as weU as the inteUect
are sfrong and hvely, then only is our state of mind
a reasonable one, then offiy are we our proper
selves; but the issue of this coUective whole is
CMistian belief.

NOTES.

NOTES.

LECTURE I.
NOTE 1, p. 1 8.
JL HE necessity of miracles to prove a revelation is assumed
in the general language of divines. Thus Butler : " The notion
of a miracle, considered as a proof of a Divine mission, has
been stated with great exactness by di\dnes ; and is, I think,
sufficiently understood by every one. There are also invisible
miracles, the Incarnation of Christ, for instance, which, being
secret, cannot be alleged as a proof of such a mission, but require
themselves to be proved by visible miracles. Revelation itself too
is miraculous, and miracles are the proof of it." [Analogy,
pt. ii. cb. ii.) The writer assumes here that for the revelation
of things supernatural and undiscoverable by human reason,
miraculous evidence is necessary to attest its truth. The
"^^ invisible miracle,'^ i. e. the doctrine of the Incarnation, he
says, " requires to be proved by visible miracles." " Miracles
are the proof of revelation," because revelation is itself
miraculous, — ^is an invisible miracle which needs the visible
to serve as guarantee to it. Again : " Take in the considera
tion of religion, or the moral system of the world, and then we
see distinct particular reasons for miracles ; to afford mankind
instruction additional to that of nature, and to attest the
truth of it." {Atialogy, pt. ii. ch. ii.) Again : " In the evidence
of Christianity there seem to be several things of great weight,
not reducible to the head either of miracles or the completion
of prophecy, in the common acceptation of the words. But

240 NOTE 1. [Lect.
these two are its direct and fundamental proofs : and those
other things, however considerable they are, yet ought never
to be urged apart from its direct proofs, but al\va>'s to be
joined to them." {Analogy, pt. ii. ch. vii.) Leslie writes : " The
deists acknowledge a God, of an Almighty power, Avho made
all things. Yet they would put it out of His power to make
any revelation of His will to mankind. For if we cannot
be certain of any miracle, how should we know when God
sent anything extraordinary to us ?" {Short and Easy Method
with Deists.) Paley says : " Now in what way can a revela
tion be made but by miracles ? In none which we are
able to conceive. Consequently in whatever degree it is
possible, or not very improbable, that a rcA^elation should
be communicated to mankind at all, in the same degree
it is probable or not very improbable, that miracles should
be wrought." {Evidences of Christianity : Preparatory Con
siderations.) That the ti-uth of the Cliristian miracles, however, is
necessary for the defence of Christianity is a point altogether
independent of the question of the necessity of miracles for
a revelation in the fijfst instance, as Mr. Mansel observes : —
''Whether the doctrinal truths of Christianity could or
could not have been propagated among men by moral evidence
alone, without any miraculous accompaniments, it is at least
certain that such was not the manner in which they actually
were propagated, according to the narrative of Scripture. If
our Lord not only did works apparently surpassing human
power, but likewise expressly declared that He did those
works by the power of God, and in witness that the Father
had sent Him ;— if the Apostles not only wrought works of
a similar kind to those of their Master, but also expressly
declared that they did so in His name ; the miracles, as thus
interpreted by those who Avrought them, become part of the
moral as well as the sensible evidences of the religion which
they taught, and cannot be denied A\dthout destroying both
kinds of evidence aUke 
" The scientific question relates to the possibility of super
natural occurrences at all ; and if this be once decided in
the negative, Christianity as a religion must necessarily be
denied along with it. Some moral precepts may indeed
remain, which may or may not have been first enunciated by

I.] NOTE 1. 241
Christ, but which in themselves have no essential connexion
with one person more than with another ; but all belief in
Christ as the great Examjilc, as the teacher sent from God,
as the crucified and risen Saviour, is gone, never to return.
The perfect sinlessness of His life and conduct can no longer
be held before us as our type and pattern, if the worlcs which
He professed to perform by Divine power were cither not
performed at all or were performed by human science and
skill. No mystery impenetrable by human reason, no doc
trine incapable of natural proof, can be believed on His
authority ; for if He jirofessed to work miracles, and wrought
them not, what Avarrant have we for the trustworthiness of
other parts of His teaching ?" {Aids to Faith, pp. 4, 5.)
The moral results of Christianity when they are appealed
to as evidence, appear more strongly in that light when
regarded in connexion Arith prophecy, in which connexion
Pascal views them : —
" Prophetic avec 1' aceomplissement. Ce qui a precede et
ce qui a suivi J. C.
" Les riches quittent leur bien, &c. Qu'est-ce que tout
cela ? C'est ce qui a ete predit si longtemps auparavant.
Depuis 3,000 ans aucun pai'en n'avait adore le Dieu des
Juifs, et dans le temj)s predit la foule des pai'ens adore
cet unique Dieu. Les temples sont detruits, les rois raeme
se soumettent h la croix. Qu''est-ce que tout cela ? C^est
Fesprit de Dieu qui est repandu sur la terre  Effundam
spiritmn meum. {Joel ii. a8.) Tons les peuples etaient dans
Finfidelite et dans la concupiscence ; toute la terre fut ar-
dente de charite : les princes quittent leurs grandeurs ; les
fiUes souffrent le martyre. D'ou Adent cette force ? C^est que
le Messie est arrive. Voila Feffet et les marques de sa A'enue.
" II est predit qu^au temps du Messie il viendrait etablir
une nouvelle alliance qui ferait oublier la sortie d'Egyptej
qui mettrait sa loi, non dans Fexterieur, mais dans les coeurs ;
que J. C. mettrait sa crainte, qui n^avait ete qu^au dehors,
dans le milieu du coeur.
" Qui ne voit la loi chretienne en tout cela ?
" Qu'alors Fidolatrie serait renversee ; que ce Messie abat-
trait toutes les idoles, et ferait entrer les hommes dans Ie
culte du vrai Dieu.
" Que les temples des idoles seraient abattus, et que parmi
toutes les nations et en tous les lieux du monde on lui of-
frirait une liostie pure, non pas des animaux." (vol. ii. ed.
Fougeres, pp. 273, 277, 308.) R

2-12 NOTE y. [Lkct.
NOTE 2, p. 22.
General statements of the evidence of miracles arc current
in the Fathers, who insist upon that argument in their con
troversies with the heathen, as modern apologists do in their
defence of Christianity against the infidel. Tertullian, e.g.
after stating the Eternal Sonship and Immaculate Conception
of our Lord, says : " Recipite interim banc fabulam, similis
est vestrisj dum ostendimus quomodo Christus prohetur. . . .
.... Quem igitur [Judaji] solummodo hominem prassump-
serant de humilitate, sequebatur uti magum estimarent de
potestate, cum ille verbo dajmonia de hominibus excuteret,
cseeos reluminaret, leprosos purgaret, j)aralyticos restringeret,
mortuos denique verbo redderet vitse, elementa ipse famularet,
compescens procellas et freta ingrediens, ostendens se esse
Logon Dei, i.e. Verljum illud primordiale primogenitum."
At the moment of His death upon the cross, — " Dies,
medium orbem signante sole, subducta est  Eum
mundi casum relatum in arcanis vestris habetis." The
crowning miracles of the Resurrection and Ascension follow,
upon the strength of which Tertullian says : " Et Ca3sares
credidissent super Christo, si aut Csesares non essent seculo
necessarii, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Csesares."
{ApologeticHS, c. ai.)
Arnobius appeals to the eridence of miracles : " Ergone
inquiet aliquis, Deus ille est Christus ? Deus respondebimus.
Postulabit, an se ita res habeat, quemadmodum dicimus, com-
prohari. Nulla major est comprobatio, quam gestarum ab eo
fides rerum." He then enumerates the Gospel miracles :
" Ergo ille mortalis aut unus fuit e nobis cujus imperium,
cujus vocem, invaletudines morbi, febres, atque alia corporum
crueiamenta fugiebant ? Unus fuit e nobis qui redire in
corpora jamdudum animas prsecipiebat inflatas ? . . . . Unus
fuit e nobis qui, deposito corpore innumeris se hominum
prompta in luce detexit? qui sermonem dedit atque accepit,
docuit, castigavit, admonuit ? qui ne iUi se falsos vanis
imaginationibus existimarent, semel, iterum, ssepius familiari
coUocutione monstravit." {Adrersus Gentes, lib. i. c. 42, et seq.)

L] NOTE 2. 248
For the truth of the miracles he refers to the eridence of testi
mony : " Sed non creditis gcsta li;ee. Scd qui ea cons])icati
sunt fieri, et sub oculis suis viderunt agi, testes optimi, ccrtis-
simique auctorcs et crcdidernnt haic ipsi et crcdenda jxjstcris
tradidenmt. . . . Sed ab indoctis hominibus et rudilnis scripta
sunt, ct idcirco non sunt facili auditionc crcdenda. Vide
ne magis hsac fortior causa sit, cur ilia sint nullis coinquinata
mendaciis, mente simplici prodita, et ignara lenociniis am-
pliare." (cc. 54, 58.)
" Abfuit ergo ab bis," says Lactantius, " fingendi voluntas
et astutia, quoniam rudes fuerunt. Quis posset indoctus apta
inter se et cohserentia fingere. Non enim quajstus et coni-
modi gratia religionem istam commenti sunt, quippe qui
et praeceptis et reipsa cam \'itam secuti sunt quae et volupta-
tibus caret, et omnia qu£e habeiitur in bonis spernit." {Divin.
Inst. V. 3.)
Athanasius, in a passage in the " De Incarnatione Verbi,"
marshals the great miracles of our Lord's ministry and life
into one long eridential arraj^, the conclusion being : ovtoos
eK Tutv epycov hv yvmaOeir] on ovk avdpbiiros aWa 6eov bvvanis
Kol \6yos ecrrlv 6 ravra epyaCoixevos  tIs iblav amov to?
vocrovs lafxivov, ev ats viroKeiTaL to avOpcoTiLVOv yevos, (ti avdpo)-
Tiov Kal oil 0601' rjyelTO  tIs yap lbb)V avTov anobidovra
TO koLTTov, ols T) yev€(ns ei'eA.f i\//e, kol tov €k yeverrj^ TvtpXov tow
6<p6a\iJ.ovs avoCyovTa, ovk &v iv(v6r]a-f Trjv avdpdntuiv vnoKeiixivriv
aiiT^ yivecTiv, /cat ravrris elvai b7)p.Lovpyov tovtov Kal ¦noLr]Tr]v.
(e. 18.) A modem writer would have stated the argument
both of Athanasius and Tertullian more accurately, and said
not that such miracles proved that the worker was the Word,
the Son of God, mere men having been Divine agents in
miraculous operations, but that they were a guarantee to the
truth of the declaration of the worker, if He pronounced
Himself to be the Son of God.
Augustine speaks of miraculous evidence as the evidence
upon which the Apostles relied in commencing the conversion
of the world : " Qui enim Christum in carne resurrexisse, et
cum ilia in ccelum ascendisse non viderantj id se vidisse nar-
rantibus  credebant." {Be Civil. Bei, xxii. 5.) And to
K 2

2il. NOTE 2, [Lec'i"
the objection why miracles were not continued, he answers that
miracles were necessary at first for the purpose of evidence,
but not afterwards : " Necessaria fuisse priusquam crederet
mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus." {Ibid. c. 8.) Origen,
whose works present a striking mixture of obsolete fanciful
speculation and intellectual modern criticism, meets Celsus
Avitli the argument of miracles. " Celsus," he says, " unable
to deny the miracles of Jesus, calumniates them as works of
magic; and I have often had to combat him on this ground.''^
{Contra Cels. lib. ii. s. 48.) He appeals in the spirit of a
modern writer on eridences to the deep and permanent
effects of our Lord's Resurrection upon the Apostles, and
the change which took place in their whole conduct after
this alleged event, as evidence of the truth of that event.
" The zeal with which they devoted themselves to the work
of conversion, encountering e\'eiy danger, is a clear proof
of the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus; for they could
not have taught with this earnestness had they feigned such
an event ; they could not have inculcated contempt of death
upon others, and exemplified it themselves." {Ibid. s. 56.) He
observes how few the cases of persons raised from the dead
in the Gospels are, and that if such cases were spurious
there would have been more of them. "On 8e Kot vcKpovs
avCarrj, /cat ovk ea-ri 7rA.acr/xa tS>v to. €vayyi\.ia ypa\j/dvTa>v, ira-
pCcTTarai e/c tov, el p-ev ¦nKdcrp.a rjv, TtoXKovs avay(ypd<f>dai tovs
avaordvTas  eiret 8' ovk fo-TL TtXdcrjxa -ndw evapiOp-rfTovs
\eKf)(dM. {Ibid. c. 48.) Chrysostom uses Origen^'s argu
ment : " Had Christ not really risen from the dead, how do
we account for the fact that the Apostles, who in their be
haviour to Him living had shewn such weakness and cowardice
that they deserted and betrayed Him, after His death shewed
such zeal that they laid down their lives for Him ?" {In
S. Ignatium., torn. ii. p. 599.) The Resurrection of Christ, as
being His OAvn act, not brought about by the instrumentality
of another agent, visibly acting in His behalf as the medium
of the operation of the miracle (which was the manner in
which the other resurrections mentioned in Scripture had
taken place), is regarded as in and of itself a proof of His

L] NOTE 2. 245
Divinity. " His body," says Athanasius, " as having a
common nature with our own, was mortal and died; but,
inasmuch as it was united with the Word, could not incur
corruption, but on account , of the Word of God dwelling in
it was incorruptible. In the same Body were fulfilled two
apparent opposites, both that it underwent death, and that
death and corruption, by reason of the indxoelling Word, were
abolished  Inasmuch as the Word could not die, but
was immortal. He assumed a Body that was able to die, in
order that He might ofier it up for the sake of all, and
that the same Word by reason of His junction to that Body,
might destroy him tlmt hath tlie power of death." {Be Incarn.
§ 20.) Chrysostom singles out the peculiarity of the miracle
of the Resurrection — to kavrov riva bvvaa-dai dvaa-Tqv. {In
Joan xxiv. tom. viii. p. 136.)
But while the Fathers appealed familiarly to the evidence
of miracles in behalf of the truth of Christianity, there were
particular kinds of belief strong in the minds of the Fathers,
and of their age, which prevented the argument of miracles
from assuming in their hands the compactness and stringency
Avhich it has gained in the hands of modern writers on cat.-
dence. Of the kinds of belief to which I refer, the first was
their acceptance to a certain extent of the " dispensation of
Paganism," to use Dr. NcAvman's phrase {Arians, p. 89), and
with it of certain miraculous pretensions whicb Paganism had
put forth ; the second was their belief in magic. A writer on
evidence in the present age, in urging the evidence of miracles
to the divine nature and mission of Christ, is not incom
moded by any sti-ong belief, existing either in his own mind
or in the age, in the reality of any supernatural demonstra
tions outside of the course of miracles which constitute the
evidences of Revelation, and standing in a position of rivalry
to them. The Scripture miracles, if proved, thus stand alone
in his plan of defence as true and admitted miracles, and
the inference from the truth of the miracles to the truth of
the doctrines is an unimpeded step, there being no counter
acting force in the confessed existence of supernatural action
under a false religion, or from a corrupt and evil power.

21G NOTE 2. [Lect.
which has to be allowed and accounted for, in drawing the
evidential conclusion. But the Fathers believed that super
natural powers had been bestowed by Providence on various
occasions, under Paganism ; and they had also a strong and
undoubting belief in magic and a diabolical source of super
natural exhibitions. The argument of miracles in tlieir hands
therefore was an obstructed and qualified argument, main
tained in conflict with various counter admissions; and' the
conclusion from it, though undoubting and full, was not
given in the summary and rigorous form in which a popular
school of writers on evidence has put it.
I. The general attitude of the early Church toward the
heathen world somewhat differed from that of modern Chiis-
tendom. The early Church admitted of a common ground to
a certain extent between herself and Paganism, and saw in
the latter system more than relics of the goodness of fallen
man, viz. traces of a lower but in some sort Bivine dispensa
tion. " Earlier Christianity," as I have remarked elsewhere,
" regarded the Gentile world more as a field of promise, and
saw in it the future harvest rather than the present foe.'^
The doctrine of the Logos under the treatment of the Alex
andrian school imparted a systematic form and theological
basis to this estimate of Paganism : for in the eye of that
school " the dispensation of Paganism, so far as it contained
truth, was but a lower part of one large dispensation, which
our Lord, as the Divine Reason, had instituted and carried on
for the enlightenment of the human race, and of which the
Gospel was the consummation ; heathens and Christians were,
though in a different measure, still alike partakers of that one
' Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world ;'
and all mankind, as brought into union and fellowship by that
common participation, formed one religious society and com
munion — one Church." {Augastivian Boctrine of Predestination ,
Such a Divine element being recognized in Paganism, the
next step was that a certain authority was attached by the
early Fathers in various instances to ancient Pagan legend
and traditions of miraculous appearances and interpositions.

I] NOTE 2. 247
Cases of special Divine interposition in the Gentile world arc
recognized in Scripture.
" Scripture ^ives us reason to believe," says Dr. Newman,
" that the traditions, thus originally delivered to mankind at
large, have been secretly rc-aniniated and enforced by new
communications from the unseen world; though these were
not of such a nature as to be produced as evidence, or used
as criteria and tests, and roused the attention rather than
informed the understandings of the heathen. The book of
Genesis contains a record of the dispensation of natural re
ligion, or paganism, as well as of the patriarchal. The dreams
of Pharaoh and Abimelech, as of Nebuchadnezzar afterwards,
are instances of the dealings of God with those to whom He
did not vouchsafe a written revelation. Or should it be said
that the particular cases merelj' come within the range of the
Divine supernatural governance which was in their neigh
bourhood, — an assertion which requires proof, — let the book
of Job be taken as a less suspicious instance of the dealings of
God with the heathen. Job was a Pagan in the same sense
in which the Eastern nations are Pagans in the present day.
He lived among idolaters, j-et he and his friends had cleared
themselves from the superstitions with which the true creed
Avas beset ; and, while one of them was divinely instructed by
dreams, he himself at length heard the voice of God out of
the whirlwind, in recompense for his long trial and his faith
fulness under it  If it be objected that Job lived in a less
corrupted age than the times of ignorance which followed.
Scripture, as if for our full satisfaction, draws back the cur
tain further still in the history of Balaam. There a bad man
and a heathen is made the oracle of true Divine messages
about doing justly, and loAing mercy, and walking humbly ;
nay, even among the altars of superstition the Spirit of God
vouchsafes to utter prophec3% And so in the cave of Endor,
even a saint was sent from the dead to join the company of
an apostate king, and the sorceress whose aid he was seeking.
Accordingly, there is nothing unreasonable in the notion, that
there may have been heathen poets and sages, or sibyls again,
in a certain extent divinely illuminated, and organs through
whom religious and moral truth was conveyed to their coun
trymen; though their knowledge of the Power from whom
the gift came, nay, their perception of the gift as existing in
themselves, may have been very faint or defective." {Arians,
p. 89.)
But the Fathers went further, and recognized Pagan super-

248 NOTE 2. [Lect.
natural events, as occurring in the common stream of Pagan
history, apart from any connexion with or relation to the
sacred people. Certain Pagan miracles, especially some which
occur in Roman history, had gained a respectable place in the
works of heathen historians, the same list recurs in different
Fathers, and Minutius . Felix {Octavius, c. 27), Lactantius
{Bivin. Inst. lib. ii. c. 8), Tertullian {Apol. c. 22), and Augustine
{Be Civil. Bei, lib. x. c. 16), extend a kind of acceptance to
thema. The latter Father exhibits perhaps more of a critical
spirit than bis predecessors, and in touching on the subject of
natural marvels, csi:)ecially the existence of certain extraor
dinary nations which was asserted in geographical books of
that age, says, " Sed omnia genera hominum quaj dicuntur
esse credere non est necesse." {Be Civil. Bei, xvi. 8.) He
supposes himself j)ressed by an objector who reminds him
that if he discredits the marvels of secular writers he will
ha\'e to account for his belief in those of Scripture, but he
disowns the dilemma. " Quod propterea poterunt dicere, ut
respondendi nobis angustias ingerant : quia si dixerimus non
esse credendum, scripta ilia miraculorum infirmabimus ; si
autem credendum esse concesserimus, confirmabimus numina
" Such a partial recognition however of Pagan legends and reports of super
natural occurrences must be distinguished from the appeals which the Fathers
sometimes make to heathen mythology, in defence of Christianity against
heathen objections — appeals which have the force of an argumentum ad homi
nem. Thus when heathen opponents taunted the Christians with the igno
minious death of Him whom they asserted to be the Son of God, Justin
Martyr encountered them with facts from their own mythology — the miserable
earthly fates which some of Jove'a sons had met — 'AaKKri-ribv koI Ofpnirdn-iiv
yev6tJ.evov, Kipa.uv(oQ4vTO. ayaX^K^vOh-ai els ovpav6f At6in}Crov Se SiainrapaxBeyTO.'
'HpoKhea Si (puy^ ¦n6i/u>v iavThv irvpl Sivra. {Apol. i. 21.) Though he also
considers these coarse and fabulous pictures of the sufferings of heroism in
pagan mythology as an intentional tr.westy of the sufferings and persecutions
of the Messiah, inspired by diabolical cunning, in order to confuse men, and
blind them to the notes of the Messiah when He came, — ra iJ.vdoroi-qBevTa iwh
Tuiv iroLriTwv airaTrj koI airayaiyi] rov avOpojireiou y4vovs dpTJffOai a.TroSfiKPvp.€y war'
ivip-iniau rHv ipaiXav Sat^iiivaiy. {Apol. i. s. 54.) So Tertullian, in speaking of
the Incamation, says, " Recipite hanc fabulam ; similis est vestris, dum osten
dimus quomodo Christus prohetur. Sciebant et qui penes vos ejusmodi fabulas
remidas ad destructlonem veritatls istiu.^modi pi-»ministraverunt, venturum
esse Christum.'' (Apol. u. xxi.^

I.] NOTE 2. 249
paganonim. Sed nos non liabemus necesse omnia credere
quffi continet historia gentium, cum et ipsi inter se historici,
sicut ait Varro, per multa dissentiant." {Be Civ. Bei, xxi. 6.)
Later writers however of reputation have acknowledged Pagan
miracles; Dante {Be Monarchia, lib. ii. c. 3) ranks certain re
corded in Roman history as evidences, among other proof, of
the Divine authority of the Roman empire. And even our
theologian Jackson entertains the idea of supernatural visita
tions under Paganism.
" As the end and purpose which Homer assigns for the
apparitions of his gods, so are both these, and many other
particular circumstances of his gods assisting the ancient
heroics, such as might justly breed offence to any serious
reader, if a man should avouch them in earnest, or seek to
persuade him to expect more than mere delight in them.
Yet I cannot think that he would have feigned such an
assistance, unless the valour of some men in former times had
been extraordinary, and more than natural. Which super
natural excellency in some before others, could not proceed
but from a supernatural cause. And thus far his conceit
agrees with Scripture ; that there were more heroical spirits
in -old times than in later, and more immediate directions
from God for managing of most wars. And from the expe
rience hereof, the ancient poets are more copious in their
hyperbolical praises of their worthies, than the discreeter sort
of later poets durst be, whilst they wrote of their own times.
Not that the ancient were more licentious, or less observant
of decorum in this kind of fiction than the other; but because
the manifestation of a Divine power in many of their victories
was more seen in ancient than in later times; so that such
fictions, as to the ancient people might seem (by reason of
these extraordinary events then frequent) veiy probable, would
have been censured as ridiculous and apish in succeeding
ages, wherein no like events Avere manifested  But
Avhy their forefathers should either have invented such
strange reports, or be so inclinable to believe them; if we
search into the depth or first spring of this persuasion, we
cannot imagine any other cause, but the real and sensible
experience of such strange events as they reported to
posterity  The often manifestation of an extraor
dinary power in battles, or presence in oracles, and sensible
documents of revenge from heaven, made the one prone to
entertain any report of the gods, though never so strange ;

250 NOTE 2. [Lect.
and the want of Hke sensible signs of the same power in our
days (while men's minds arc still set upon politic means and
practices for their own good) dolh make the other so apt to
assent to any politic discourse, and so averse from belief of the
prophets or sacred Vv'riters." {Comments upon the Creed, bk. i.
ch. xi, xii.
I quote this passage from Jaclcson as, though a milder and
more modified specimen, a sj^ecimen in a modern divine of the
spirit favourable to Pagan supernatural events in the Fathers.
2. But the dilference between the patristic treatment of
the argument of miracles, and its treatment in the hands of
our own popular writers on evidence, is due mainly to another
source, viz. the belief of the Fathers in magic. The Fathers
held the popular ideas of their age on this subject, and Avrote
under a strong and genuine conviction that there was such
an art as magic, and that it had real powers and could
produce real supernatural effects ; from which effects they
were bound to distinguish true miracles, which came from a
Divine source and were wrought for the proof of a Divine
revelation. The class of enchanters or wizards — magi, prasti-
giatores — did not figure in their eyes as the mere creation of
legend and fancy, but as a class possessed of real powers.
The source of these powers Avas held to be the relation in
Avhich these persons stood to dtemons and e^il spirits. The
order of daemons, their origin, their nature, and the place
which they are permitted to occupy in the world, are dis
cussed Avith much more boldness and more attempt at accu
racy and detail in patristic theology than in modern; and
the early Avriters introduce, in addition to the Scripture
notices of devils, the material of tradition and the theories
of Alexandrian Platonism. Augustine {Be Civ. Bei, viii. 14
et seq.) comments upon Porphyry's cUvision of the rational
universe, which was the Platonic one : " Omnium inquiunt
animalium, in quibus est anima rationalis, tripartita divisio
est, in Deos, homines, dasmones. Dii excelsissimum locum
tenent, homines infimum, dasmones medium. Nam deorum
sedes in eojlo est, hominum in terra, in aere dsemonum." (c. 14.)
Augustine does not object to the existence of an order of

LJ NOTE 2. 251
daemons so situated, but only to the Platonic inference from
it : " Jam vero de loci altitudine, quod dfemones in aere, nos
autem habitamus in terra, ita permoveri ut liinc cos nobis
esse pra^ponendos existimemus, omnino ridiculum est. Hoc
enim pacto nobis et omnia volatilia prasponimus." {Ibid. c. 15.)
He identifies these da3mons with the evil spirits of Scripture.
TertuUian's language is : " Itaque corporibus quidcm et vale-
tudmes infligunt [daemones] et aHquos casus acerbos, animte
vero repentinos et extraordinarios per vim excessus. Suppetit
illis ad utramque substantiam homines adeundam mira subti-
Htas et tenuitas sua." {Apol. c. 22.) Minutius Felix acqui
esces in the Platonic assertion of an intermediate class of
beings : "¦ Substantiam inter mortalem immortalemque, i. e.
inter corpus et spiritum, mediam, terreni ponderis et coelestis
IcAatatis admixtione concretam;" which he identifies Avith
the dcAils of Scripture {Octavius, c. 0,6). Lactantius adopts a
tradition : " Cum ergo numeiTis hominum coepisset increscere
.... misit Deus augelos ad tutelam cultumque generis humani,
quibus quia liberum arbitrum erat datum, praecepit ante omnia
ne terrse contagione maculati, substantias coelestis amitterent
dignitatem  Itaque illos cum hominibus commorantes
dominator ille terrae fallacissimus [the devil, who according
to Lactantius bad fallen from envy of the Son of God pre
viously to the creation of these angels, c. 9,] consuetudine
ipsa j)aulatim ad vitia pellexit, et mulierum congressibus
inquinavit. Tum in coelum ob peccata non recepti ceciderunt
ad terram. Sic eos Diabolus ex angelis Dei suos fecit satel
lites." {Bivin. Inst. Hb. ii. c. 15.)
To this order of daemons, Avhich the Platonists revered, but
which the Fathers identified with the lost spirits of Scrip
ture, both Christian and heathen writers in common assigned
the authorship of the supernatural effects produced by
magic. '^'^ Apuleius," says Augustine, ''ascribes to these the
divinations of the augurs and soothsayers, the foresight of
prophets and dreams, and also the miracles of wizards "
{miracula magorum). {Be Civ. Bei, viii. 16.) Tertullian attri
butes the responses of the heathen oracles and other Pagan
channels of prophecy, as well as the miracles of magic, to

252 NOTE 2. [Lect.
the same source. " Omnis spiritus ales est : hoc angeli et
da3mones : igitur momento ubique sunt : totus orbis illis
locus unus est : quod ubique generatur tam facile sciunt
quam enuntiant, velocitas divinitas creditur, quia substantia
ignoratur  Porro et magi phantasmata edunt ....
multa miracula circulatoriis prsestigiis ludunt, habentes dae-
monum assistentem sibi potestatem." {Apol. cc. 22, 23.) Justin
Martyr {Apol. Hb. i. s. 5), Irenaeus {Contra Har. ii. c. 32),
Lactantius {Bivin. List. lib. ii. c. 15) use the same language.
So too Minutius Felix : " Magi quoque non tantum sciunt
daBmonas, sed etiam quicquid miraculi ludunt, per daemonas
faciunt ; illis adspirantibus et infundentibus." {Octavius, c. 26.)
So too Augustine : " Addimus etiam et humanarum et magi-
carum, id est per homines daemonicarum artium, et ipsorum
per seipsos dsemonum multa miracula." {Be Civ. Bei, xxi. 6.)
And he argues for the reality of true or divinely-wrought
miracles from the fact of these miracles of inferior and
diabolical origin : " Quamobrem si tot et tanta mirifica
Dei creatura utentibus humanis artibus fiunt, ut ea qui
nesciunt opinentur esse divina : si magorum opera, quos nostra
Seriptura veneficos et incantatores vocat, in tantum daemones
extollere potuerunt  quanto magis Deus potens est
facere quae infidelibus sunt incredibilia." {Ibid.) Origen
accounts for the power of magicians, by the help partly of
his mysterious theory of words, which he applies to this
subject, intimating that a power is exerted over daemons
by the knowledge and utterance of their true names, in the
language of their own appropriate regions : Aio /cat bvvaTai
TavTa TO, ovopara Xtyopeva ptrd twos tov avp(f>vovs avrois
flppov' dXka be Kara AlyvnTiav (fiepopeva <f:(ovriv, em Tivdv
baipovcov T&v rdbe pova bvvapevcav, kol dWa Kara ttjv Ylepa-cov
bidXeKTOv €?it aWwv bvvapecov  "Ort ot Trept Tyv x/jT/o-tf
T&p iiTuibZv beivol laTopova-iv, ort T-qv avT-fjv eTt<abT]v elTTOVTa p,ev
Tji olKeiq biakeKTta, ecrriv evepyrjaai OTiep eTTayyeWerai, fj enaibri.
{Contra Cels. lib. i. s. 24, 25''.)
'' Professor Blunt, in his " Lectures on the Early Fathers," has a note upon
this theory of names put forth by Origen ; in which, however, he erroneously
supposes the theory to be connected in Origen's meaning with Christian

LJ NOTE 2. 253
Such being the belief of the Fathers in the reality of
magic, a belief which tliey expressed either with simplicity
or with ingenious and philosophical additions, according to
the character of the writers, how did they distinguish true
miracles wrought in evidence of a Divine communication
from the supernatural results of magic? They bad different
modes of meeting this objection, and establishing the Divine
source of the Gospel miracles. They appealed to the great
ness, majesty, and sublimity of the latter, which were of such
a kind that no magic had ever professed to produce any
thing like them. Our Lord's Resurrection especially was re
garded as intrinsically a Divine act, being, as it was, a miracle
sui generis, not wrought hj any intermediate agent, any person
intervening between the Invisible Supernatural Power and the
subject of that power, but Avrought by our Lord Himself upon
Himself: Himself in death restoringHimself to life. (See below,
p. 245.) "Magicians," says Chrysostom, speaking even of
the miracles of our Lord's ministry, " have wrought miracles,
but not such miracles"— yoTjrey a-ripeia TrotoCcrt, akk' ov Totaura
exorcism, and the exertion of miraculous powers within the Church, wherea."!
Origen is not speaking of Christian miracles but of heathen and Jewish magic,
and only proposes the theory in that connexion. Professor Blimt thus finds a
difficulty in Origen's implicit disclaimer of the proceedings and powers with
¦which this theory of names is connected ; whereas such powers being those
of magic, Origen's separation of himself from them and those who practise
them is no difficulty. " Some particulars," Professor Blunt says in the text,
referring to the existence of miraculous powers in the Early Church, "may
embarrass us ;" and among them Origen's theory of names, applied, as he
supposes, to these Christian powers ; an application with which he cannot
reconcile Origen's introduction of Jewish and heathen thaumaturgy in con
nexion with it ; and he pursues the difficulty in a note. " It is remarkable
that when giving further instances of the like effect produced by the names
Israel, Sabaoth, Adonai, whilst expressed in Hebrew, and of the inefficacy
of the same when translated, he uses the expression Ss ipacriy oi ircpX ravra
deiyoi : and again, eav 5e rrjp-fio'Qifj.ev avrh, irpoffoKTovres oTs ot vepl ravra Seivol
ffvfnrKfK^tv avrh ffiiS'/jtrav — ' but if we retain the original word, coupling it with
such other words as those who are sJ:ilful in such matters are used to couple it ' —
(Contra Cels. v. s. 45), as though Origen disclaimed aU such powers of in
cantation for himself," &c. {Blunt, p. 399.) His speaking of this class as
one with which he has no connexion does not require to be accounted for,
because the class of which he is speaking was not a Christian one, but that
of wizards and practisers of the art of magic.

2.54 NOTE 2. [Lect.
TToiovcTi aTjpela. (tom. xii. p. 32.) " Potcstis aliquem nobis
designare," says Arnobius, " monstrare ex omniljus illis
magis qui unquam fuere per secula, consimile aliquid Christo
millesima ex parte qui fecerit?" {Adv. Gentes, lib. i. c. 43.)
The manner and mode in Avhicli Christ wrought His miracles,
without any of the low forms and fantastic utterances and
repetitions of magic, by a simple word or touch, is also ob
served. "We may also with St. Irenrous'^ observe," says
Barrow, " that Jesus, in performing His cures and other
miraculous works, did never use any profane, silly, fantastic
ceremonies ; any muttering of barbarous names or insignificant
phrases; any invocation of spirits, or inferior powers; any j)re-
paratory purgations, any mysterious circumstances of pro
ceeding, apt to amuse people ; any such unaccountable methods
or instruments, as magicians, enchanters, diviners, circula-
torious jugglers, and such emissaries of the devil, or self-
seeking impostors, are wont to use ; but did proceed altogether
in a most innocent, simple, and grave manner, with a majestic
authority and clear sincerity, becoming such an agent of God
as He professed Himself to be."" (vol. v. p. 205.)
But the great token by which the Fathers distinguished
the miracles of the Gospel, those supernatural works whicb
bore Avitness to our Lord's Divine mission, from the miracles
produced by thaumaturgy and the power of inferior spirits,
was the evidence of prophecy. The body of miracles which
testified to our Lord as the Messiah, coincided and fitted in
Avith a whole series of prophetical indications which had com
menced with the beginning of things, i. e. with the fall of the
first man, and had been sustained continuously almost to the
very advent of our Lord. From the first page of the Old
Testament to the last a constant promise was held out of the
coming of One who should redeem mankind — a Great De
liverer who should save His people from their sins, and plant
a new dispensation, a Divine kingdom in the world. It Avas
evident that when this great Personage, so long pointed
out by prophecy, came, there must be tokens by AAdiich
= Contra Haer. ii. 58.

L] NOTE 2. 2.W
He could be recognized as the Person who was meant by such
prophecy, avIio was the true Messiah, to whom all these inti
mations belonged. When therefore a Personage appeared
who claimed to be the Messiah, who announced Ilim.sclf as
the Head of this new kingdom in the world, — One whoso
Avholc life and teaching corresponded to that pretension, and
who moreover authenticated His character and mission by
the most remarkable and astonishing miracles ; such an exhi
bition of miraculous poAver must plainly in reason be looked
upon not simply in itself, but also in connexion Avith that
constant voice of prophecy which had heralded the approach
of a Messiah. Here was a coincidence — a Great Personage
with an extraordinary mission had been 2^^'<^dwted, One who
professed to be this Great Personage had come, bringing the
testimony of miracles to the truth of His announcement.
Such a miraculous demonstration, therefore, could not be
regarded in the same light as that in which a sudden un
looked-for outbreak of supernatural power would be, some
vronderful outburst which came isolated and disconnected
Avith all circumstances preceding it ; but must be con
templated in conjunction with the antecedent posture of
things and the antecedent course of revelation. The miracles
fulfilled prophecy ; prophecj^ therefore was a guarantee to the
miracles. It was a security for their Divine source — that
they really were tokens from God. The two, as in every ease
of coincidence, confirmed each other. This was the great
distinction then which in the eyes of the Fathers separated
the Gospel miracles in character from those miracles Avhicli
magic and diabolical power could produce. Magic might
achieve extraordinary effects for the moment and at the
moment, but it could not create the long antecedent flow
of prophecy, the long expectancy of revelation, the intima
tions of the Divine Oracle from the beginning of things,
the foreshadoAvings and anticipations which had from the
first signified the approach of a Messiah, and had been the
standing oracle in the heart of the holy nation, and, in
a sense, of mankind. The idea was that miracles, to have
their proper effect as evidence, must not be a mere. present

256 NOTE 2. [Lect.
exhibition, but that they must have a root in the past, that
they must be the fulfilment of and cany out some great
antecedent plan and promise, that they must fit in Avith the
course of the Divine dispensation, and that they must testify
to some truth which had already an incipient place in the
authorized religion.
Such is the current answer of the Fathers by Avhich they
meet the objection of magic — prophecy. " Should any one
object to us," says Justin Martyr, " that Christ Avrought His
miracles by magic, we refer him to the Prophets." {Ajwl. i. 30.)
" If," says Irenaius, " they say that the Lord Avrought these
wonders by illusion — (^afrao-tcoSwy — we refer them to the Pro
phetical writings, from which we shall shew that all these
things were predicted of Him." {Contra liar. lib. ii. c. 32.)
" Celsus," says Origen, " asserts that if we are asked why
we belicA'e Jesus to be the Son of God, avc reply that He
healed the lame and the blind, AAdiereas he himself attributes
these Avorks to magic. I answer that we hold Jesus to be the
Son of God on account of these miracles, but on account
of them as having been foretold by the Prophets." {Contra
Cels. lib. ii. s. 48.) " Know," says Lactantius, " that Christ is
believed by us to be God, not only on account of His miracles,
but because we see in Him all those things accomplished
which were announced by the Prophets. He wrought mi
racles : we might have thought Him a magician as ye think
Him, and as the Jews did, if all the Prophets had not with
one mouth foretold that He would do those very things.
Therefore we believe Him to be God, not more from His
wonderful deeds than from the Cross itself, because that was
foretold. Nor therefore do we repose faith in His divinity,
on account of His own testimony, but on account of the testi
mony of the Prophets, Avho long before predicted what He
would do and suffer ; — a kind of proof which cannot belong
to Apollonius, or Apuleius, or any of the magicians." {Bivin.
Inst. Hb. V. c. 3.) Augustine takes his stand upon miracles and
prophecy together : " Exceptis enim tot et tantis miraculis,
quae persuaserunt Deum esse Christum, prophetiae quoque
Divinae fide dignissimae praecesserunt, quae in illo, non sicut a

L] NOTE 2. 257
patribus adbuc crcduntur implcnda', scd jam demonslrantur
im])lct;i,'." {Be Cir. Bei, xxii. (i.)
Jackson represents with tolerable fidelity ihe patristic
view : —
" i5y Christ's miracles alone considered, they were not bound
absolutely to bulicre lie was the Messias, but by comparing them
with other circumstances, or presupjwsed truths, especially the
Scripture's received and approved propJiecies of the Messias :
though no one for the greatness of power manifested in it
could of itself, yet the frequency of them at that time, and
the condition of the parties on whom they were wrought,
might absolutely confirm John and his disciples ; because
such thcj' Avcre in these and every respect, as the evangelical
proj)het had foretold Messias should work : for this reason
our Saviour delivers His answer in the prophet's own words,
as elsewhere He Himself did read them, then best interpreted
by the signs of the time, that John might see by the event He
Avas the man of whom Isaiah speaks. He whom, the Lord had
ajjp)ointed to preach the gospel to the pjoor, whom He had sent to
heal ihe brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the capjtives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty such as icere
bruised, and that He should preach the acceptable year of the
Lord  From these instances, to omit others, the reader
may resolve himself in Avbat sense Christ's works are said to
bear witness of His divinity, or condemn the Jews of infidelitj'.
Both which they manifestly did, yet not in themselves, not as
severallj- considered or sequestered from all signs of times and
seasons ; but as they involved such concurrence of God's provi
dence, or p>resupposed such pirophetical predictions, as have been
intimated. Every miracle was apt of itself to breed admira
tion, and beget some degree of faith, as more than probably
arguing the assistance of a power truly divine. But seeing
Moses had forewarned God would suffer seducers to work
wonders for the trial of His people's faith, who, besides Him
that gave them this libert}-, could set them bounds bej'ond
which they should not pass ? who could precisely define the
compass of that circle, within which only Satan could exer
cise the power he bad by that permission? Be it granted
(which is all men otherwise minded concerning this point
demand) that Beelzebub himself ^Aith the help of all his sub
jects can effect nothing exceeding the natural passive capacity
of things created ; he must be as Avell seeing in the secrets of
nature as these subtle spirits are, that can precisely define in
all particulars what may be done by force of nature, what not.
s

258 NOTE 2. [Lect.
Hardly can avc (without some admonitions to observe their
carriage) discern the sleight of ordinary jugglers : much more
easily might the prince of darkness so blind our natural
understanding, as to make us believe (were the light of God's
Avord taken away) that were effected by his power which had
been wrought Ijy the finger of God, that secret conveyance of
materials elsewhere preexistent, into our presence, Avas a new
creation of them  Such signs and wonders might be
Avrought by seducers, that such as Avould gaze on them, and
trust their own skill in discerning their tricks, should hardly
escape their snares : If any tnan say to you, Lo, here w Christ,
or, lo, He is there ; believe it not : for false Christs shall arise,
and false prophets, and shall shew signs and wonders, to deceive,
if it were possible, the very elect. And possible it was to have
deceived even these, if it had been possible for these not to
have tried their wonders by the written word." {Comments on
the Creed, bk. iii. ch. 20.)
It was this sense and deep estimate of the value of pro
phecy, as evidence of the Messiah, and as a voucher for the
Divine design in, and the authentic nature of the miraculous
evidence accompanying Him, that sent the Fathers into the
region of heathen proj^hecy, to discover and collect the scat
tered traces of that wider and earlier revelation Avhicli had
from the first shadowed forth this mighty Person, and had
spread dimly and irregularly from the fountain-head of pro
phecy. Their idea was to carry the evidence of a Messiah
back as far as possible — back into the infancy of time, and into
the first daAvn of inspiration ; not only that inspiration which
had been reposited in the sacred books, but that also which
had travelled out of the sacred line of testimony into the
world at large, and scattered itself with the ramifications and
migrations of the human race : it was to connect the Messiah
with the first forecast of the future which had been imparted
to mankind, and with a great prophetic wish which had thus
from the first seated itself in the heart of mankind. Thus the
Sibylline prophecies, which contained as interpreted by Virgil
the original element of a great anticipation, but which had
become corrupted by interpolations, were appealed to by the
Fathers with the interest and fondness of writers who de
lighted to see the expectation of a Messiah rooted in the mind

L] NOTE 2. 259
of the human race. (See Augustine, Be Cir. Bei, xviii. 23 ;
Lactantius, Bivin. Inst. i. 6 ; iv. 6, 15.)
" It was a sound and healthy feeling," says Neander, "that
induced the apologists of Christianity to assume the existence
of a prophetic element, not in Judaism alone, but also in
Paganism, and to make appeal to this, as the apostle Paul at
Athens, in proclaiming the God of revelation, appealed to the
]n-esentiment of the unknown God in the immediate con
sciousness of mankind, and to those forms in which this
consciousness had been expressed by the words of inspired
poets. Christianity, in truth, is the end to which all develop
ment of the religious consciousness must tend, and of which,
therefore, it cannot do otherwise than offer a prophetic testi
mony. Thus there dwells an element of prophecy not barely
in revealed religion, unfolding itself beneath the fostering care
of the divine vintager (John xa') as it struggles onward from
Judaism to its complete disclosure in Christianity, but also in
religion as it grows wild on the soil of paganism, which by
nature must strive unconsciously towards the same end. But
though the apologists had a well-grounded right to search
through those stages of culture from which they themselves
bad passed over to Christianity, in quest of such points of
agreement, — for which purpose they made copious collections
from the ancient jobilosophers and pioets, — yet it might easily
happen that they would be led involuntarily to transfer their
Christian mode of apprehension to their earlier positions, and
allow themselves to be deceiA'cd by mere appearances of re
semblance. Add to this, that Alexandrian Jews and pagan
Platonists may have already introduced many forgeries under
the famous names of antiquity, which could serve as testi
monies in behalf of the religious truths taken for granted by
Christianity in opposition to pagan Polytheism. And at a
time when all critical skill, as well as all interest in critical
inquiries, were alike wanting, it would be easy for men who
were seeking, under the influence of a purely religious in
terest, after the testimonies of the ancients, for such a use, to
allow themselves to be imposed upon by spurious and inter
polated matter. This happened not seldom with the Christian
apologists. " Thus, for instance, there were interpolated writings of this
description passing under the name of that mythic personage
of antiquity, the Grecian Hermes (Trismegistus) or the
Egyptian Thoth ; also under the names of the Persian
Hystaspes (Gushtasp), and of the Sibyls, so celebrated in the
s 2

260 NOTE 2. [I.ect.
Greek and Roman legends, which were used in good faith by
the apologists. Whalovcr truth at bottom might 1)C lying in
those time-old legends of the Sibylline prophecies, of wliicli
the profound Heraclitus, five hundred years before Christ, had
said, ' Their unadorned, earnest words, spoken with insjiircd
mouth, reached through a thousand years,' the consciousness
of such a prophetic element in Paganism, that which in these
predictions was supposed to refer to the fates of cities and
nations, and more particularly to a last and golden age of the
Avoiid, gave occasion to divers interpretations taken from
Jewish and Christian points of view." {Church History, vol.i.
p. 240.)
Lactantius claims the tribute of contemporary oracles to
our Lord, and reports the response of the " Milesian Apollo"
to the question whether Christ " was God or man" — Ovrjrbs
erjv Kara a-dpKa, k.t.K. {Bivin. Inst. iv. 13.) The patristic feeling
is again represented by Jackson : —
" Plutarch's relation of his demoniacal spirits mourning
for great Pan's death, about this time, is so strange, that
it might perhaps seem a tale, unless the truth of the common
bruit had been so constantly avouched by ear-witnesses unto
Tiberius, that it made him call a convocation of wise men, as
Herod did at our Saviour's birth, to resolve him who this
great Pan, late deceased, should be. Thamous, the Egyptian
master (unknown by that name to his passengers, until he
answered to it at the third call of an uncouth voice, uttered
sine authore from the land, requesting him to proclaim the
news of great Pan's death, as he passed by Palodes), was
resolved to have let all pass as a fancy or idle message, if
the \vind and tide should grant him passage by the place
appointed; but the wind failing him on a sudden, at his
coming thither, he thought it but a little loss of breath to
cry out aloud unto the shore as he had been requested,
'(jreat Pan is dead.' The words, as Plutarch relates, were
scarce out of his mouth before they were answered with a
huge noise, as it had been of a multitude, sighing and groan
ing at this wonderment. If these spirits had been by nature
mortal, as this philosopher thinks, the death of their chief
captain could not have seemed so strange ; but that a far
greater than the greatest of them, by whose power the first
of them had his being, should die to redeem bis enemies
from their thraldom, might well seem a matter of wonder
ment and sorroAV unto them. The circumstance of the time
will not permit me to doubt, but that under the known name

•] NOTE 2. 201
of Pan was intimated the great Shepherd of our souls, that
bad then laid down His life for His flock; not the feigned
son of Moriuiy and Penelope, as the wise men foolishly
resolved Tiberius." {Comments on the Creed, bk. i. ch. lo.)
But because prophecy was in the judgment of the Fathers
Avantcd to guarantee the Divine source of miracles, and give
them their proper eflect as evidence, it is not to be con
sidered that the Fathers superseded the intrinsic force of
miracles, and merged it in prophecy. Each of these kinds
of evidence, in their view, stood in need of the other; miracles
to shew Avho was the object of prophecy, prophecy to mark
the Divine character of the miracles; but neither of these
was regarded as sufficient without the other. It was not
siqiposcd that prophecy of itself would be enough to point
out the Messiah to the world upon His arrival, and give
mankind a justification for fixing upon a particular individual
as being that great Personage. For how does the case stand ?
A mighty Deliverer and Redeemer of mankind from sin and
death is announced beforehand, but how is He known when
He does come ? His office is principally mysterious and
supernatural, and does not bear witness to itself. The cir
cumstance therefore that One AA^ho will fulfil this office is
predicted does not supersede the necessity of some adequate
marks and signs at the time to indicate Avho the predicted
Person is, and distinguish Him when He arrives from
others. And the natui-al mark of such a Personage is
miraculous power. This in the idea of the Fathers is wanted
then to point out at the time " the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world," as prophecy is wanted to mark
that miraculous power as divinely bestowed and indicative of
the DiAine will. Prophec3^ announced beforehand that such
a Personage would come; the signs by which He would be
recognized, when He did come, must depend upon other
considerations, viz. what are the natural and adequate evi
dences of such a Personage, His character and mission. This
is a question of judgment and reason, with which prophecy
has nothing to do. Prophecj' in proclaiming Him before
hand implies that He Avill be known and distinguishable upon
His arriA'al; which implies that He will be accompanied at

262 NOTE 2. [Lect.
the time by sufficient evidences : but prophecy does not settle
Avhat those evidences are, much less does it supersede the
need of them.
The patristic structure of evidence was indeed, like the
modern, a mixed one, consisting of different materials —
prophecy, miracles ; the remarkable peculiarity of the spread
of Christianity in the world, that it ascended from the lower
classes of society to the upper, and not by the reverse pro
cess ; and that the new religion was first promulgated by
rude men unacquainted Avith learning and rhetoric, and gained
ground by the force of persuasion, amid persecution and dis
couragement, in spite of torture and death; the moral result
of Christianity, that it couA'erted men from the lowest sen
suality to the practice of Adrtue and piety, and wherever
it had been received had wrought a Avonderful change in
the habits of mankind. The patristic argument consisted
of all these considerations, only not collected into the com
pact body of statement which modern writers have produced,
but given out as each point happened to suggest itself to the
writer's mind, and occurring often in the midst of other and
extraneous matter. Ea'Cii the professed Apologetic treatises
of the ancients are deficient in plan and method. But the
materials of the modern treatises on evidence are there, and
Avith the direct proofs of Christianity the collateral also
appear. " Ineruditos Hberalibus disciplinis, et omnino,
quantum ad istorum doctrinas attinet, impolitos, non peritos
grammatica, non armatos dialectica, non rhetorica inflates,
piscatores Christus cum retibus fidei ad mare hujus seculi
paucissimos misit." {Augustine, Be Civil. Bei, xxii. 5.) Lac
tantius appeals to the rudeness and simplicity of the first
promulgators of the Gospel as evidence of the genuineness
and sincerity of their own belief in the facts which they
reported {Biv. Inst. v. 3), to the progress of the faith under
persecution {Ibid. v. 13), to the virtues of Christians,
especially their humility and "equity," i.e. their all looking
upon themselves as equal in the sight of God, and the rich
and great among them lowering themselves to the IcA^el of the
poor : — " Dicet aliquis, Nonne sunt apud vos, alii pauperes,
alii divites ; alii servi, alii domini? Nonne aliquid inter

L] NOTE 2. 2G3
singuJos interest? Nihil: ncc alia causa est cur nobis in-
vicem fratrum nomcii impcrtiamus, nisi quia pares esse nos
crcdimus." (v. i6.) Origeu retorts upon Celsus the taunt
of the lowly birth and parentage of Jesus, and draws an
argument /b/' the Gospel from the circumstance of our Lord's
surmounting such obstacles : he draws attention to the rapid
sju-ead of His doctrine, the comprehensive power by which it
has drawn over to itself wise and unwise, Greek and bar
barian, the violent persecutions it enabled them to endure,
the difficult moral virtues which it enabled them to practise.
{Contra Cels. i. 27 et seq.) The success of Christianity, that
it had gained ground, that it was believed by Such a large
part of the Avorld, — this matter-of-fact argument has a place in
the patristic evidences : " Nemo ApoUonium pro Deo colit,"
says Lactantius {Biv. Inst. v. 3). This argument has even
more of a place than might have been expected at that early
stage of the progress of Christianity ; and even before Au
gustine talked of the conversion of the " world," which when
the Roman Emperor was gained he might eolourably do,
Origen boasted of the " world's " subjugation to the Gospel —
(OS viKTjaai okov Kocrpov avr^ einj3ovkevovTa {Contra Cels. i. 3).
Indeed, Augustine rhetorically pushes the argument of the
success of the Gospel to such an extent that he aj)pears at
first to assert that that success of itself is evidence enough of
the truth of Christianity, and that besides the miracle of this
success no other miracle is wanted. " Si vero per Apostolos
Christi, ut eis crederetur, Resurrexionem atque Ascensionem
praedicantibus Christi, etiam ista miracula <l facta esse non cre-
dunt : hoc nobis unum grande miraculuyn sujficit, quod earn ierra-
rum orbis sine ullis miraculis credidit." {Be Civ. Bei, lib. xxii.
c. 5.) But when we examine Augustine's argument we find
that what he asserts is not that Christianity is independent of
the evidence of miracles, but that the evidence of the miracles
is so strong and overwhelming that the fact of their falsehood,
^ *' Ista miracula" alludes in Augustine's argument to the miracles cf
the Apostles, by which they confirmed their testimony to our Lord's Kesurrec-
tion and Ascension. " If you do not believe in these miracles," he says,
"you have to believe in as great a miracle, the belief in the Resurrection,
without them." The special allusion, however, to the Apostolic miracles is
not necessary to the argument.

2G4 NOTE 2. [Lkct.
in spite of this evidence, would be more extraordinary than
the fact of their truth. He is arguing for the doctrine of
the resurrecl ion of the body against the heathen ])hilosophers
who thought it incredible : " Sed videlicet homines docti
atque sapientes acute sibi argumentari videntur contra- cor
porum resurrexionem." {Be Civ. Bei, xxii. 4.) And against
this notion of the incredibility of the resurrection of the body,
he urges the fact of our Lord's bodily resun-ection. This
fact, he sajry, is now accepted by the whole world. " Sed
incredibile fuerit aliquando : ecce jam credidit mundus sub-
laium terrenum Christi corpus in ciclum, resnrrectionem carnis et
ascensionem." (c. 5.) But that the Avhole world, be says,
should believe that a thing intrinsically incredible has taken
place is itself incredible. He thus reduces the philosophers
to the dilemma that they must believe something incredible,
either the incredible fact itself or the incredible belief in it;
and therefore that the apparent incredibility of the miracle of
Christ's Resurrection is no reason against it. The argument
is rhetorical and not a rigid specimen of evidential reasoning ;
but what the argument aims at is the proof of the truth of the
miracle of our Lord's Resurrection, not the conclusion of the
truth of Christianity being independent of that miracle. " Si
rem incredibilem crediderunt, videant quam sint stolidi [the
heathen sceptics against whom he is arguing] qui non cre-
dunt : si autem res incredibilis eredita est, etiam hoc utique
incredibile est sic creditum esse quod incredibile est." {Ibid.)
Why should the resurrection of the body and the particular
resurrection of our Lord's body be disbelieved as incredible,
when if we disbelieve that, we must believe something else
which is quite as incredible ? We meet the same argument in
Chiysostom : Tlodev to d^ioTnaToi' eaypv ; ozep yap e(\>Qr}i'
elTTOiv, el (TrjpeiGjv x'^P^'i evein-av, irokkm pel^ov to Oavpa (paCverai.
{Horn. ri. in Cor. tom. x. p. 45.)
So again Augustine says {Contra Ep. Manichai, c. 5) —
"Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicae ec-
clesiae commoveret auctoritas," — which some might interpret
to mean that he accepted the Gospel upon the testimony
of the Church solely, and did not require the proof of
miracles. But Thorndike in commenting on this passage

L] NOTE 2. 265
distinguishes between two functions and capaeilios of the
Church, one false, the other true; one, according to which
the Church was an infallible asscrtcr, and her assertion
enough; the other, according to which the Church was a
Ijody of men witnessing to the transmission of certain doc
trines and scriptures, upon certain evidence; witnessing, i.e.
to the evidence of those crcdenda, as well as to the crcdenda
themselves — such evidence being principally miracles. This
is Tborndike's fundamental distinction in treating of the
authority of the Church and the inspiration of Scripture — ¦
his answer to the dilemma, to which the Roman divines
profess to reduce us upon the latter question, urging that
Ave receive the inspiration of Scripture upon the authority
of the Church; and that therefore we stand committed to
the principle of the authority of the Church in the fact of
our belief in the Bible. We do, is Tborndike's reply, but
not to the authoritv of the Church as an infallible asscrtcr,
but as a body ivitnessing to the transmission of certain evi
dence for the inspiration of Scripture, contained in Apostolic
history, — viz. the assertion of their own inspiration by the
Ap)ostles, attested by miracles. He explains then Augustine's
statement in accordance Avith this discriminating view. " The
question is, whether the authority of the Church as a corpora
tion would have moA'cd St. Augustine to believe the Gospel,
because they Iteld it to be true ; or the credit of the Church
as of so many men of common sense attesting the truth of those
reasons which the Gospel tenders, why we ought to believe.
 The miracles done hj those from whom we have the
Scriptures is the only motive to shcAV that they came from
God, and that therefore we are obliged to receive what they
preached, and by consequence the Scrij)tures that contain it.
 For as true as it is that if God has provided such
signs to attest His commission, then we are bound to believe ;
so true is it that if all Christians agree that God did procure
them to be done, then did He indeed pjrocure them to be
done. For so great a part of mankind cannot be out of their
wits all at once." {Principles of Christian Truth, bk. i. ch. ui.)
The Fathers indeed assign other inferior uses to miracles
besides the most important purpose of evidence ; such as

266 NOTE 2. [Licct.
those of excitintr and stimulatiu"-, awakeninjj men from the
torpor of custom ; and in the light of this ad\'antage they
speak of miracles as an accommodation to human weakness.
Thus Augustine : " Quamvis itaque miracula visibilium na-
turarum videndi assiduitate viluerunt, tamen cum ea sa-
pienter intueamur inusitatissimis rarissimisque majora sunt.
Nam et omni miraculo quod fit per hominem majus mira-
culum est homo. Quapropter Deus qui fecit visibilia, ccelum
et terram, non dediguatur facere visibilia miracula in coelo
et terra quibus ad se invisibilem colendum excitet animum ad-
huc visibilibus deditum." {Be Civ. Bei, x. 13.) Chrysostom
looks upon miracles in the same light, Avhen he accounts for
the cessation of the gift of tongues by remarking that Chris
tians of that later day did not need such wonders to move
their faith. " Tongues, as Paul saith, are for a sign not
to them that believe, but to them that believe not. Ye see
that God has removed this sign, not to disgrace but to
honour you; designing to shew that your faith does not
depend upon tokens and signs." (tom. ii. p. 464.)
In this light too the Fathers would seem to view miracles,
when they join the current miracles of their oavii age to
those of Scripture in the evidential office. The Fathers
assert imo ore that miracles had then ceased ; yet they speak
of miracles taking place in the Church then, and even of
these miracles witnessing in a sense to the truth of the
Gospel. We must reconcile these two conflicting statements
by supposing that they recognized certain powers working
in and events taking place in the Church, which, though
not rising up to the level of the miracles of Scripture, still
shewed extraordinary Divine action, and in the degree in
Avhich they did possessed an evidential function, and kept
alive the faith of the Church. " Christian doctrine," says
Origen, " has its proper proof in the demonstration, as the
Apostle says, of the Spirit and of power ; of the Spirit in
prophecy, of power in the mu-acles which Christians could
then Avork, and of which the vestiges still remain among those
who live according to the Christian precepts — Ixvri In o-tiJ-
^eaOai." {Contra Cels. lib. i. s. 2.) " It is a magnificent act of
Jesus, that even to this day those whom He wills are healed

1-J NOTE 2. 267
in His name." {Ibid. ii. ¦j,^.) Ii-ena;us, after asserting that
our Lord's miracles were verified by projibccy, which shewed
Him to be tlic Son of Gotl, adds, " Whcrcfbrc in His name
His true disciples now perform deeds of mercy :" he men
tions exorcisms, cures, &c. {Contra liar. H. 32.) " That
Jesus," says Justin Martyr, " was made man for the sake of
the belicA'crs, and for the subversion of daimons, is manifest
from what is done before your eyes all over the world ; when
those who are vexed by daemons, whom your own enchanters
could not cure, are healed by our Christians abjuring and
casting out the daemons in the name of Jesus." {A^mI. ii. s. 6.)
" O si audire eos velles," says Cyprian, " quando a nobis adju-
rantur et torquentur  Videbis nos rogari ab eis quos
tu rogas, timeri ab eis quos tu times." {Ad Bemetr. xv.)
Augustine, speaking of the miracles attributed to the inter
ference of the martyrs, says, " Cui nisi huic fidei attestantur
ista miracula in qua praedicatur Christus resurrexisse in carne,
et in ccelum ascendisse in carne ? Quia et ipsi martyres, . . .
pro ista fide mortui sunt, cjui haec a Domino impetrare pos-
sunt, propter cujus nomen occisi sunt." {Be Civ. Bei, xxii. 9.)
I have endeavoured to state the patristic use of the evi
dence of miracles, and the characteristics by which it was dis
tinguished from the modern popular argument. With respect,
hoAvever, to the Fathers' appeal to this evidence, it must be
remembered that their recognition of the evidential value
of miracles, and of the need of them to attest the truth of
the Divine nature and office of our Lord, is seen more as
a great assumption underlying the whole fabric of patristic
reasoning on this subject, than as anything formally ex
pressed and developed in statement. The Fathers undoubt
edly made deductions from the force of miracles as evidence,
but that the person of the Messiah and Son of God who
came to be the mediator between God and man, and to
atone b}^ His death for the sins of the whole world, would,
when He came, be knoAAn and distinguished Avholly with
out any miraculous element in His birth, Hfe, or death,
simply Hving in and passing through the world in that re
spect like an ordinary man — was an idea which never even
occurred to the mind of any Father, and which, had it been

2()8 NOTE 2. [Lect.
presented to liim, he Avoidd have at once discarded. The
ancients, in tlicir whole representation of the evidence cf
Christ's nature and supernatural office — the evidence that
He was what He in-ofcsscd to be, the only-begotten Son
of God, the Lamb of God that took away the sin of the
Avorld — assumed the great miracles of His Birth, Resurrection,
and Ascension ; the Creed was used not only as a statement
of our Lord's Divine character, but as the proof of it as
Avell. Christ as a superhuman Personage, the Head of a
supernatural dispensation, must be known from other men
by some adequate marks of distinction : the Fathers always
took for granted that that distinction must be by means
of something miraculous : that Avhere there was an invisible
supernatural, which it was necessary to believe, the sign
and token of it Avould be the visible supernatural. The Creed
stated this miraculous proof, so far as it attached to the
person of our Lord — His Birth, Resurrection, and Ascension.
The Creed was thus in essence a defence as well as an
assertion of our Lord's supernatural character, a defence of
it upon miraculous grounds. In the very act of icorshippnng
Jesus Christ, the Fathers indeed assumed the miraculous
evidence of who Jesus Christ was ; for to worship a person
Avho had lived and died like an ordinary man, with however
excellent gifts endowed, was an idea Avhich they could not
haA'c conceived; the miraculous testimony to His own asser
tion of His nature was taken for granted in the simple
prayer, " O Son of DaAid, have mercy on us !"
" The facts of Christianity," says Archdeacon Lee, " are
represented by some as forming no part of its ' essential doc
trines ;' they rank, it is argued, no higher than its ' external
accessories.' It is impossible to maintain this distinction. In
tiie Christian revelation the /i/ei! of the Resurrection is the car
dinal doctrine, the doctrine of the Incarnation is the funda
mental fact. Christianity exhibits its most momentous truths
as actual realities, by founding them upon an historical basis,
and by interweaving them with transactions and events Avhich
rest upon the evidence of sense." {On Miracles, p. 5.)
Let us beware, in conclusion, of depreciating the ground-

L] NOTE 2. 269
AVork of Christian evidence laid down by the Fathers, because
these ancient writers cnfertaincd .some jioiiifs ol' licHcf re
lating to the class of inferior sjiirits and the art of Magic
Avhich are not accepted at the present day. Sncli jiarlial
thaumaturgic pretensions as ihe art of Magic displayed,
even could we suppose them real, would not interfere with
the proper force of the miraculous evidences of the Gospel ;
nor therefore was the belief in them inconsistent Avith a
true insight into Christian evidence. Nor must we forget
that the most indiscriminating belief in magic and witchcraft
continued up to very recent times in the Christian world.
The divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whether
English or Continental, must have been singularly removed
from the prejudices and ideas of their times if they were not
more or less under the influence of the belief in these
powers". Yet we should justlj'' complain if upon this g-round
any one refused to allow those divines the credit of being
able to weigh Christian evidence. Jackson, Hammond,
Thorndike, and others lived when the popular impres
sion of the poAver of witchcraft to produce sensible super
natural effects upon human bodies and minds was strong,
and not confined to the lower and untaught classes, but shared
by the educated. Yet Christian evidence was in their day
a definite department of theology. Grotius had produced a
treatise which reigned in our schools, and Pascal meditated
another, of which the fragmentary beginnings are preserAred
in his " Thoughts." Our divines all that time discussed the
miraculous proofs of Christianity, and shewed themseh'cs quite
adequate to that task. Sir Matthew Hale, in the year 1665,
declared bis OA\'n belief in witchcraft upon the occasion of con
demning two women to death for that crime ; j'ct it Avould
be a veiy mistaken inference to draw from the existence of
such a belief in that eminent Christian lawyer, that he could
" " All the nations of Christendom," says Dr. Hey (Norrisian Professor
1 780-1 795), "have so far taken these powers for granted, as to provide legal
remedies against them. At this time there subsist in this University one if
not several foundations for annual sermons to be preached against them."
{Bishop Kay's Tertullian, p. I7r.)

270 NOTE 3. [Lect.
not have a correct perception of the evidences of Christianity,
or AA^as unequal to draw up a sound and rational statement of
those evidences. The Fathers partook of the popular ideas
of their age, which did not however incapacitate them for
judging of Christian evidences, or neutralize their statemcnfs
on this subject.

NOTE 3, p. 24.
" I therefoue proceed," says Spinoza, " to the consideration
of the four principles which I here propose to myself to demon
strate, and in the following order : — 1st, I shall begin by
shewing that nothing happens contrary to the order of
nature, and that this order subsists without pause or inter
ruption, eternal and unchangeable. I shall at the same time
take occasion to explain what is to be understood by a
miracle. 2nd, I shall prove that miracles cannot make known
to us the essence and existence of God, nor consequently His
providence, these great truths being so much better illus
trated and proclaimed by the regular and inA'ariable order
of nature 
" (i)  As nothing is absolutely true save by
Divine decree alone, it is evident that the universal laws
of nature are the very decrees of God, which result ne
cessarily from the perfection of the Divine nature. If,
therefore, anything happened in nature at large repugnant
to its universal laws, this would be equally repugnant to
the decrees and intelligence of God ; so that any one who
maintained that God acted in opposition to the laws of
nature, would at the same time be forced to maintain that
God acted in opposition to His proper nature, an idea than
which nothing can be imagined more absurd. I might shew
the same thing, or strengthen what I have just said, by
referring to the truth that the power of nature is in fact
the Divine Power ; Divine Power is the very essence of God
Himself. But this I pass by for the present. Nothing, then,
happens in nature which is in conti-a diction with its universal
laws^. Nor this only; nothing happens which is not in
^ Spinoza says in a note, — " By nature here I do not understand the mate
rial universe only, and its affections, but besides matter an infinity of other
things."

I.] NOTE 3. 271
accordance with these laws, or docs not follow from 1-hcm :
for Avhatever is, and wliatcver bapjicns, is and happens
by the Avill and eternal decree of God; that is, as has
been already shewn, whatever happens docs so according
to rules and laws which involve eternal truth and necessity.
Nature consequently always observes laws, although all
of these are not known to us, which involve eternal truth
and necessity, and thus preserves a fixed and immutable
course 
" From these premises, therefore, viz. that nothing happiens
in nature which does not folloiv from its laws ; that these laws
extend to all which enters into the Divine mind ; and, lastly,
that nature proceeds in a fixed and changeless course ; it
follows most obviously that the word miracle can only be
understood in relation to the opinions of mankind, and sig
nifies nothing more than an event, a phenomenon, the cause
of Avhich cannot be explained by another familiar instance,
or, in any case, which the narrator is unable to explain.
I might say, indeed, that a miracle was tliat the cause of
Avhich cannot be explained by our natural understanding
from the known principles of natural things 
" (2) But it is time I passed on to my second proposition,
Avhich was to shew that from miracles Ave can neither obtain
a knowledge of the existence nor of the providence of God ;
on the contrary, that these are much better elicited from
the eternal and changeless order of nature  But
suppose that it is said that a miracle is that which can
not be explained by natural causes ; this may be under
stood in two ways : either that it has natural causes which
cannot be investigated by the human understanding, or that
it acknowledges no cause save God, or the will of God. But
as all that happens, also happens by the sole Avill and power
of God, it were then necessary to say that a miracle either
owned natural causes, or if it did not, that it was inexplicable
by any cause; in other words, that it was something which
it surpassed the human capacity to understand. But of
anything in general, and of the particular thing in question,
viz. the miracle, which surp)asses our powers of compre
hension, nothing whatever can be known. For that which
we clearly and distinctlj' understand must become known
to us either of itself, or by something else which of itself is
clearly and distinctly understood. Wherefore, from a miracle,
as an incident surpassing our pozcers of comprehension, we cannot
understand anything, either of the essence or existence, or any
other quality of God or nature 

272 NOTE 3. [Lect.
Wherefore, as regards our understanding, those CArcnts which
AA'C clearly and distincth' comprehend, arc with mucli bctfer
right entitled worlcs of God, and r(-i'errcd to His will, than
those wfiich are ir/iolly unintelligible to us, although they
strongly seize upon our imagination and wrap us in amaze
ment; inasmuch as those works of nature only \\hicb we
clearlj'- and distinctly apprehend render our knowledge of
God truly sublime, and point to His will and decrees with
the greatest clearness  l^or if miracles be under
stood as intcrru]itions or abrogations of the order of nature,
or as subversive of its laws, not only could they not give us
any knowledge of God, but, on the contrary, they would, destroy
that which we naturally hare, and would induce doubt both
of the existence of God and of everything else." {Tractatus
Theologico-PoUiicus, c. vi.)
The argument of Spinoza under the first head is based
upon an ambiguity in the meaning of " Nature," one sense
of which it uses in the premiss, and another in the conclu
sion. In the premiss, Spinoza uses " Nature" in the sense
of the universe both spiritual and material ; in Avhich sense
it is true that " nothing happens in nature which is in con
tradiction with its universal laws." For even a miracle,
though contrary to the order of the material world, or an
interruption of it, is in agreement Avith the order of the
universe as a whole, as proceeding from the power of the
Head of that universe, for a purpose and end included in
the design of the universe. In the conclusion he slides from
the universal sense of nature to the sense of nature as this
material order of things. The miracle, or violation of the
order of nature which is pronounced impossible, is the literal
historical miracle, which is only a contradiction to this visible
order of nature. The conclusion, then, is not got legitimately
out of the premiss. God cannot act in opposition to the law
and order of the whole universe, in which case He would
be acting against His own intelligence and Avill. But it
does not follow that God may not act in contradiction to
the order of a part, because the part is subordinate to the
whole; and therefore an exception to the order of a part
may be subservient to the order and design of the whole.
Spinoza, it may be added, from the term " law " extracts

L] NOTE 4. 273
" a fixed and immutable course of things," or necessity : but
"law" in this sense is a pure hypothesis, without proof.
The argument of Spinoza under the second bead is based
upon overlooking a miracle as an instrument, its acting as
a note and sign of the Divine will, and only regarding it
as an anomaly beginning and ending Avith itself Emerson
adopts Spinoza's aspect of a miracle, when he says, — " The
word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian Churches, gives
a false impression ; it is a Monster. It is not one with the
blowing clouds and the falling rain." {Lee on Miracles,
p. 92.) NOTE 4, p. 30.
Whether or not Mahometanism stands in need of miracles
to attest its truth, must depend upon what Mahometanism is;
whether or not it pretends to be a revelation in the strict
sense; i. e. a revelation which communicates truths undis
coverable by human reason. Were Mahometanism simply
Beism, or rather Monotheism ; did it only inculcate upon
mankind the great principle of the Unity of God ; im
pressing together with that doctrine the obligation of Avor-
ship and other moral and religious duties which were obvious
to reason ; in that case Mahometanism could not require the
evidence of miracles to Avitness to its truth. Because the prin
ciple of the Unity of God is one which naturally approves
itself to the enlightened understanding of man, and is ac
cepted upon its OAvn intrinsic reasonableness. Had Mahomet
therefore only come before the world as a preacher of this
great truth, had he taken his stand upon those great argu
ments of reason which support it, and upon the strength of
those arguments called upon the idolatrous Arabian tribes to
throw away their idols and turn to the One living and true
God, the religion Avhich he taught and established would
have had its proof complete A\'ithout miracles : its proof would
be contained in itself. Nor, again, had Mahomet, not resting
this great truth upon grounds of reason and intrinsic evidence,
preached it as a truth of revelation, but of an old and already
t

274 NOTE 4. [Lect.
e.risting revelation which was attested, when it was communi
cated, by its own jniraculous credentials, would he in that case
either have stood in need of miraculous proof for the religion
which he taught, because such proof had been already given,
and no new jiroof of the kind was wanted.
I. But Mahomet did not adopt this position; he did not
confine himself to the ground of human reason, or to the
ground of an old and existing revelation, but professed to
have a new and express revelation of his own to communicate
to mankind, a revelation Avhich came to him straight from
heaven. " We reveal unto thee this Korans," God is repre
senting as saying to Mahomet in that book ; " Thou hast cer
tainly received the Koran from the presence of a wise and
knowing God." (chap, xxvii.) He professed to have had this
revelation imparted to him by the medium of an angel, the
angel Gabriel : " Gabriel (God is represented as speaking)
hath caused the Koran to descend upon thine heart, by the
permission of God." (chap, ii.) It is true that this revelation
to ]Maliomet is exhibited as a supplementary one, not, i. e. as a
revelation which contradicts and supersedes the former reve
lations of the Law and the Gospel, but which carries them
out and advances a further step upon them ; but this light in
which the Koran is put, does not shew that it does not, but
that it does profess to be an express and separate revelation to
Mahomet. It is plain that the Gospel, though a develop
ment of the Law, was a sejiarate revelation from the Law, on
which account it was attested by its own special and appro-
c "AVhich we have sent down in the Arabic tongue." {Koran, chap, xii.)
Sale says : " The Mahommedans absolutely deny the Koran was composed by
their prophet hunself, or any other for him ; it being their general and orthodox
belief that it is of divine original, nay that it is eternal and uncreated, remain
ing, as some express it, in the very essence of God ; that the first transcript
has been from everlasting by God's throne, written on a table of vast bigness,
called the preserved table, in which are also recorded the divine decrees past
and future ; that a copy from this table, in one volume on paper, was, by the
ministry of the angel Gabriel, sent down to the lowest heaven, in the month of
Kamadan, on the night of power : from whence Gabriel revealed it to Mahom-
med by parcels, some at Mecca and some at Medina, at different times, during
the space of twenty-three years, as the exigency of affiiirs required." {Prelimi
nary Discourse, sect, iii.)

I-J NOTE 4. 275
priate ci-edcniials : the revelation to Mahomet therefore, if it
stood in il like supiilemcntary relalion to both of these former
revelations together, was a revelation additional to both, a
new revelation lo mankind Avhich required its own creden
tials, as the Go.s])cl did when it succeeded to the Law.
" The Koran," says ]\Ir. Forster, " was delivered by Maho
met, professedly as the complement of the former Scrip
tures of the Law and the Gospel, as & farther revelation, that
is' to say, perfective of both; and advancing in its turn on the
revelation of the Gospel, as this had previously advanced on
that of the Mosaic Law  Passages in the Koran
directly class the Mahometan Bible so-called Avith the Old
and New Testaments : —
" ' We have surely sent down the Law, containing direction
and light : thereby did the prophets, who professed the true
religion, judge those Avho judaized.
" ' We also caused Jesus, the Son of Mary, to follow the
footsteps of the Prophets; confirming the Law, Avhich Avas
sent down before him : and we gave him the Gospel, contain
ing direction and light ; confirming, also, the Law, Avhich was
given before it.
" ' We have also sent down unto thee (Mahomet) the
Book of the Koran, with truth; confirming that Scripture
Avhich was revealed before it, and preserving the same from
corruption.' " In these passages the Koran formally challenges its place
beside the sacred volumes of the Law and the Gospel, as sent
to perfect both; and as forming, together with them, the sum
of God's written revelation." {Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. ii.
p. 14.)
The supernatural communication then of God to Mahomet,
the Divine mission of Mahomet, needed attestation, to oblige
a rational assent to and belief in it ; attestation of that kind
which is appropriate to truths undiscoverable by human rea
son. " Revelation," says Bj). Butler, " is miraculous, and
miracles are the proof of it." That Mahomet stood in these
supernatural relations to the Divine Being was a mysterious
truth which no man could ascertain by the natural exercise of
T 2

276 NOTE 4. [Lect.
his reason. Tlie Divine intercourse with him was a fact Avbich
belonged in its own nature to the invisible and supernatural
world. ]\Iahomct's assertion then was not proof of it, neither
AA^as his success. The prophetic mission of Mahomet then to
establish a supplementary dispensation, which is rehearsed in
the Mahometan's fundamental formula of faith, needed mira
culous evidence, and being without that evidence is without
proper proof.
2. But besides the Divine mission of Mahomet to establish
a new dispensation, the substance of the Mahometan revela
tion itself is in many parts wholly undiscoverable by human
reason. The great principle of Monotheism is so prominent
in ]\Iahometanism, as a sj'stem of religious belief, that Ave are
apt to regard it as the only one, and so to look upon the reli
gion in a light in which it can dispense with miraculous evi
dence. But besides the great doctrine of the Divine Unity,
many most important articles of belief are divulged in the
Koran — articles relating to the intermediate state, the mode of
the general resurrection, the proceedings of the last judgment,
the state of purgatory, its j)ains and duration ; the happiness
of heaven and the torments of hell. Minute revelations are
made on these subjects, which are of overpowering interest to
the Mahometan believer ; but which are entirely supernatural
communications, and undiscoverable by human reason. Such
information then relating to the mysterious and invisible
world, stands in need of some mark or guarantee to attest its
correctness ; nor can it rationally oblige the belief of those to
whom it is given, unless it can produce such a voucher. But
no such is produced in Mahometanism.
But besides the doctrines and revelations relating to the
invisible Avorld, Mahometanism also contains a large mass of
rules and usages relating to practice, all of which rest upon
a ground of express rcA^elation, and are regarded upon that
account as obligatory ; and which therefore imply some direct
guarantee attaching to them, in proof that they are Divine
commands. General precepts indeed for the observance of the
duty of prayer, almsgiving, &c., do not require any special
voucher for their authority, because moral duties carry their

I-] NOTE 4. 277
own evidence Avith them, and conscience accepts them upon
their own intrinsic ground. But positive institutions and
regulations, which are not binding upon any moral or natural
ground, can only be rendered obligatory by some direct sign
and warrant that the command to obsei-ve them comes from
God. What tokens then do the positive institutions of
Mahometanism present as credentials of their Divine ori
gin, and in proof of their obligatoriness? There is no
adequate evidence of this Divine legislation, for the na
tural evidence of such rules and institutions haAing been
founded and imposed by Divine command, is a visible token
from God to that effect, or miraculous CAidence; Avhicli
Mahometanism does not possess. The positive rules and in
stitutions of the Mosaic law exhibited such a warrant, but
those of Mahometanism can only present the assertion of
Mahomet to that effect, joined to his success. The minute
regulations prescribed for the performance of prayer, the
observance of sacred seasons and days, the institution of pil
grimage, and much other ceremonial matter, all stand in the
Mahometan religion upon the express ground of a Divine
command; so do the prohibitions or negative ordinances of
external observance in that religion ; a large body even of
civil law stands upon the same footing. But of this special
DiAdne authority no rational proof is given.
Mahometanism then comprehending, as it does, besides the
tenet of Monotheism, the express belief in the inspiration of
]\Iahomet and the DiAdne messages to him, a large body
of important revelations relating to the invisible world and a
future state, and finally, an immense mass of positive regu
lations, all imposed as matter of Divine command ; belief in
it without the evidence of miracles is in its very form irra
tional, because it is belief in a revelation undiscoverable by
human reason, without the rational guarantee for the truth of
such rcA'elation. Should the Mahometans ever alter the basis
of their religion, and place their creed and their institutions
upon another footing; should they reduce the inspiration of
their Prophet to the insight of a deep religious mind into the
great truth of the Unity of God ; accept that belief as resting

278 NOTE 1. [Lect.
upon grounds of reason, and discard all the revelations of the
Koran relating- to the invisildo world and a future state ;
should they transfer the positive institutions of Maho
metanism from the ground of a Divine command to that
of expediency, and so from being sacred and unchangeable
lower them into alterable human arrangements ; — in that
case their religion would not need miracles, but then their
religion Avould cease to be Mahometanism. Such a religion
would be Deism, or natural religion. But Mahometanism,
as it is, is more than Deism ; it is a professed revelation, and
the revelation of what is undiscoverable by human reason ;
the belief in which, not only without that degree but without
that kind of proof which a revelation requires, is in its A^ery
form irrational belief, though thousands not only of rational
but intelligent persons may hold it.

LECTUEE IL
NOTE 1, p. 34.
Bishop Butleu in the Introduction to the " Analogy" called
attention to the deficiency in the philosophical treatment of
the argument from experience, that the nature and ground
of it had not been gone into ; — a part of the subject however
which he declines pursuing himself, as not being necessary to
the particular object with which he was concerned. " It is
not my design," he says, " to inquire further into the nature,
the foundation, and measure of probability; or whence it pro
ceeds that likeness should beget that presumptive opinion and
full conviction which the human mind is formed to receive
from it, and which it does produce in every one. This be
longs to the subject of Logic, and is a part of that subject
which has not yet been thoroughly considered." The " Ana
logy" came out in 1736, and Hume's "Treatise of Human
Nature," which entered upon this new field of inquiry, and
took up for the first time in philosophy the question of the

n.] NOTE 2. 279
grojind of the argument of experience, by a curious coinci
dence, followed the notice of the want in the " Analogy" by
an interval of only two years, coming out in 1738.

NOTE 2, p. 54.
The general definition of Induction, that it is " a process of
inference from the known to the unknown;" the operation
of the mind by which we infer that what we know to be true
in particular cases will be true in all similar cases, that what
IS true at certain times will be true in similar circumstances at
all times, {Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 297,) is universally assented
to. The peculiarity of the process is confessed to be that it
gets out of facts something more than what they actually
contain; extends them further than they actually go. To
pronounce upon Avhat is wholly unknown, and say that it, the
unknovA'n thing, is or will be so and so, because the known is
so and so, is thus to extend known facts beyond themselves ;
but unless this is done, there is no induction. " Any opera
tion involving no inference, any process in which Avhat seems
the conclusion is no wider than the premisses from which it
is drawn, does not fall within the meaning of the term."
{Mill, i. 297.) " Did he [a philosopher] infer anything that
had not been observed, from something else which Iiad ? Cer
tainly not." There was no induction then. (p. 301.) " There
was not that transition from known cases to unknown Avhich
constitutes induction." (p. 313.) " The process of induction,"
says Dr. Whewell, " includes a mysterious step by which we
pass from particulars to generals, of which step the reason
always seems to be inadequately rendered by any words which
we can use." {Philosophy of Biscovery, p. 284.)
But after the first general definition of induction Dr. Whe
well and Mr. MiU disagree. In Mr. Mill's view induction is
in its essence a simple direct process of arguing from some
things to other things, from particulars to particulars, with
out the medium of the conscious contemplation of those
known particulars in a general form, that is to say, the
medium of language or general propositions. The mind

280 NOTE 2. [Lect
simply passes on from several individual cases known to
another individual case not known. " Not only may we
reason from particulars to particulars without passing through
generals, but we perpetually do so reason. All our earliest
inferences are of this nature. From the first dawn of our
intelligence we draw inferences, but years elapse before we
learn the use of general language. The child who, having
burnt his fingers, avoids to thrust them again into the fire,
has reasoned or inferred, though he has never thought of the
general maxim, ' Fire burns.' He knows from memory that
he has been burnt, and on this evidence believes, when he sees
a candle, that if he puts his finger into the flame of it he will
be burnt again. He believes this in every case which happens
to arise, but without looking in each instance beyond the
present case. He is not generalizing, he is inferring a parti
cular from p>articuJars. In the same way also brutes reason.
There is no ground for attributing to any of the lower ani
mals the use of signs, of such a nature as to render general
propositions possible. But those animals profit by expe
rience, and avoid what they have found to cause them pain,
in the same manner, though not always with the same skill,
as a human creature. Not only the burnt child, but the
burnt dog dreads the fire." {Mill, i. 210.) "All inference is
from pjarticulars to particulars. General propositions are merely
registers of such inferences already made, and short formulae for
making more  the real logical antecedent or pre
misses being the particular facts from which the general
proposition was collected by induction." (p. 216.) " If we
have a collection of particulars sufficient for grounding an
induction, we need not frame a general proposition : we may
reason at once from those pjarticulars to other particulars."
(p. 220.) The idea of the essence of the inductive process
contained in these passages agrees with that of Hume, who
regards it as an instinctiA'c process, performed in no argu
mentative way, or by any argumentative medium. The idea
also agrees with Hume's idea of the process as being no part
of the distinctive human reason, or resting upon grounds of
human reason, but being common to rational and ii-rational

n.] NOTE 2. 281
natures. " Experimental reasoning," says Hume, " we pos
sess in common with beasts;" Mr. ]\lill says, "In this way
(i. e. in inferring unknown particulars from known ones)
brutes reason."
Dr. Whewell, however, differs from this account of induction
as being an inference direct from particulars ; as well as from
the idea of induction as a process in essence common to
rational and irrational natures ; he regards it as essential
to the idea of induction that it should be a conscious philo
sophical process, carried on by means of " general proposi
tions, or observations consciously looked at in a general form."
" Not only a general thought but a general word or phrase is
a requisite element in induction l"." {Philosophy of Biscovery,
pp. 241, 245-) Whether then a " general proposition" or
" word" or " conscious general form of knowledge" is essen
tial to induction as a process carried on in intelligent minds,
is a question which must be decided by the examination of
the fact — the consideration of what by the inspection of our
own minds we perceive ourselves to do in induction. On exa
mining then what goes on in our own minds, when as intelli
gent and rational beings from known particulars we infer what
is unknown and beyond them — which is induction, it does not
appear to be at all necessary or essential to that proceeding,
that those particular observations should pass through the
medium of a general proposition. The inductive inference
naturally and with full propriety attaches itself to an obser
vation a certain number of times made ; upon the mere
repetition of the fact observed the mind goes on to an
inference respecting what is not observed, viz. that the latter
will be like the former; the observations may be rational and
intelHgent ones, made Avith sagacity and discernment, but
that they should have been made time after time, and should
simply exist in the memory as a series or succession of parti
cular facts, is enough in order that the inductive inference
•¦ " The elements and materials of science," the writer adds, " are necessary
truths contemplated by the intellect : it is by consisting of such' elements and
such materials that science is science." (p. 244.) But has inductive science to
do with necessary truths ?

282 NOTE 2. [Lect.
may attach constitutionally to them. It has happened so,
this and that and the other time, therefore it will so happen
again, under the same circumstances. A physician has ob
served in so manj' patients the connexion of a disease Avitli
certain symptoms; he expects the same connexion in the
next patient. This is an inference from particulars simply,
but it is rational induction.
Indeed, as Mr. Mill observes, particulars are not only
enough to infer from, and the inductive inference legitimate
from them, without any medium of a general proposition,
but in the nature of the case particulars are the only ground
which we really have for induction to proceed upon, and the
essential argument is in every case of inductiony)-ora particulars.
Particulars are all we know of, and therefore all we can
possibly argue from. It is true we may introduce if we
please a general projjosition into the affair, and instead of
proceeding straight from the particular facts and getting
the inference from them as an ewduction, turn the particular
facts into a general proposition from which we obtain the
inference as a (/eduction. Instead of saying, ' Alexander,
Cffisar, Queen Elizabeth, Peter, Robert, William, (the list
might be supposed extended to all who ever lived, and still
be only a list of particular persons,) have died ; therefore
I shall die ;' I may say, ' All men die,' which is a general
proposition, and infer mj' own death as included in it. But
this is a mere difference of form or arrangement which does
not affect the substance of an inductive argument, or divorce
it from its real basis in particulars. " The mortality of John,
Thomas, and company," says Mr. Mill, " is, after all, the
only evidence we have for the mortality of the Duke of
Wellington. Not one iota is added to the proof by inter
polating a general proposition. Since the individual cases
are all the evidence we can possess, evidence which no logical
form into which we choose to throAV it can make greater
than it is .... I am unable to see why we should be
forbidden to take the shortest cut from these premisses to
the conclusion, and constrained to travel the ' high priori
road' by the arbitrary fiat of logicians.''' (vol. i. p. 209.)

II] NOTE 2. 283
A general proposition introduced into an inducfive argu
ment cannot be inserted as any real or true ground of it; for
if it is inserted as a truth, it is a petilio princijiii, and should
therefore be immediately ejected. But if it is only introduced
as a formal medium or mode of statement, it is not of the
essence of the rational and scientific argument of induction.
The general proposition, so far as it comes in correctly at
all, is indeed the conclusion of the inductive argument, and
therefore cannot be the premiss of it. A general proposition
however, i. e. a universal proposition, is not properly even
the tonclusion of the inductive argument, i. e. it is only
used as such from the necessities of language, and because
Ave have no other available formula for expressing the true
conclusion in our mind. The inductive conclusion Avhicli
really exists in the mind is indeed neither a general pro-
positition nor a particular proposition. It is a vague inde
finite expectation of a practical kind that when a thing has
happened so repeatedly, it will continue to happen so under
the same circumstances. But this indefinite expectation in
our minds, this anticipatory look-out into the future or un
known, is not correctly expressed by a general proposition ;
because this is more than the true internal conclusion. A
general proposition is the universal statement that the sun
will always rise, but this is a statement which we do not
really make in our minds, and is in excess of and beyond our
actual mental condition and attitude on the subject. A general
proposition is thus to the real inductive conclusion Avithin
the mind a case which is too large for its contents, Avbich
sticks out on all sides with unsubstantial amplitude. The
inductive conclusion is not knowledge, and therefore if we
give it the form of knowledge by means of a universal
assertion, we still do not make it knowledge any the more
by so doing, but only use a formula, with an understanding
with ourselves about it. But neither, on the other hand, is
the inductive conclusion a 'particular' in the strict sense;
we reason from particulars, but not properly to particulars.
If because the sun has always risen hitherto, I say it will
rise to-morrow morning, or the morning after; that is a

284 NOTE 2. [Lect.
limitation of the real inductive conclusion in the mind, just
as the general proposition is an excess of it. I do not
adequately express the anticipation of which I am possessed,
by this particular, — to-morrow morning, or another morning.
When I make this particular prophecy, I plainly make it
on the ground of a more general one. It is indeed exactly
the same really, whether I say the sun will rise to-morrow,
or the sun Avill rise always ; 1 have the same meaning in my
mind in both expressions. The same general anticipation
speaks under both forms. All men hitherto have died; /
shall die. This latter is a particular. But it is evidently
exactly the same really, whether I say, ' I shall die,' or ' All
men will die;' it is actually in the mind the same anti
cipation in either case.
For the argument of the Second Lecture it is enough, if
Avithout entering into the comi^arison of the inductive process
as it goes on in rational creatures with the same process as it
goes on in irrational, that process looked at in itself is ad
mitted to be unaccountable and not founded on reason : for if
— that Avhich is identical with this process — the belief in the
order of nature does not rest upon reason, the ground is gone
upon which it can be maintained that a contradiction to that
order is as such contrary to reason. The language however
of philosophers, even Avhen most cautious upon this subject,
shews that if we look only to the inductive inference itself
purely and simply, as distinguished from the facts from which
it is an inference, and as unaffected by the difference in the
character and rank of these facts; that if we regard it only
as the attaching of continuance to whatever it is which has
been repeated ; it is impossible to make out any positive dif
ference between that inference in rational natures and irra
tional. It is so difficult Avholly to abstract the inference from
the facts from which it is an inference, that we do not get the
idea of the fiure inference itself into our minds. According to
the received language however of philosophers this inference
is wholly unaccountable and altogether non-logical in rational
natures : "to pass from particulars to generals is a mysterious
step," says Dr. Whewell, however scientific the material to

IL] NOTE 2. 285
wliich it is applied: — "there must necessarily be a logical
defect in it" — " the rules of the syllogism do not authorize
the answers of the inductive generalizing impulse." {Philo
sophy of Biscovery, pp. 284, 451, 457.) But if the inductive
impulse is thus in rational natures instinctive, mechanical, and
non-logical, in what does it differ from the same impulse in
irrational natures ? ]\Ian is a rational being, but if he does
not draw the inductive inference with his reason, that in
ference is not affected by his peculiar and distinctive gift of
the rational faculty. Man knows indeed, when he contern-
plates himself and compares his actions and calculations with
the grounds and motives upon which they rest, that he is the
subject of a mechanical impression, which brutes, Avho have
not the self-contemplative faculty, do not know ; and he
shews that this operation has taken place in his mind by
propositions, whereas irrational beings only shew that it has
by action ; but do consciousness and language touch the
nature of the operation itself? Mr. MiH, though he has
admitted that brutes " reason" (vol. i. p. 210) and draw in
stinctively the inductive inference, yet " objects" with Dr.
Whewell " to the application of the term induction to any
operation performed by mere instinct ; that is from an animal
impulse, Avithout the exertion of any intelligence." {Note,
vol. i. p. 295.) Nor is such a restriction in the application of
the term otherwise than proper, because we associate with the
term induction not only the mysterious and unreasoning
step beyond the facts which have been described, but also the
scientific search for and discovery of the facts themselves ;
but this restriction of the term does not touch the question
which we have been considering : — a question however which,
as I have observed, is more a curious than important one, if
only the main fact of the unreasoning nature of the inductive
inference is admitted.
Wliat it is which constitutes the ground of induction or
the inference from the known to the unknown has been since
Hume's time a matter of dispute among philosoj)hers, all of
whom however agree in the negative point, that the inference
does not rest upon any ground of reason. " The ingenious

286 NOTE 2. [Lect.
author of the Treatise of Human Natiu-e," says Dr. Rcid, " first
observed that our belief of the continuance of the laws of
nature cannot be founded cither upon knowledge or ])roba-
bilitjr; but fiir from conceiving it to be an original prin
ciple of the mind, he endeavours to account for it from bis
favourite hypothesis  However, we agree with the
author of the Treatise of Human Nature in this, that our
belief in the continuance of nature's laws is not derived from
reason. It is an instinctiA-e prescience of the operations of
nature  Antecedently to all reasoning we have by our
constitution an anticipation that there is a fixed and steady
course of nature  And this prescience I call the
inductive principle." {Reid on Human Mind, sect, xxiv.)
Brown disagrees with Hume's rationale of custom as the
ground of the inference from the known to the unknoAvn.
" Custom may account for the mere suggestion of one object
by another, as a part of a train of images, but not for that
belief of future reality which is a very different state of mind.
The phenomenon A, a stone has a thousand times fallen to
the earth; the phenomenon B, a stone will always, in the
same circumstances, fall to the earth — are projiositions that
differ as much as the propositions. A, a stone has once fallen
to the earth ; B, a stone will always fall to the earth. At
Avhatever link of the chain we begin, we must still meet with
the same difficulty — the conversion of the past into the
future. If it be absurd to make this conversion at one stag-e
of inquiry, it is just as absurd to make it at any other stage."
His own rationale is " succession of thought" — " the natural
tendency of the mind to exist in certain states after existing
in certain other states." The general expectation which suc
ceeds to the facts of experience, he conceives, is only an
instance of this principle. " This belief is a state or feeling
of the mind as easily conceivable as any other state of it —
a new feeling arising in certain circumstances," in the same
way in which other states of feeling arise. " To have our
nerves of taste or hearing affected in a certain manner, is not
indeed to taste or to hear, but it is immediately' afterwards to
have those particular sensations ; and this merelv because the

IL] NOTE 2. 287
mind was originally so constituted, as to exist directly in the
one state after existing in the other. To observe, in like
manner, a series of antecedents and consccjucnts, is not, in tlic
very feeling of the moment, to believe in the future similarit}-,
but, in consequence of a similar original tendency, it is imme
diately afterwards to believe, that the same antecedents will
invariably be followed by the same consequents. That this
belief of the future is a state of mind very different from the
mere perception or memory of the past, from which it flows,
is indeed true ; but what resemblance has sweetness, as a sen
sation of the mind, to the solution of a few particles of sugar
on the tongue ; or the harmonies of music to the vibration of
particles of air. All which we know, in both cases, is, that
these successions regularly take place; and in the regular
successions of nature, which could not, in one instance more
than in another, have been predicted Avithout experience,
nothing is mysterious, or cA^erything is mysterious. It is
wonderful, indeed, — for what is not wonderful? — that any
belief should arise as to a future which as yet has no exist
ence ; and which therefore cannot, in the strict sense of the
Avord, be an object of our knowledge. But when we consider
who it was who formed us, it would in truth have been more
wonderful if the mind had been so differently constituted that
the belief had not arisen; because, in that case, the pheno
mena of nature, however regularly arranged, would liaA'^e been
arranged in vain." {Broicn's Philosophy of the Human Mind, —
Chapter on Objects of Physical Enquiry, \o\. i. p. 190.) The
criticism to which both these explanations of the inference
from experience is open, is that they are only ingenious state
ments of the fact. Reid's " instinctive prescience" is as a
phrase inaccurate, because we have not prescience or knowledge
of the future; such prescience can only really mean expecta
tion; and then the explanation becomes only a statement of
the fact that we do expect the future to be like the past.
BroAvn's explanation approaches more to the nature of an
explanation, and yet at bottom it is ovlXj the statement that
after experience of tbe past we have expectation of the future,
that the former state of mind succeeds the latter. Hume's

288 NOTE 2. [Lect.
rationale of custom, though undoubtedly deficient, has the
advantage of connecting the argument of experience Avith a
great principle in nature, which is not identical Avith it, with
which however it appears to be connected; and thus a]i-
proaches more to tbe nature of an explanation than these two.
The question, however, what is the nature of the inductive
inference, and to what principle we are to refer it, is an ulterior
question Avhich does not affect the argument of this Lecture,
for which it is enough to say what it is tiot. Adz. that it is
not gi-ounded on reason.
The nature of this remarkable assumption, again, upon
which all induction rests, is discussed in the article on the
" Immutability of Nature," in the Quarterly Review (No.
220, 1861): —
" But then Science will turn to that axiom upon which,
after all, the cogency of induction must rest. From the
human mind, not from outward experience, as Dr. Whewell
so wisely reiterates, we must derive the idea that ' similar
causes will produce similar effects.' Our belief in the uni
versality and immutability of the operations of nature must
rest ultimately upon this internal instinct. Trace that belief,
with Hume, to custom ; or with others to association ; or with
others to a separate principle in the human mind ; call it the
generalizing principle, or the inductive principle : whatever
account Ave giA'c of it, this only, and not experience, can
be our authority for assuming the continuity and stability of
nature. And if it be a law of mind, a law like our moral
principles, so stamped upon our being as to bear the marks
of a revelation from God, then upon our faith in the veracity
of God, upon our conviction that He would never engrave
ineffaceablj' and unalterably upon the tables of our hearts and
souls anything but truths (in one word, after all, upon faith,
and not on proof), we may found our science of induction.
But is it so stamped hy God ? Is it more than an instinct, a
tendency, an impulse, requiring, Hke so many other tendencies
of our nature, to be narrowly watched, balanced, and con-ected
by opposite tendencies ? All our sins and vices may be traced
up to tendencies and principles, all implanted in our being
by nature, but not therefore to be blindly followed Avithout
control or qualification. Are Ave yet sufficiently acquainted
with the nature of this principle to decide this question ?
Are there not obvious marks which class it rather with our

IL] NOTE 2. 289
instincts than with our reason — Avitb imperfect impulses of.
our com])ound nature, rather than with absolute revelations
from God? We can break its links. We cannot believe
gratitude to be a sin, or falsehood meritorious ; but we
can imagine and belicA'c in the existence of a world, where
all the combinations of nature may be totally different
from our present experience. The connexion between death
and the swallowing of arsenic is of a totally difl'erent kind
from that between injustice and the punishable character of
injustice. No one would affirm of moral truths, as Science
affirms of material causes and effects, that our knowledge
of them rests Avholly upon experience.
" That the principle has been so little studied, is so little
understood, would sufiiee to Avarn us against asserting at once
its Divine authority and sanction for the universal immuta
bility of Nature. It would seem partly to be a result of the
mechanical association of ideas, by which the mind spon
taneously and unconsciously recalls and suggests combinations
once observed, forming thus our memory, our habits, our
character, our pleasures, our imagination, and a A'cry large
proportion of our practical reasoning. But every step we
take in life compels us to keep this associating tendency
under the strictest control, to regard it as a hundred other
tendencies in our nature necessary to existence — valuable as a
prompter — but . . . requiring at every step to be kept in check
by experience, by faith in testimony."
It may be objected to the ordinary account of induction
as based upon repetition and recurrence, that in the case of
experiments repetition is oiot wanted to produce the feeling
of assurance in the mind; i. e. that this is not the basis of
the practical certainty we have in the result of experiments :
that our assurance of this is not gradually acquired, sHght
at first and increasing afterwards every time the experiment
is tried; but that after one chemical experiment, shewing
the properties of a substance, or the effects of the union of
two substances, we feel as sure that the same properties and
effects will appear again as we do after the experiment has
been fifty times repeated ; or that if we do not, the want of
such certainty arises from the doubt whether the experiment
has been properly tried, it being possible, e.g. that some
chance ingredient may have got in; not from the need of
repetition supposing the accuracy of the experiment.
u

2!J0 NOTE 2. [Lect.
This is a question, then, which does not at all concern the
nature of the ground of induction or the inference from
experience, that it is instinctive and not founded on reason.
Because were it true that the certainty of an experiment after
one performance is as great as it is ever after, and that
this certainty is strictly of an inductive kind, the instance
would only shew, not that inductive certainty was not of
the instinctive kind asserted, but only that inductive cer
tainty, being of this nature, sometimes arose upon one case,
instead of always requiring repetition. The difference Avould
shew that there were difficulties in the interior of the sub
ject of induction Avhicli were not yet solved, but it would
not shew that the inductive inference from experience,
whether arising upon a single case or upon repetition, rested
upon a ground of reason.
It admits, however, of a considerable question, whether in
the intelligent attitude of the mind toward an experiment,
the certainty reposed in an experiment is an inductiA'^e cer
tainty. There is indeed a posture of mind in Avhich exjjeri-
ments are regarded simply as phenomena of experience,
phenomena jJi'csented to the eye apart from their object and
rationale; and the confidence in experiments, regarded in
this light, does not seem other than an inductive confidence ;
but then in this light experiments do not seem free from but
to come under the law of repetition ; for we should anticipate
the issue of an old familiar experiment that had been per
formed in all laboratories and lecture-rooms for years, Avith
more confidence and more as a matter of course than avc
should the issue of a new one which had only been tried once
or twice. But in the intelligent attitude of the mind toward
an experiment it draws a distinction between the natural
properties of a substance Avhich are supposed and taken for
granted as being such and such, and their mere exhibition
to the eye by means of an experimental process. We
take it for granted upon the ordinary instinctive ground,
that the substance before us is exactly the same substance
vsith exactly the same properties as the substance upon which
the late experiment was tried ; but upon this assumption;

IL] NOTE 2. 291
the fact that such and such is the property of the substance
before us, i.s, after the late experiment, no step of induction,
but an article of knowledge. We know that the property is
there, which tbe second experiment only makes visible to the
eye and docs not prove to the mind. It must be observed
that in the case of an experiment we have, to begin Avith, the
advantage of the common instinctive induction of the identity
of the substance before us with the last substance, already
existing as our groundwork ; and, upon this groundwork
assumed, the result of the second experiment is contained in
the result of the first ; and therefore this result is not, upon
this ground assumed, an inductive one. If it be said that the
inductive nature of this groundioork still continues, that is true,
and so far the result of the experiment is inductive. So far
as it is not an absolute certainty that this is the same sub
stance, with the same properties, as the last one, so far it is
not a certaint}'' that tbe result of the experiment will be the
same : but in attending to the exj)eriment the mind puts
aside the uncertainty, Avhatever there may be, of the ground
work of it, and does not consider it.
I say, (p. 54,) " The first part of the inductive process is
not reasoning, but obserA^ation ; the second is not reasoning,
but instinct." The first part of the inductive process may
with o-eneral truth be described as " observation," in distinc-
tion to reasoning, because the sagacious observation of facts
is all that is necessary to found an induction, and the great
mass of inductions are founded simply upon facts of obser
vation. Such facts, i. e. facts of scientific observation. Dr.
Whewell caUs " selected facts," the selection of them being
by means of certain concepitions of the mind, by which facts
are perceived in their proper relation, which he calls " colli
gation." (philosophy of Ind. Sciences, vol. ii. chaps, ii-iv.)
" In the progress of science," says Dr. Whewell, " facts are
bound together by the aid of suitable conceptions. This part of
the formation of oiu- knowledge I call the colligation of facts ;
and we may apply the term to every case in which by an act
of the intellect we establish a precise connexion among the
phenomena which are presented to our senses." (p. ^6.) Even
u a

292 NOTE- 2. [Lect.
to the old, and as it happens untrue, Aristotelian fact of the
longevity of " acholous" animals the writer applies the term
" conception." " It is a selected fact, a fact selected and com
pared in several cases, whicb is what we mean by a con
ception  He applied the conception acholous to his
observation of animals. This conception divided them into
two classes, and these classes were, he fancied, long-lived and
short-lived respectively." {Philosophy of Biscovery, p. 455-)
It may, however, happen that particular facts upon which
inductions are founded, are not the results of observation
solely, but that the ascertainment of them involves reason
ing, e. g. astronomical facts, the distance of the moon, the
globular form of the earth, &c. In particular cases it is dis
puted whether an observation involves more than simple
observation or not ; as e. g. Kepler's discovery of the curve
of the orbit of Mars. Mr. Mill says, this was only " the
sum of the observations," not an induction from them ; — the
sum of the observations with the addition of the " curve the
different observed points would make supposing them all to
be joined together," — which was description. Dr. Whewell
says " that the intermediate positions between the several
observations are an induction, [quoting Mr. MiU himself to
that effect,] and that therefore the whole curve must be an
induction." " Are particular positions to be conceived as
points of a curve without thinking of the intermediate posi
tions as belonging to the same curve?" {Philosopjhy of Bis
covery, p. 248.) What proves the curve would perhaps be
as much the argument of coincidence as that of induction;
it appearing to be a moral impossibility that the fitting in
of so many points in the orbit with the figure of an ellipse
should be a mere chance, the other wwobserved points not
fitting in with it. I have mentioned these cases to illustrate
the point that observation, popularly so called, sometimes
involves regular reasoning. But though the observation of
facts which constitute the first part of induction involves
in particular cases reasoning, observation alone is all that
is required for induction, and this is the main faculty at work
in this stage.

II] NOTE 3. 293

NOTE 3, p. 54.
" The A^n-y essence of tbe whole argument is the invariable
preservation of the principle of order: not necessarily such
as Ave can directly recognise, but the universal conviction
of the unfaiHng subordination of everything to some grand
princii)les of' law, however imperfectly apprehended or realised
in our partial conceptions, and the successive subordination
of such laws to others of still higher generality, to an extent
transcending our conception!?, and constituting the true chain
of universal causation, which culminates in the sublime con
ception of the Cosmos.
" It is in immediate connexion with this enlarged view of
universal immutable natural order, that I have regarded the
narrow notions of those who obscure the sublime prospect,
by imagining so unworthy an idea as that of occasional inter
ruptions in the phj'sical economy of the world.
" The only instance considered Avas that of the alleged
sudden supernatural origination of new species of organised
beings in remote geological epochs. It is in relation to the
broad principle of law, if once rightly apprehended, that such
inferences are seen to be wholly uiiAvarranted by science, and
such fancies utterly derogatory and inadmissible in i^hilo-
sophy ; Avhile, even in those instances properly understood,
the real scientific conclusions of the invariable and indissoluble
chain of causation stand Aindicated in the sublime contempla
tions with which they are thus associated.
" To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, the
one essential requisite is to have obtained a complete and
satisfactory grasp of this one grand priiicip)le of laiv pervading
nature, or rather constituting the very idea of nature ; — which
forms the vital essence of the Avhole of inductive science, and
the sole assurance of those higher inferences, from the induc
tive study of natural causes, which are the indications of a
supreme intelligence and a moral cause.
" The whole of the ensuing discussion must stand or fall loith
the admission of this grand principle. Those who are not pre
pared to embrace it in its full extent, may j)i"obably not
accept the conclusions : but they must be sent back to the school
of inductive science, where alone it must be independently im
bibed and thoroughly assimilated with the mind of the student
in the first instance.
" On the slightest consideration of the nature, the fbunda-

294 NOTE 3. [Lect.
tions, and general results of inductive science, we see abun
dant exemplification at once of the legitimate otjjects which
fall within W\(i province of physical philosophy, and the liini/s
which, from the nature of the case, must be imposed on its
investigations. We recognise the powers of intellect fitly
employed in the study of nature, but indicating no conclu
sions beyond nature ; yet pre-eminently leading us to perceive
in nature, and in the invariable and universal constancy of its
laws, the indications of universal, uncliangeable, and recondite
arrangement, dependence, and connexion in reason." {Poivell
on the Order of Nature, p. 228.)
" The case of the alleged external attestations of Revelation
is one essentially involving considerations of physical evi
dence. It is not one in which such reflections and habits
of thought as arise out of a familiarity with human history
and moral argument will suffice. These no doubt, and other
kindred topics, wth which the scholar and the moralist are
familiar, are of great and fundamental importance to our
general views of the whole subject of Christian e\idcnce; but
the particular case of miracles, as such, is one specially bearing
on purely physical contemplations, and on which no general
moral principles, no common rules of evidence or logical tech
nicalities, can enable us to form a correct judgment. It is
not a question which can be decided by a few trite and com
mon-place generalities as to the moral government of the
world and the belief in the Divine Omnipotence, or as to the
validity of human testimony, or the limits of human expe
rience. It involves, and is essentially built upon, those
grander conceptions of the order of nature, those compre
hensive primary elements of all physical knowledge, those
ultimate ideas of universal causation, %ohich can only be
familiar to those thorotighly versed in cosmical philosophy in
its tvidest sense.
" In an age of physical research like the present, all highly
cultivated minds and duly advanced intellects have imbibed,
more or less, the lessons of the inductive philosophy, and have
at least in some measure learned to appreciate the grand
foundation conception of universal law — to recognise the
impossibility even of any two material atoms subsisting toge
ther without a determinate relation — of any action of the one
ou the other, whether of equilibrium or of motion, without
reference to a physical cause — of any modification whatsoever
in the existing conditions of material agents, unless through
the invariable operation of a series of eternally impressed
consequences following in some necessary chain of orderly

IL] NOTE 4. 295
connexion." {Powell's Studi/ of the Evidences of Christianity,
P- I.33-)
" The entire range of the inductive iihilosophy is at once
based upon, and in every instance tends to confirm, by im
mense accumulation of evidence, the grand truth of the
universal order and constancy of natural causes, as a primary
law of belief; so strongly entertained and fixed in the mind
of every truly indnctix'c inquirer, that he can hardly even
conceive the possibility of its failure." (p. io8.)
" The enlarged critical and inductive study of the natural
Avorld cannot but tend powerfully to evince the inconceiv
ableness of imagined interruptions of natural order, or sup
posed suspensions of the laws of matter, and of that vast
series of dependent causation which constitutes the legitimate
field for the investigation of science, whose constancy is the
sole warrant for its generalizations." (p. no.)
" No amount of attestation of innumerable and honest
witnesses would CA'cr coiiA-ince any one versed in mathema
tical and mechanical science, that a person had squared the
circle or discoA^ered perpetual motion. Antecedent credibility
depends on antecedent knowledge, and enlarged views of the
connexion and dependence of truths; and the value of any
testimony will be modified or destroyed in different degrees
to minds differently enlightened." (p. 141.)
A writer in the Quarterly Review has forcibly pointed out
that such language as this violates "the very caution pre
scribed and commanded by the logic of induction, which
rigidly confines statements of facts to actual experience, re
fraining from any admixture -with these of assumption or
hypothesis." The " Immutability of the Laws of Nature" is,
be observes, such an assumption or hypothesis, and is therefore
an offence against " inductiA'e logic^ — that logic whose noble
ness and potency is centred in a rigid discrimination of
experience from imagination." {Article on the Immutability of
Nature, 1861.)

NOTE 4, p. 59.
Mr. Mill aims at providing induction with a complete
logical basis, and discards the idea that the uniformity of
nature rests upon any antecedent ground or assumption in

29G NOTE 4. [Lect.
the mind. "I must protest," he sa^^s, "against adducing
as evidence of the truth of a fact in external luiture tbe
disi)Osition, however general, oi' the human mind to believe
it. Belief is not proof , and does not dispense with ihe necessity
of proof . . . '. . To demand evidence Avlien the belief is
ensured by the mind's own laws is supposed to be appealing
to the intellect against the intellect. But this I apprehend is
a misunderstanding of tbe nature of evidence. By eAidenee
is not meant anything and everything which produces belief.
There are many things which generate belief besides CAd
dence : a mere strong association of ideas often causes a belief
so intense as to be unshaken by experience or argument.
EAidenee is not that which the mind does or must yield to,
but that which it ought to yield to." (vol. ii. p. 95.) W^e
could not have a more decided announcement that the writer
intended to establish law in nature, or the belief in the uni
formity of nature, upon a logical and argumentatiA'c as dis
tinguished from an instinctive ground. He disjiroves the
latter by another argument : " Were we to suppose (what is
perfectly possible to imagine) that the present order of the
universe were brought to an end, and a chaos succeeded in
which there was no fixed succession of events, and the past
gave no assurance of the future; and if a human being were
miraculously kept alive to witness this change, lie surely would
soon cease to believe in any uniformity, the uniformity itself no
longer existing. If this is admitted, either the belief in uni
formity is not an instinct, or it is an instinct conquerable, like
all other instincts, by acquired knowledge." (vol. i. p. 97.)
The reply to this argument is, that when the belief in the
future uniformity of nature is pronounced to be instinctive,
it is only pronounced to be instinctive upon the condition
of her past uniformity. The belief w hich is pronounced to be
instinctive absolutely, is the belief that the unknown will
be like the known. It depends therefore upon what the
known or past is, what we believe the unknown or future
Avill be. If the past has been order, we belicA'e the future
will be order; if the past has been chaos, we believe the
future will be chaos. The instinctive belief which is spoken

IL] NOTE 4. 297
of is the belief according to which the future in our minds
instinctivelj' reflects the past, whatever that past may l)e.
Discarding, then, altogether tbe instinelivi' or antecedent
ground, as the ground of the legitimate belief in the uni
formity of nature, Mr. Mill proceeds to provide this belief
Avith real evidence, or to place it upon a full logical basis.
And the first ground which he puts forward is that this
belief is " verified by cxiicrience." " Some believe it," he
says, " to be a principle which, antecedently to any verification
by experience, we are compelled by the constitution of our
thinking faculty to assume as true;" but be, on the other
hand, pronounces that this principle both requires and has the
verification of experience. " The assumption with regard
to the course of nature and the order of the universe," i. e. the
belief in its uniformity, he saj-s, "is an assumption involved
in every case of induction. And if we consult the actual
course of nature toe find that the assumption is warranted. The
universe we find is so constituted, that whatever is true in
any one case is true in all cases of a similar description.
This universal fact is a Avarrant for all inferences from expe
rience  The justification of our belief that the future
will resemble the past, is that the future does resemble the
past : and the logician is bound to demand this outward
evidence, and not to accept as a substitute for it a supposed
internal necessity." (a'oI. i. 316; v. 2, 97.)
I am at a loss to understand what Mr. Mill can mean by
saying that the assumption of the uniformity of nature is
" verified by experience," " is warranted bj' a universal fact ;"
and by saying that " the justification of our belief that the
future will resemble tbe past, is that the future does re
semble the past." If, indeed, I make use of " experience"
in such a waj^ as to combine it Avith an instinctive or ante
cedent ground, that is the ground upon which the belief in
the uniformitj'- of nature is ordinarily put ; the ground, Anz.
that although such a belief of course implies a past experience,
and would be impossible without it, the belief is instinctive
upon this past experience. The sun Jiaving risen up to this
morning, which is past experience, I believe that it will

298 NOTE 4. [Lect.
rise to-morroAV, which is an instinctive belief or assumption
upon that past cx])ericncc. Bat if I use the " verification of
experience" in didinciion to an antecedent or instinctive
ground, in that case the "verification" of my belief in tbe
sun's rising to-morrow " by experience" can only mean the
verification of it by the fact itself of the sun's rising to-
morroio. Such an " experimental proof " of induction
would indeed convert any inductive conclusion into a uni
versal proposition; for a conclusion Avhich is "proved" and
" verified" by " experience," as distinguished from any
" general disp)osition of the human mind to believe it," is
undoubtedly an actual and true fact. But such an " experi
mental proof" of induction cannot be stated without an
absurditj'^; for we cannot Avithout a contradiction in terms
speak of the subject of inductive belief being verified by expe
rience when that belief is by the very supposition an advance
upon our experience : mj' belief that the sun will rise to
morrow cannot be verified by the fact of the sun's rising
to-morrow, when as yet by the very form of the expression
that fact has not yet taken place. Such a kind of verification
could only be expressed by saying, ' I belicA'e that the sun
has risen, to-morrow.' Whatever amount of experience we may
have backward, that experience can only A'crify the belief
that preceded it — the belief in those particular facts of which
that experience was the verification; that past experience
cannot possibly verify my belief in a fact which is now future :
yet this is what Mr. Mill verbally states, — " The justification
of our belief that the future will resemble the past, is that
the future does resemble the past." That Avhieli was once
a future fact may have become in ten thousand instances
a present fact, and, when it became present, have resembled
the past; but we cannot possibly pronounce that what is
now future resembles the past, because that future does not
now exist. Whatever past verifications there may have been
of the once future, that which is at this time future cannot
be included in them ; and for our belief in it we must depend
upon an antecedent ground or assumption in our minds
that the future Avill resemble the past. The order or uni-

IL] NOTE 4. 299
formity of nature coidd indeed be verified by experience, were
it a past order or uniformity (uily ; but it is a future order as
Avell ; and the belief respecting that future miist rest upon an
assumption by which wc connect that past with this future.
As Mr. Mill, however, advances further in tbe construction
of a logical basis for induction, his argumentative phrase-
olog}' changes, and- the principle of the uniformity of nature
is asserted, instead of being "verified by experience" to be
" founded on prior generalizations or inductions." Of " the
fundamental principle or axiom of induction that the course
of nature is uniform," he says, " it would be a great error to
offer this large generalization as any explanation of the in
ductive process. On the contrary, I hold it to be itself an
instance of induction, an induction by no means of the most
obvious kind. Far from being the first induction we make, it
is one of the last  This great generalization is itself
founded on prior generalizations." (a'oI. i. p. 317-) "The
belief we entertain in the universality throughout nature of
the law of cause and effect [which is the same with the order
or uniformity of nature] is itself an instance of induction ;
we arrive at this universal law by generalization from many
laws of inferior generality." (vol. ii. p. 97.) The general
axiom then of the uniformity of nature is founded upon a
number of particular inductions. Upon what are the par
ticular inductions founded ? The particular inductions are,
according to Mr. Mill, founded upon the general axiom.
" This- assumption with regard to the course of nature and
the order of the universe is involved in every case of induction."
(vol. i. p. 316.) But the construction of such a ground of
induction as this appears to shew that induction does wd,
rather than that it does, rest upon a logical basis. For what
is the state of the case? The general assumption of the
uniformity of nature rests upon particular cases of induction ;
those particular cases of induction rest upon that general
assumption of the uniformity of nature. The large generali
zation rests upon prior generalizations; the prior generaH-
zations upon the large one. But if the two grounds or bases
of induction rest upon each other, what is this but to say

300 NOTE 4. [Lect.
that induction as a whole is foundation/t'M ; that it stands
upon no ground of reason. If in every case of induction
there is an assumption, and that assumption rests upon those
cases of induction ; both together are argumentativcly sus
pended in space.
Mr. Mill of course perceives the objection to which his
ground is open, and replies ; but instead of she%ving that
his ground furnishes that " proof" or " evidence " with
which, he has said, induction cannot dispiense, he appears
to disclaim the very intention of giving such proof or evi
dence at all. " In what sense can a principle which is so
far from being our earliest induction be regarded as a warrant
for all others ? In the only sense in which, as we have
already seen, the general propositions which Ave place at the
head of our reasonings when we throw them into syllogisms
ever contribute to their validity  not contributing at
all to pjrove the conclusion, but being a necessary condition of
its being proved; since no conclusion is proved for Avhich
there cannot be found a true major premiss." (vol. i. p. 318.)
The general assumption then of the uniformity of nature has
only the place in the inductive process of a major premiss in
the syllogism, which, Mr. Mill says, " is 2. petitio prhicipii," — ¦
" no real part of the argument, but an intermediate halting-
place for the mind, interposed by an artifice of language
between the real premiss and the conclusion." (vol. i. p. 225.)
In another passage, boAvever, Mr. Mill seems to promise
such an explanation of the ajsparent circular reasoning upon
which he has based induction as will shew that the circularity
in it is only apparent, and that it is at the bottom real proof.
" If we assume the universality of the very law which these
cases [particular induction.?] do not at first sight appear to
exemplify [i.e. the very law which is founded upon theni\,
is not this a petitio principii ? Can we prove a proposition
by an argument which takes it for granted ? And if not, on
what evidence does it rest ?" (vol. ii. p. 94.) Mr. Mill's ex
planation then is, that the large generalization rises upon some
particular cases, and being gained proves the others. " The
more obvious of the particular uniformities suggest and give

II-] NOTE 4. .'iOl
evidence of the general uniformity, and the general uniformity
once established enables us to prove the remainder of the
particular uniformities." (vol. ii. p. 97.) But this is no
answer to the argumentative objection which has been urged.
For how were the more obvious particular inductions, upon
which the Avhole structure rests, themselves made? By
assuming the general principle of uniformity — "This is an
assumption involved in every case of induction." (vol. i. p. 316.)
The general principle then still remains an assumption ; for
those cases Avhich assumed it evidently did not prove it.
Again, he reminds us that one part of induction may be
founded on another and yet may correct that other. The
principle of universal law or uniformity in nature, though a
great philosophical principle, he says, is founded npon un
scientific and empirical inductions ; for the precariousness of
this early and loose kind of induction diminishes "as the
subject-matter of observation widens;" and the law now
mentioned is " an empirical law coextensive with all human
experience." But the principle of uniA'-ersal law or uniformity
once proved corrects and improves upon the looser and earlier
inductions ; and " we substitute for the more fallible forms of
the process, an operation grounded on the same process in a
less falHble form." (vol. ii. p. 98.) But though it is true
that, looking upon induction in its results, one part corrects
another ; the correction of the results of induction has no
thing to do with the philosophical ground of induction, which
Mr. Mill still leaves in the state which has been described ;
the general law of uniformity resting on the particular cases,
and the particular cases on the general law.
The representation, then, of the uniformity of nature as being,
in distinction to an antecedent assumption, " a universal fact,"
" certain," " absolute," " proved ;" the assertion that " the
justification of our belief that the future will resemble the past
is that the future does resemble the past ;" this identification
of a law of nature with a universal proposition falls to the
ground, and with it the following statements : — " We cannot
admit a proposition as a law of nature and yet believe a fact in
real contradiction to it. We must disbelieve the alleged fact,

302 NOTE 4. [Lect.
or believe that we were mistaken in admitting the supposed
law." " If an alleged fact be in contradiction, not to any
number of approximate generalizations, but to a completed
generalization grounded on a rigorous induction, it is said to
be impossible." " An impossibility is that the truth of Avhich
would conflict Avith a complete induction." (vol. ii. pp. ^S7>
159^164) It is proper, however, to add, that when Mr. Mill arrives at
the point that he has to make a statement on the subject of
belief in miracles, that statement appears not to agree Avith
and carry out this account of induction, but to be in opposition
to it. He says : —
" But in order that any alleged fact should be contrary to
a law of causation, the allegation must be, not simply that
the cause existed without being followed by the effect, for
that would be no uncommon occurrence; but that this hap
pened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause.
Now in the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion is the
exact opposite of this. It is, that the effect was defeated, not
in the absence, but in consequence of a counteracting cause,
namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some
being who has power over nature ; and in particular of a
being whose will, being assumed to have endowed all the
causes Avith the powers by AAdiich they produce their effects,
may Avell be supposed able to counteract them. A miracle
(as was justly remarked by Brown) is no contradiction to the
law of cause and effect, it is a new effect supposed to be pro
duced by the introduction of a new cause. Of the adequacy
of that cause, if present, there can be no doubt; and the
only antecedent improbability which can be ascribed to the
miracle, is the improbability that any such cause existed."
(vol. ii. p. 159.)
This statement then certainly implies that a miracle is not
impossible, and admits of being rationally believed. For a
miracle is pronounced to be possible if there is an adequate
cause in counteraction to natural causes to account for it :
" the interposition of an act of the will of some being who
has power over nature''' is admitted to be such an adequate
counteracting cause ; and it is implied that there is nothing
contrary to reason in the belief in such a being. But such

II •] NOTE 4. 303
a statement as to the possibility of a miracle does not agree
with the previous ])osition which Mr. Mill has laid down;
because he has said that a fact in contradiction to a com
pleted induction is impossible, and wc know thai, a miracle is
such a fixct. That mon, c. g. do not alter death return to life
again is " a completed induction ;" and therefore the resurrec
tion of a man after death is a contradiction to a " completed
induction." It is true that a miracle is not in contradiction to
a law of causation, in the sense of causation by an act of the
Divine Avill ; but the law of causation of whicb Mr. Mill has
aD along spoken, and the contradiction to which he has pro
nounced to be an impossibilitj^^ is a law which consists simply
in a succession of uniform facts; it is physical law simply,
the chain of natural causes, which natural causes are only
another word for recurrent facts. A miracle, though it is
not contrary to a law of causation which includes the Divine
will as a cause, is contrary to this law of natural causation or
the order of nature. Mr. Mill's test of impossibility has
been all along a strictly matter-of-fact test — " a completed
generalization," a "completed induction." In this last state
ment, however, he adopts another test, that, viz. of causation
absolutely, and refuses to pronounce upon the impossibility
of a fact so long as, though contrary to the order of natural
causes, it can be referred to an adequate counteracting cause.
I gladly accept Mr. Mill's statement on the subject of belief
in miracles, but if this statement is true Mr. Mill's previous
language requires correction''.
" Mr. Mill's statement of Hume's argument, as only asserting that " no
evidence can prove a miracle to any one who did not previously believe the
existence of a Being with supernatural power,'' is an incorrect one. Hume
asserts that the existence of a God makes no difference to his argument ; and
rightly ; because his argument rests simply upon a comparison of the re.spective
contradictions to experience in the two facts themselves — the truth of the
miracle, and the falsehood of the w tness ; the former of which two contra
dictions, he says, is greater than the latter. But if this argument is correct,
it is equally correct whether a Deity is supposed or not. For if experience is
our only guide, it is the only test also of the will of the Deity ; which wUl,
therefore, is no additional consideration to experience, but is identical with and
is merged in it.

304 NOTE 4. [Lect.
The sense of abstract possibility indeed in Mr. Mill's mind,
revealed by him in various statements in his works, cannot
be said to be too jealous, or timid, or narrow. This idea,
which is cherished by him as a philosophical liberty and
right, includes in it many results so stupendous and over
whelming that no miracle can be compared with them. "I
am convinced," he says, " that any one accustomed to abstrac
tion and analysis, who Avill fairly exert his faculties for this
purpose, Avill, when his imagination has once learned to enter
tain the notion, find no difficulty in conceiving that in some
one, for instance, of the many firmaments into which sidereal
astronomy now divides the universe, events may succeed one
another at random without any fixed law." (ii. 96.) "In
distant parts of the stellar regions, where the phenomena
may be wholly unlike those with Avhich we are acquainted, it
Avould be folly to affirm confidently that this general law [of
uniformity] prevails. The uniformity in the succession of
events, otherwise called the law of causation, must not be
received as a law of the universe, but of that portion of
it only Avhich is within the range of our own observation."
(p. 104.) It must be remarked that this reign of enormity,
contradictor}' at its very root to our order of nature, and
involving all the miracles, did they take place on this earth,
which the wildest fancy can even picture to itself, has not,
according to Mr. Mill's conception, its possible locality in
another and invisible world, but in this very material uni
verse in which we are living; the distance of this portentous
scene from this planet, however long, is a certain definite dis
tance. Such conceptions as these have subjected Mr. Mill to
much criticism, but to whatever charge they are open it is not
to the charge of a limited sense of possibility. The objection
made to miracles is that they are divergences from the laws
of the material world introduced into the material world ; the
same persons who would admit any amount of strangeness in
another invisible world objecting to the introduction of diver
gence or strangeness into this world. Mr. Mill's conception
violates this distinction conspicuously, and so involves the
great point objected to in miracles.

IIL] NOTE 1. 305

LECTURE IIL
NOTE 1, p. 8i.
"No extent of physical investigation can warrant the
denial of a distinct order of impressions and convictions
wholly different in kind, and affecting that portion of our
compound constitution which we term the moral and
sjiiritual. " That impressions of a spiritual kind, distinct from any
which positive reason can arrive at, may be made on the
internal faculties of the soul, is an admission which can con
travene no truth of our constitution, mental or bodily. Nor
can it be reasonably disputed on any physical ground that,
under peculiar conditions, such spiritual impressions or inti
mations, in a peculiarly exalted sense, may be afforded to
some highly-gifted individuals, and Avorthily ascribed to a
Divine source, thus according with the idea avc attach to the
term 'revelation.'
"On other grounds it may perhaps be argued, that such
a mode of communicating high spiritual truth is suitable to
the truths communicated; that spiritual things are exhibited
by spiritual means ; moral doctrines eouA'cyed through the
fitting channel of the moral faculties of man. But all avc
are at present concerned to maintain is, that both the sub
stance and the mode of the disclosure are thus wholly remote
from anj'thing to which pihysical difficulties can attach, or
which comes under the province of sejise or intellect.
" But then, in accordance with its nature, the objects to
which such a revelation refers must be properly and exclusively
those belonging to moral and spiritual conceptions: Avbether
as related to what Ave experience within ourselves, or j)ointing
to and supposing a more extended and undefined Avorld of
spiritual, unseen, eternal existence, above and beyond all that is
matter of sense or reason, of which science gives no intimation — ¦
apart from the world of material existence, of ordinary human
action, or even of metaphysical speculation, AvhoUy the domain
and creation of faith and inspiration. Such a Avorld, it is
acknowledged, is disclosed by Christianity as the subject of

30(i NOTE 1. [Lect.
a peculiar revelation, ]n-csenting objects which arc wholly and
exclusively those of faith, not (jf sense or knowledge.
" Thus it follows, in regard to revelation in general, that so
far as its objects arc pro|)ci-Iy those whicb are in their nature
restricted to purely religious and spiritual truths, wc must
acknowledge that in these, its more characteristic and essen
tial elements, it can involve nothing which can come into contact
or coUision with the iriith of physical science or inductive uni
formity ; though wholl}' extraneous to the world of positive
knowledge, it can imply nothing at variance ivith any part of it,
and thus can involve us in no difficulties on physical grounds.
" And those who reason most extensively on the Divine
perfections are usually foremost to allow that our most Avorthy
conception of Divine interposition is that of spiritual mani
festation in the disclosure of the Divine Avill and purposes for
the salvation of man.
" It is tbe very aim and object of philosophy to point to
broad principles of unity, continuity, and analogy in all
physical events; though there are many -who (as one of the
ablest writers of the age has expressed it), being ' unable to
compare, suppose that e\'erything is isolated, simply because
to them the continuity is invisible.'
" But in matters altogether alien from phj'sical things, or
even the moral order of this world, — in sptiritual, unseen, and
heavenly things, from their A^ery nature, no such analogies
can be formed or expected; they are essentially distinct in
kind and order.
" Thus, a purely spiritual revelation, as such, stands on
quite distinct grounds from the idea oi pihysical interrui)tion.
Yet this distinction has been continually lost sight of, while
it is of the most primarj' importance for vindicating the
acceptance of such revelation as the source of spiritual truth."
{Pmvell's Order of Nature, p. 276.)
"The progress of opinion on such questions has been in
some measure indicated in the historical survey before taken.
The metaphysical spirit of an older philosoph}' indisposed or
disqualified even the most philosophical inquirers from per
ceiving the relative importance and bearing of phj-sical truth.
Their Theistic arguments were based on technical abstrac
tions, and overruled all physical inferences. Hence both
the belief and the scepticism of different ages has taken its
character. Men formerly, and even at present under metaphy
sical influences, have cavilled at mysteries, but acquiesced in
miracles. Under a more positive sj'stem, the most enlight
ened are the first to admit spiritual mysteries as matters of

III.] NOTE 1. .307
faith, utterly beyond reason, though they find deviations from
physical truth irreconcilable to science." {llnd. \t. 292.)
" 111 the foregoing survey of the relations of Christianity
to the physical order of things, and especially to miracles, in
the form which any view of that question necessarily takes
in the present day, it has been observed that the point to
AAdiich opinion seems from A^arious quarters to be converging,
both among enlightened believers and thinking and inquiring
minds, even of very different schools, is to recede from the
precise and formal arguments once so much insisted on,
but now seen to involve so many physical difficulties, and
to recur to more purel}'*/^/;-/;!?/;?^ considerations and the ground
oi faith in the reception of revelation ; — a view which so emi
nently harmonises with its nature as a disclosure of spiritual
mysteries of the unseen world.
" If in Avhat has preceded no reference has been made to
such high mysteries as the Trinity, the union of the Divine
and human natures in Christ, the Atonement by His death,
the influence of the Holy Spirit, or Sacramental grace, it is
because these and the like tenets of the Church do not pro
perly fall under the present discussion; since though in some
few points touching upon material things, — on the human
existence and death of Christ, and on the nature of man, —
yet they involve no consideration of a ^;//j/,sicandnd infringing
on the visible order of the natural world, and thus cannot be
open to any difficulties of the kind here contemplated : in
fact, all the objections which have been raised against them
are of a metaphysical, moral, or philological nature.
" But if, in other cases, the highest doctrines are essen
tially connected with the narrative of miracles, aa^c have seen
that the most earnest believers contemplate the miracle by
the light of the doctrine, and both solely Avith tbe eye of
faith ; and thus when, as in some of the chief articles of the
Christian formularies, the invisible world seems to be brought
into immediate connexion with the visible, — the region of
faith with that of sense, — when heavenly mysteries are repre
sented as involved in earthly marvels, — the spirit of faith
obviates the difficulties of reason by claiming them to its own
province and prerogative 
" Thus the resurrection of Christ is emphatically dwelt
upon, not in its physical letter, but in its doctrinal spirit;
not as a physiological phenomenon, but as the corner-stone
of Christian faith and hope, the type of spiritual life here,
and the assurance of eternal life hereafter.
" So, in like manner, the transcendent mysteries of the
X 2

308 NOTE 1. [Leqt.
Incarnation and the Ascension are never alluded to at all by
the Apostles in a historical or material sense, but only so far
as they are involved in points of spiritual doctrine, and as
objects of faith ; as connected with the Divine manifestation
of the ' Word made flesh,' ' yet without sin,' — with the in
scrutable work of redemption on earth and the unseen inter
cession in heaven, — with the invisible dispensations of the
gift of grace from above, and with the hidden things of the
future, which ' eye bath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have
entered the heart of man,' — with the predicted return of
Christ to judge the world, — and the eternal triumph of His
Jieavenly kingdom.
" And in this spiritualised sense has the Christian Church
in all ages acknowledged these Divine mysteries and miracles,
' not of sight, but of faith,' — not expounded by science, but
delivered in traditional formularies,— celebrated in festivals
and solemnities, — -by sacred rites and symbols, — embodied in
the creations of art, and proclaimed by choral harmonies; —
through all which the spirit of faith adores the ' great mys
tery of godliness, — manifested in the flesh, — justified in the
spirit, — seen of angels, — preached unto the Gentiles, — be
lieved on in the world, — received up to glory.' " {Ibid. p. 45<5.)

NOTE 2, p. 87.
"L'unite jointe a I'infini ne I'augmente de rien, non plus
qu'un j)ied a une mesure infinie. Le fini s'aneantit en presence
de I'infini, et devient un pur neant. Ainsi notre esprit devant
Dieu; ainsi notre justice devant la justice divine 
" Nous connaissons qu'il y a un infini et ignorons sa nature,
comme nous savons qu'il est faux que les nombres soient finis ;
done il est vrai qu'il y a un infini en nombre, mais nous ne
savons ce qu'il est. II est faux qu'il soit pair, il est faux
qu'il soit impair ; car, en ajoutant l'unite, il ne change point
de nature : cependant c'est un nombre, et tout nombre est
pair on impair ; il est vrai que cela s'entend de tous nombres
finis 
"Nous connaissons I'existence de I'infini et ignorons sa
nature, parce qu'il a etendue comme nous, mais non pas des
bornes comme nous." {Pascal, ed. Fougeres, vol. ii. pp. 163,
164.)

IIL] NOTE 2. 309
" The idea of space or extension," says Locke, " naturally
leads us to think that space in itself is actually bound
less. For it being considered by us cither as the exten
sion of body, or as existing by itself, without any solid
matter taking it up (for of such a void space we have
not only the idea, but I have proved, as I think, from
the motion of body, its necessary existence), it is impos
sible the mind should be able ever to find or suppose any
end of it, or be stopped anywhere in its progress in this
space, how far soever it extends its thoughts. Any bounds
made with body, even adamantine walls, are so far from
putting a stop to the mind in its farther progress in space
and extension, that it rather facilitates and enlarges it; for so
far as that bodj' reaches, so far no one can doubt of extension ;
and AA-^hen Ave are come to the utmost extremity of hody, what
is there that can put a stop, and satisfy the mind that it is at
the end of space, when it perceives it is not; nay, when it is
satisfied that body itself can move into it ? For if it be
necessary for the motion of the body that there should be an
empty space, though ever so little. Here amongst bodies; and
it be possible for body to move in or through that empty
space ; nav, it is impossible for any particle of matter to
move but into an empty space; the same possibility of a
body's moving into a void space, bej'ond the utmost bonds
of body, as well as into a void space interspersed amongst
bodies, A\ill always remain clear and evident; the idea of
emptjr pure space, whether within, or beyond the confines
of all bodies, being exactly the same, differing not in nature,
though in bulk ; and there being nothing to hinder body from
moving into it. So that wherever the mind places itself by
any thought, either amongst or remote from all bodies, it can,
in this uniform idea of space, nowhere find any bounds, any
end ; and so must necessarily conclude it, by the very nature
and idea of each part of it, to be actually infinite 
" What is positive, what negative, in our idea of infinite ? The
idea of infinite has, I confess, something of positive in all
those things we apply to it. When we would think of in
finite space or duration, we, at first step, usually make some
very large idea, as, perhaps, of millions of ages or miles,
which possibly we double and multiply several times. All
that we thus amass together in our thoughts is positive, and
the assemblage of a great number of positive ideas of space or
duration. But what still remains beyond this we have no
more a positive distinct notion of, than a mariner has of the

310 NOTE 2. [Lect.
depth of the sea where having let down a large portion of his
sounding-line he reaches no bottom ; whereby he kiioAvs the
depth to be so many fathoms and more, but how much that
more is he hath no distinct notion at all; and could be always
supply new line and find the plummet alAA^ays sink, without
ever stopping, he would be something in the ]iosture of the
mind reaching after a complete and positive idea of infinity.
In which case, let this line be ten or ten tbouisand fathoms
long, it equally discoA'crs what is beyond it, and gives only
this confused and comjiarativc idea, that this is not all, but
one may yet go farther. So much as the mind comprehends
of any space, it has a positive idea of; but in endeaA^ouring to
make it infinite, it being always enlarging, always advancing,
the idea is still imperfect and incomplete. So much si)ace as
the mind takes a view of in its contemplation of greatness, is
a clear picture, and positive in the understanding; but infinite
is still greater, i. Then the idea of so much is positive and
clear. 2. The idea of greater is also clear, but it is but a
comparative idea, viz. the idea of so much greater as cannot
be comprehended ; and this is plainly negative, not positive.
For he has no positive clear idea of the largeness of any ex
tension (which is that sought for in the idea of infinite) that
has not a comprehensive idea of the dimensions of it ; and
such nobody, I think, pretends to in Avhat is infinite. For to
say a man has a positive clear idea of any quantity, Avithout
knowing how great it is, is as reasonable as to say he has
the positiA'C clear idea of the number of the sands on the sea
shore, who knows not how many there be, but only that they
are more than twenty. For just such a perfect and positive
idea has he of an infinite space or duration who says it is
larger than the extent or duration of ten, one hundred, one
thousand, or any other number of miles or years, whereof he
has, or can have, a positiAe idea; which is all tbe idea, I
think, we have of infinite. So that what lies beyond our
positive idea towards infinity, lies in obscurity; and as the
indeterminate confusion of a negative idea, wherein I know I
neither do nor can comprehend all I would, it being too large
for a finite and narrow capacity ; and that cannot but be very
far from a positive complete idea, wherein the greatest part of
what I would comprehend is left out, under the indeterminate
intimation of being still greater. For to say that having in
any quantity measured so much, or gone so far, you are not
yet at the end, is only to saj^ that that quantity is greater.
So that the negation of an end, in any quantity,., is, in other

111.] NOTE 2. 311
words, only to say that it is bigger - and a total negation
of an end is l)ut carrying this bigger still with you in all
the ])i-ogressions your thoughts shall make in (juantity ; and
adding this idea ol* still greater, to all the ideas you have,
or can be supposed to have, of (piantity. Now, whether such
an idea as that be positive, I leave any one to consider."
{Locke on Humun Understanding, bk. ii. ch. 17.)
" Omne quod est, igitur, nulla regione viarum
Finitiim est ; namque extrcmum debebat habere :
Extremum porro nullius posse videtur
Esse, nisi ultra sit quod fiiiiat, ut videatur.
Quo non longius ha;c seiisus natura sequatur.
Nunc extra summam quoniam nihil esse fatendum est,
Non habet extremum ; caret ergo fine modoque :
Nee refert, quibus assistas regionibus ejus:
Usque adeo, quem c(uisqiie locum posscdit, in omneis
Tantundem parteis infinitum omne relinquit.
Praeterea, si jam finitum constituatur
Omne, quod est, spatium, si quis procurrat ad oras
Ultimus extremas, jaciatque volatile telum.
Id validis utrum contortum viribus ire.
Quo fuerit missum, mavis, longeque volare.
An prohibere aliquid censes, obstareque posse ?
Alterutrum f'atearis enim sumasque, necesse est.
Quorum utrumque tibi effugium prsecludit, et omne
Cogit ut exempta concedas fine patere.
Nam sive est aliquid, quod prohibeat efficiatque.
Quo miiiu' quo missum est veniat, finique locet se ;
Sive foras fertur, non est ea fini' profecto.
Hoc pacto sequar, atque, oras ubicumque locaiis
Extrertias, quaeram, quid telo denique fiat.
Fiet, uti nusquam possit consistere finis ;
Effugiumque fugae prolatet copia semper." Lucretius, i. 957.

312 NOTE 3. [LiicT.

NOTE 3, p. 88.
One particular argument of Bishop Butler in opposition to
the presumption against miracles is drawn from the fact of
creation, as being itself a miracle, or of the nature of one, and
so a precedent for miracles ; there being no presumption, when
a power different from the course of nature was exerted in the
first placing of man here, against that power going on to
exert itself further in a revelation.
" There is no presumption, from analogy, against some
operations which we should now call miraculous ; particularly
none against a revelation at the beginning of the Avorld :
nothing of such presumption against it, as is supposed to be
implied or expressed in the word miraculous. For a miracle,
in its very notion, is relative to a course of nature ; and
implies somewhat different from it, considered as being so.
Now, either there was no course of nature at the time which we
are speaking of, or, if there were, we are not acquainted Avhat
the course of nature is upon the first peopling of worlds.
And therefore the question, whether mankind had a revela
tion made to them at that time, is to be considered, not as
a question concerning a miracle, but as a common question
of fact. And we have the like reason, be it more or less,
to admit the report of tradition concerning this question,
and concerning common matters of fact of the same anti
quity ; for instance, what part of the earth was first peopled.
" Or thus : when mankind Avas first placed in this state,
there was a power exerted totally different from the present
course of nature. Now, whether this power, thus wholly
different from the present course of nature, for we cannot
properly applj' to it the word miraculous ; whether this power
stopped immediately after it had made man, or went on, and
exerted itself farther in giA'ing him a revelation, is a question
of the same kind as whether an ordinary power exerted itself
in such a particular degree and manner or not.
" Or suppose the power exerted in the formation of the world
be considered as miraculous, or rather, be called by that name ;
the ease will not be different : since it must be acknowledged
that such a power was exerted. For supposing it acknowledged,
that our Saviour spent some years in a course of working

Ill] NOTE 3. 313
miracles : there is no more presumption, worth mentioning,
against His having exerted this miraculous power, in a certain
degree greater, than in a certain degree less ; in one or two
more instances, than in one or two fewer ; in this, than in
another manner." {Analogy, part ii. ch. ii.)
This argument does not appear to be interfered with by
anything Avhich science has brought to light since Butler's
time. It assumes indeed a " beginning of the world," and
scientific authorities state that there are no evidences in
nature of a beginning'. But supposing this to be the case,
science still does not assert that there is no beginning, but
only deny that the examination of nature exhibits proof that
there is one.
Science would indeed appear to be in the reason of the case
incompetent to pronounce that there was no beginning in
nature ; because however far back she may trace the history
of the formation of the material world, she can only assert
what she has discovered, atz. the farthest point backward
reached ; she cannot assert what succession lies beyond the
last ascertained point, still less that this succession is infinite.
' " It has been already observed that strict science offers no evidence of the
commencement of the existing order of the universe. It exhibits indeed a won
derful succession of changes, but however far back continued, and of however
vast extent, and almost inconceivable modes of operation, still only changes ;
occurring in recondite order, however little as yet disclosed, and in obedience
to physical laws and causes, however as yet obscure and hidden from us. Yet
in all this there is no beginning properly so called ; no commencement of exist
ence when nothing existed before : no creation in the sense of origination out
of non-existence, or formation out of nothing. The nebular theory may be
adopted in cosmology, or the development hypothesis in palaeontology — or any
other still more ambitious systems reaching back in imagination into the
abysses of past time ; yet these are only the expositions of ideas theoretical
and imaginary, but still properly within the domain ot physical order, and even
by them we reach no proper commencement of existence. More than half a
century ago. Dr. Hutton announced the first ideas of a natural geology, and
boldly declared, ' In the economy of the world I can find no traces of a begin
ning, no prospect qf an end,' and all the later progress of science has pointed,
as from its nature it must do, to the same conclusion, nor can any other branch
of science help us farther back than geology. In a word, geology (as Sir C.
Lyell has so happily expressed it) is ' the autobiography of the earth,' but, like
other autobiographies, it cannot go back to the birth." {Powell's Order of Na-
iure, p. 250.)

314 NOTE 3. [Lect.
It may be said that when the jiroccss of research has g-one on
for a long time, and when it always has been found hitherto
that hoAvever back we have gone, there has bi-cn something dis
covered farther back still ; the presum2)tion is raised that this
retrogression could be seen to go on for ever, if we could
only continue to trace it. But this is no more than a pre
sumption, which ought to give way to other considerations,
if there are such of a weighty and urgent kind, for believing
the contrary.
The value indeed of the fact of there being no scientific
evidence of a beginning in nature as a proof there is no
beginning, must depend on the consideration Avhether there
would or could be scientific evidence of a beginning, supposing
there to be one. For if, supposing a beginning, no search
or analysis of nature might or could afford evidence of it, in
that case no proof of the want of a beginning is given in the
absence of scientific evidence for one. Evidence of a begin
ning, Ave must remember, is only another word for our being
aijle to trace and find one; that is to saj'', evidence is only
another expression for our faculties. Have we then the faculties
for discovering by analysis a beginning in nature ? In reply
to this question it may be worth remarking, that we cannot
be sure of the extent to which our faculties go in investigating
nature; that we do not know the degree of their strength
and subtlety, nor therefore, on this account, what conclusion
is to be drawn from their failure. But, indeed, there appears
to be another and a stronger reason to allege why we cannot
draw the conclusion of there being no beginning from our not
finding one, or from there being no evidences of one ; for can
there in the nature of the case be evidences and proofs from
analysis of a beginning in nature, Avhen all that analysis can
CA'cr possibly discover is the existence of some earlier fact
than all hitherto ascertained ones, Avhich is not a beginning,
and no evidence of one''.
k Mr. Baden Powell supposes that he enhances his statement of faot that
science contains no evidence of a beginning by the addition that to " imagine a
beginning is altogether out of the domain of science :" — which is the same as
supposing that the testimony of a witness that a fact did not take place, is

Ill] NOTE 3. 315
Science then is opposed to a certain conception of creation,
but not to creation itself. It is opposed to creation conceived
as an instantaneous operation, as an act of the Almighty will
calling at once and in a moment by its fiat the whole world,
material, animal, and rational, into existence, without gradua
tion, progression, succession of steps. But all that is essential
to creation is that it should have a beginning ; and what suc
ceeds this beginning — wdietlier the end, the whole and finished
work, immediately succeeds it, or whether a long and extended
series of stages commencing Avith the lowest forms of organic
nature, and terminating in the existing result, are all included
Avithiii the creative work — is altogether irrelevant to the idea
of creation. Science then is in no disagreement Avith the
idea of creation in that Avhicli is essential to it, although the
facts Avhich science has brought to light in connexion with
the formation of this world are inconsistent Avith one con
ception and notion of creation. Physical science at least is
only opposed to that which is essential to creation, or to a
beginning, in the way which has been mentioned, \iz. as
raising, by her past researches farther and farther backward,
a kind of impression in the mind of the absolute interminable-
uess of this process. But such an impression cannot be urged
as any jjroof that this series is interminable, because we pos
sess no knowledge whatever of what exists beyond the last
discovered fact ; so that in the nature of the case the con
clusion that this series is interminable, i.e. that this Avorld
has existed from aU eternity, and is uncreated, cannot be
pronounced by science.
strengthened by the circumstance that, not being on the spot, he could not
have seen it if it had taken place.
That we cannot however in matericd nature hj physical analysis discover a
beginning, is not inconsistent with that beginning admitting of legitimate proof
when we include in nature the order of intelligent beings, and apply to nature
so understood certain principles of reasoning inherent in the very constitution
of our minds. Because we conclude from the existence of the universe some
self-existent being, we conclude from the order of intelligent beings in the
universe, and the appearances of design in it, the intelligence of that Self-
existent Being ; and we conclude from the Original Being being intelligent, and
matter not, that the material world cannot be that Original Being, i. e, must
have a beginning. {Clarke's Demonstration, Prop, viii.)

- 310 NOTE 3. [Lect.
Upon whatever ground, then, the existence of a Creator'and
Governor of the Avorld was assumed in the " Analogy," upon
the same it may be assumed now, and with the assumption of
a creation goes the argument respecting miracles from the
creation. Again, the part of Butler's argument relating to the par
ticular miracle of a revelation to man, supposes, in the mode
in which it is put, that mankind was placed in this world at
the beginning of this Avorld ; and these two phrases, " man
kind being first placed in this state," and " tbe beginning "
or " formation of the world," are used in the same meaning :
a supposition which is opposed to recent science. But this
supposition makes no difference to the argument so long as
the former of these two events, whether contemporaneous
with the other or not, is in itself correctly described in the
argument ; for if " when mankind Avas first placed in this
state there was a power exerted totally different from the
present course of nature," the argument correctly proceeds,
" whether this power stopped, or went on," &c. But that
the power exerted upon that occasion was extraordinary
is not disproved or contradicted by modern science; for
all that modern science has ascertained is, that man came
in subsequently to a long succession of irrational species;
but that there was a preceding succession of irrational
species does not make the introduction of the human
species any the less, when it took place, a new fact in
the world, indicating the exertion of "a power totally dif
ferent from the course of nature ;" both from that course of
nature which was going on at the time, when man as yet did
not exist, and from the present course of nature, when we
only see his continuance, not his beginning.
Taking the facts of science, indeed, as they stand, and
abstracted from any hypothesis respecting them, the several
introductions of new species, antecedently to man, were severally
"exertions of a power different from the course of nature."
These species may be said indeed to constitute a succession or
a series, and nature in the successive introduction of them
may be said to exhibit marks of a plan or programme. But

III.] NOTE 3. 317
a mere succession of events does not of itself constitute an
order or course of nature ; that depends on the mode or con
tinuity of the succession. If there are long breaks in the
chain, and if these several introductions or beginnings of new
forms of life take place at vast and irregular intervals, em
bracing lengths of intervening time almost transcending our
conception, these several new introductions would no more
form an order of nature, than particular instances of resur
rection after death, at intervals of hundreds or thousands of
years, since the creation of mankind, would form a law of
resurrection. These several introductions of new life would
still be each of them a change in the order of nature existing
at the time of their respectively taking place ; and, inasmuch
as everything that is produced must have a cause, they Avould
be each the exertion of power different from the course of
nature, then and now. Such a progress of creation, indeed,
as that of which Mr. Darwin has set forth the hypothesis,
would be inconsistent with any event belonging to that pro
gress being different from the order of nature ; because the
order of nature and creation would then be identical ; the
formation of new species would be a process always going on
in all its stages, earlier or later, according to the particular
instances; and the production of each new species, as each
was produced, would be only so slight an advance upon the
previous step, that it would not be a difference from, but only
an instance of, a constantly changing and advancing order of
nature. The miraculous stage indeed, if any, would be not
that of creation, which was a continuous order of nature, but
the present era of the world, when this order of nature has
stopped. Mr. Darwin's hypothesis supplies the links and
fills up the chasms in the progress of creation. But without
anything to fill up the immense chasms and breaks in the
order of creation as it stands, the new species as they make
their appearance in the record before us are entirely new and
original phenomena, starting up whole, at incalculable intervals
from each other.
Nor — though it may be hardly worth while making the
observation — can any " creational law " which does not fill

318 NOTE 3. [Lect.
up these voids, but leaves them standing as they arc, make
any difference in the character of these phenomena. A
" creational law " whicb coexists with such gaps and breaks
can only be a theoi-3^ of Divine action, a conception of the
mind, not a law of nature ; having the same relation to the
productions of new species that Mr. Babbage's law of
miracles has to miracles : a law Avhicb, as I observed in
Lecture VI. , does not touch the miraculous character of
miracles. Secondary causes in order to constitute an order
of nature must be visible ; in the absence of which visibility
their results are still anomalous and strange facts. The phi
losopher however, when he speaks of a creational law, or "a
continuously operative secondary creational power',"only means
the hypothesis that there is, though unascertained, a law of
nature in this department, or that new facts constituting an
adequate continuity of succession will be discovered.
The " first placing of man in this world," however, was
a change in the order of nature so different in kind from all
previous changes, that even supposing an order of nature
up to his introduction, that introduction of him Avas still
" the exertion of a power different from that order of
nature." Of this ncAv phenomenon, then. Sir Charles Lj'ell
says, — -" In our attempt to account for the origin of species
we find ourselves brought face to face with the working
of a law of development of so high an order as to stand
nearly in the same relation as the Deity Himself to man's
finite understanding; a law capable of adding new and
powerful causes, such as the moral and intellectual faculties
of the human race, to a system of nature which had gone
for millions of years without the intervention of an analogous
cause." {Antiquity of Man, ch. xxiii.)
To the hypothesis of a creational law made in this state
ment, I apply the remarks made above. But Sir Charles
Lyell advances a further step, and while acknowledging
the mystery of the origin of man, makes a cautious attempt
to bring that mystery Avithin the limits of a class and order
of known mysterious phenomena, which have come into
' Owen's Palceontolosy, p. 444.

III.] NOTE 3. 319
observation in the actual present course of nature, and within
the region of human history and tradition.
" Tbe inventors of useful arts, the poets and pro]diets of
the early stages of a nation's growtli, the promulgators of
new systems of religion, ethics, and jihilosopby, or of new
codes of laws, have often been looked upon as messengers
from heaven, and after their death have had divine honours
paid to them, while fabulous tales have been told of the
prodigies Avhicb accompanied their birth. Nor can we
wonder that such notions have prevailed when avc consider
what important revolutions in tbe moral and intellectual
Avorld such leading spirits have brought about; and when
we reflect that mental as well as physical attributes are
transmissible by inheritance, so that we may possibly discern
in such leaps the origin of the superiority of certain races
of mankind. In our own time, the occasional appearance
of such extraordinary mental powers may be attributed to
atavism; but there must liaA'e been a beginning to the series
of such rare and anomalous events 
" To say that such leaps constitute no interruption to the
ordinary course of nature, is more than we are warranted
in affirming. In the case of the occasional birth of an indi
vidual of superior genius, there is certainlj^ no break in the
regular genealogical succession ; and Avhen all the mists of
mythological fiction are dispelled by historical criticism, when
it is acknowledged that the earth did not tremble at the
nativity of the gifted infant, and that the face of heaven
Avas not full of fiery shapes, still a mighty mysterjr remains
unexplained, and it is the order of the phenomena, and not
their cause, which we are able to refer to the usual course
of nature." {Antiquity of Man, ch. xxiv.)
Such genealogical leaps then having, as the writer sup
poses, actually taken place in the intellectual nature of man
kind, within the region of historical tradition, — which though
it has imparted to its descriptions the shape of popular poetry
and imagination, has still preserved in them the substance
of true facts, — human nature he conceiA'Cs to have been a leap
of the same kind ; only that instead of being a transition
from lower man to higher man, it was a transition from the
brute to the man. " If in conformity with the theory of pro
gression, we believe mankind to have risen slowly from a rude
and humble starting-point, such leaps may have successively

320 NOTE 3. [Lect.
introduced not only higher and higher forms and grades of in
tellect, but at a much remoter period may have cleared at one
bound the sjiace which separated the highest stage of the un-
progressive intelligence of the inferior animals from the first
and lowest form of improveable reason manifested by man."
But, without entering into the question whether differences
in the scale of humanity, even if derived from the cause here
assigned, Avould be a parallel to the difference between a state
probationary for immortality and one not, i.e. between the
human and the brutal; is there any evidence of differences in
the scale of humanity having taken place from this cause,
i.e. by physical transmission? any evidence that great and
leading men who made their appearance in the early ages
of society transmitted their own superior faculties by phy
sical descent, and that a permanent rise in the subse
quent intellectual level of mankind was produced by the
operation of a genealogical law ? Historical tradition, in
deed, speaks of heroes and legislators who rose from time
to time in the first ages of the world, and developed and
improved the social and intellectual condition of the nations
to which they belonged by education, by new codes and
institutions, by new arts and inventions ; but not of men
who raised the intellect of mankind and founded " the supe
riority of certain races" by the natural transmission of their
own higher qualities of mind, which thus became the here
ditary property and new nature of posterity. Sir C. LyeU
admits indeed that such facts as these " have a mighty
mystery unexplained in them," and that though the facts
themselves " are to be referred to the usual course of nature,"
" their cause lies wholly beyond us ;" that is to say, he does
not deprive the course of nature of mystery, but he conceives,
nevertheless, that the leap from animal to human nature is
paralleled by facts ^vhich have appeared in the existing course
of nature. Neither history, however, nor tradition discloses
such facts as Sir C. Lyell needs for the purpose of his parallel.
We see indeed genealogical ascents of inteUect, but those
ascents are not permanent, and found no new intellectual
nature : for the son having risen above the intellectual level

Ill] NOTE 4. 321
of his father, his son returns back to the lower stage.
Again, we see permanent ascents in the intellect of man,
but those ascents are not genealogical ; they are not produced
^^y physical transmission, but by education, by civilization,
and instruction in tlie arts of life. Human nature, before
and after tbe rise of the great and the wise teachers who have
appeared at different epochs, was the same; only in its former
state uninstructed, in the latter enlightened by new truths
and discoveries. Permanent ascents gained bj' physical in
heritance are the facts Avhich Sir C. Lyell needs for the pur
pose of his parallel ; but these do not present themselves.
NOTE 4, p. 89.
It is not perhaps sufficiently considered that, whatever
criterion Ave adopt of the rightness or Avrongness of actions,
i.e. what makes actions right or Avrong, the particular standard
we apply to the actions does not affect the question of the
principle of " right," or moral obligation being necessary to
bind those actions upon the individual. Thus the standard of
expediency applied to actions is perhaps popularly supposed
to conflict and to dispense with the principle of moral obliga
tion in tbe individual ; the notion being that, because ex
pediency is the criterion of the actions, therefore the actions
cannot be performed in obedience to the moral sense or sense
of right, but because they are expedient. But in truth the
standard of expediency no more dispenses with the sense of
moral obligation in the individual than any other standard,
nor is it correct to conceive that if actions are performed
because they are expedient, therefore they are not performed
under a sense of moral obligation ; because after the criterion
has done its part and fixed upon the actions on account
of their expediency, the question still remains. Under Avhat
obligation am I to do what is expedient, what conduces
to general happiness? Unless this additional step can be
made out, the actions may be proved to be ever so useful
and advantageous to the community, but the link whicb
connects them with the duty of the individual is wanting.
Y

322 NOTE 4. [Lkct.
The system of Bentham is defectiA'c in this imjiortant link —
the medium between the community and the individual, by
AAdiieh Avbat is useful to the community becomes binding u]ion
the individual. He gives with great copiousness of state
ment bis definition of right and wrong in actions, viz. their
being- advantag-eous or disadvantag-eous to the Avbole social
bodjj^, including the individual himself. " Only so far as it
produces happiness or misery can an act be properly called
virtuous or vicious." {Beontology, vol. i. p. 141.) "Will
clamouring for ' ought' or ' ought not,' that p;'rj)etnal petitio
principii, stand in the stead of utility ? Men may .\cai- out
the air with sonorous and unmeaning words; those words will
not act upon the mind; nothing AAill act upon it but tbe
apprehensions of pleasure and pain  Avow then that
what is called duty to oneself is but prudence, and what is
called duty to others is effective benevolence." {Tniroduction
to Beontology , vol. ii.) But supposing this criterion of right
ness in actions themselves to be adoj^ted, viz. their producing
happiness, the question still remains, "Why must I j)erform
these actions ? what have I to do with the happiness of
others?" If the principle of "ought" then is admitted,
and the sense of "ought" allowed to exist in our minds,
there is a tie Avhich binds the indiAidual to society. He
cannot neglect the happiness of others without self-reproach,
and without the right of others to reproach him. But with
out this sense of " ought " how does the matter stand ? A
certain class of actions are attended by most A^aluable results,
and it is undoubtedly highly for the interest of the com
munity that they should be performed. But all that is by
the very profession proved is the interest of the community.
What difference does it make in ihe individual, not doing
them ? Is he himself at all in a different state whether he
does them or not ? Why should he reproach himself, what
right have others to reproach him, if he does not do them ?
Without the sense of " ought " in the individual, there is
a large amount of human happiness laid before us as the
result of certain actions, but there is nothing to bind tbe
individual to those actions, or make him responsible for that

IIL] NOTE 4. 323
happiness. Society is lucky, and is to be congratulated
upon its good fortune, if it obtains such a class of actions
from him; but society cannot say, 'You ought to do them,'
for there is no such thing as the principle or sense of " ought."
If he has not done them, all that can be said is that he has
not done them — a fact wliich is no more a reflection upon him
than the omission of anjdbing else which was not incumbent
upon him. Without the principle of " ought " to supple
ment the criterion of expediency, the virtuousness of an action
is identical Avith certain adA^antageous effects, and means these
effects, and has no other meaning. But these effects are
wholly outside the individual agent, and do not affect him in
the slightest degree as attaching any quality to him, or
making any difference in his inward condition. Praise or
blame can only attach to him in the sense in Avhich these
terms must be used and to which they must be confined in
this philosophy, viz. as the assertion of one or another set
of effects ; in which sense they assert external, or, as Ave may
say, historical facts only, and do not touch the man.
Bentham's position, then, is not true — "The elements of pain
and pleasm-e give to tbe deontologist instruments sufficient
for his work. ' Give me matter and motion,' said Descartes,
' and I AAill make a physical world.' ' Give me,' may the
utilitarian teacher exclaim, ' give me the human sensibilities
— ^joy and grief, pain and pleasure— and I Avill create a moral
world. I will produce not only justice, but generosity,
patriotism, philanthropy, and the long and illustrious train
of sublime and amiable virtues.'" {Introduction to Beontology,
\o\. n.) "Deontology" does not supply the link between
the good of society and the individual. It may be said that
the principle of benevolence exists in the human mind as
a passion or affection, independently of the sense of " ought "
or duty ; and that this is the link Avhich connects tbe in-
diAddual with society. But the mere affection of benevolence
is only such a Hnk so long as the affection is carried on by
its own impulse, as the appetite of hunger or curiosity or
any other is; Avben benevolence becomes an effort, unless
there is the sense of "ought" to supply the place of the
Y 2

324 NOTE 4. [Lect.
force of the appetite, society's hold upon the individual goes.
For though benevolence, while it was in force, was advan
tageous to the community, the want of it cannot be charged
as a fault, there being no " ought " or " ought not " in the
system. A " fault " in it can only mean a disadvantageous
consequence of an action regarded as a productive thing,
which is not a fault in tbe moral sense. Yet, unaccountable
as it may seem, it is only AAdien benevolence does become an
effort, and therefore depends entirely upon the sense of
" ought " for its exertion, that it is admitted to be a virtue
by Bentham. " But though the test of virtue be usefulness,
or, in other words, the production of happiness — virtue being
that which is beneficial and vice that Avhich is pernicious
to the community — there is no identity between virtue and
usefulness, for there are many beneficial actions which do not
partake of the nature of virtue. Virtue demands effort."
{Beontology, vol. i. p. 146.) But why should a man make
the effort ? Bentham cannot say he " ought " to make it,
and no other reason, applying to the individual, can be
alleged. His very definition of virtue then makes it depen
dent just on that principle which in bis philosophy is omitted.
He is possessed indeed of certain " sanctions or inducements
to action," such as the fear of punishment and the desire
for approbation. But the former of these two motives can
only apply to a very small proportion of human actions, if
by punishment we mean civil or physical punishment ; and
the approbation of others is founded upon the sense of
" ought " in those Avho give it, and its force as a motive
depends upon the sense of " ought " in him who is the
subject of it. Abstracted from this the approbation of others
is merely their assertion of certain facts which to tbe in
dividual make no difference. To prudential actions the
obligation is stronger than to benevolent, because interest
in himself is more of a necessary feeling in a man than in
terest in others ; but even here the obligation is not moral ; nor
if a man chooses not to regard or consult for his own interest
can blame attach to him ; blame at least can only mean in this
philosophy the assertion of certain consequences of his conduct.

IIL] NOTE 5. .325

NOTE

5, p. 91.

The secularist position is stated thus by its chief promul
gator : —
" You cannot live for both worlds, because you do not
know both. You know but one. Live for the one you do
know." {Secular Miscellany , p. 26.)
" Secular principles relate to the present existence of man,
and to methods of procedure tbe issues of which can be tested
by the experience of this life. A person holding secular prin
ciples as general rules of life, concerns himself with present
time and materiality, neither ignoring nor denying the future
and spiritual, which are independent questions. Secularity
draws the line of distinction betAveen the things of time and
the things of eternity. That is secular which pertains to this
world. The distinction ma}' be seen in the fact that the car
dinal propiositions of theologj' are proveable only in the next
life, and not in this. If I believe in a given creed, it may
turn out to be tbe true one, but one must die to find out
that  Pure secular principles have for their object to fit
men for time. Secularism purposes to regulate human affairs
by considerations purely human. Its principles are founded
upon nature, and its object is to render men as perfect as
possible in this life." {Principiles of Secularism, p. 6.)
" We desire to knoio and not to hope. We have no wants,
and wish to have none which truth will not satisf}'. We
Avould realize this life — we would also deserve another, but
Avithout the selfishness Avbich craves it, or the presumption
which expects it, or the discontent which demands it." {Se
cularism Bistinguished from Unitarianism, p. 16.)
The philosophy of universal necessary law, alluded to at
p. 90, whicb puts man and material nature under the same
head, and which argues that if man is not under that law,
neither can nature be asserted to be, i. e. that if free-AAill is
allowed in man, miracles may be allowed in nature, is thus
stated : —
" Step by step the notion of evolution by law is trans
forming the whole field of our knowledge and opinion 
Not the physical world alone is noAv the domain of inductive
science, but the moral, the intellectual, and the spiritual are
being added to its empire  It is the crown of philo-

326 NOTE 1. [Lkct.
sophy to see the immutable even in the comjilcx; action of
human life. In the latter, indeed, it is but the first germs
which are clear. No rational thinker hopes to discover more
than a few })rimary axioms of law, and some approximating
theory of growth. Much is dark and contradictory 
" AVhy this rigorous repudiation of all disorder in the
material world, whilst insisting on stupendous perturba
tions of tbe moral ? Why are all facts contrary to science
rejected, and theories contrary to bistorj'- retained? Why are
j)hysical miracles absurd, if spiritual miracles abound ? Why
are there no suspensions of the laws of matter, yet cardinal
suspensions of the laws of mind ? . . . . They sec ' the grand
foundation — conception of universal law,' ' the invariable
operation of a series of eternally impressed consequences fol
lowing in some necessary chain of orderly causation.' Such a
law, we conceive, is read in all human history, life and spirit."
(Article on Neo-C/iristianity, Westminster lieview, Oct. i860.)

LECTUEE IV.
NOTE 1, p. 96.
" At the utmost a physico-theology can only teach a
supreme mind evinced in the laws of the world of matter,
and the relations of a Deity to physical things essentially as
derived from physical laAV.
" A moral or metaphysical theology (so far as it may be
substantiated) can only lead us to a Deity related to mind,
or to the moral order of the world.
" Physical science may bring us to a God of nature, moral
or metaphysical science to a God of mind or spirit. I3ut all
philosophy is generalisation, and therefore essentially implies
universal order; and thus in these sublime conclusions, or in
any inferences we may make from them, that principle must
hold an equally prominent place. If we indulge in any spe
culations on the Divine perfections we must admit an element
of immutable order as one of the chief.
" The firm conception of the immutability of order is the
first rudiment in all scientific foundation for cosmo-theology.
Our conclusion cannot go beyond the assumption in our evi
dence. Our argument can lead us only to such limited notions

IV.] NOTE 1. 327
ot the Divine attributes as arc consistent with the principle of
' Cosmos.' If we s])eak of ' wisdom,' it is as evinced in
laws of profoundly-adjusted reason; if of ' ])owei-,' it is only
in the conception of universal and eternal maintenance of
those arrangements; if of 'infinite intelligence,' it is as
manifested t.hrougliout the inliiiity of nature; and to whose
dominion we can imagine no limit, as we can imagine none to
natural order.
" If wc attempt to extend tbe idea of ' power,' to infinity,
or wdiat we call the attribute of ' Omnipotence,' in con
formity with a strictly natural theology, it can only be from
the boundless extent to Avhich we find these natural arrange
ments kept up in incessant activity, but unchangeable order ;
the unlimited, and Ave believe illimitable expansion, both in
time and space, of the same undeviating regularity Avith
which the operations of the universally connected machinery
are sustained. The difiiculty which presents itself to many
minds, how to reconcile the idea of unalterable laio with voli
tion (which seems to imply something changeable), can only
be answered by appealing to those immutable laws as the
sole evidence and exponent we have of supreme volition ; a
volition of immutable mind, an empire of fixed intelligence.
" The simple argument from the invariable order of nature
is Avholly incompetent to give us any conception whatever
of the Divine Omnipotence, except as maintaining , or acting
through, that invariable universal system of physical order and
law. Any belief which may be entertained of a different
kind must essentially belong to an order of things Avholly
beyond any conclusions derived from physical philosophy or
cosmo-theology. A Theism of Omnipotence in any sense devi
ating from the order of nature must be derived entirely from
other teaching : in fact it is commonly traceable to early reli
gious impressions derived, not from any real deductions of
reason, but from the language of the Bible.
" Natural theology does not lead us to the supernatural,
being itself the essential and crowning principle of the natu
ral: and pointing to the supreme moral cause or mind in
nature, manifested to us as far as the invariable and universal
series and connexion of physical causes are disclosed ; obscured
only when they may be obscured; hidden only when they
may be imagined to be interrujjted.
" The supernatural is the offspring of ignorance, and the
parent of superstition and idolatry ; the natural is the assu
rance of science, and the preHminary to all rational views of
Theism.

328 NOTE 2. [Lkct.

li rii

The highest inferences to which any physical philosophy
can lead us, though of demonstral,i.ve force as far as they can
reach, are cin\iesf.oi\\y o\' wL'i-y limited extent . It is a mistake
to confound with the deductions of science these more sub
lime conceptions and elevated spiritual views ol a Deity, — a
personal God, — an Omnipotent Creator, — a moral governor,
— a Being of infinite spiritual perfections, — holding relations
Avith the spirit of man ; — the object of worship, trust, fear,
and love; — all which conceptions can originate only from some
other source than physical philosophy. These are conclusions
which science must confess entirely to transcend its powers,
as they are beside its province to substantiate." {Powell's
Order of Nature, p. 245.)
" The belief in Divine interposition must be essentially
dependent on what we previously admit or believe with respect
to the Divine attributes.
" It was formerly argued that every Theist must admit the
credibility of miracles ; but this, it is now seen, depends on
the nature and degree of his Theism, which may vary through
many shades of opinion. It depends, in fact, on the precise
view taken of the Divine attributes; such, of course, as is
attainable prior to our admission of revelation, or we fall
into an argument in a vicious circle. The older writers on
natural theology, indeed, have professed to deduce A'ery exact
conclusions as to the Divine perfections, especially Omni
potence ; conclusions whicb, according to the physical argu
ment already referred to, appear carried beyond those limits
to which reason or science are competent to lead us ; while,
in fact, all our higher and more precise ideas of tbe Divine
perfections are really derived from that very rcA^elation whose
evidence is the point in question. The Divine Omniijotenee
is entirely an inference_/;-OOT the language of the Bible, adopted
on the assumption of a belief in revelation. That ' with God
nothing is impossible,' is the very declaration of Scri])ture ;
yet on this the Avhole belief in miracles is built, and thus,
with the many, that belief is wholly the result, not the ante
cedent of faith." {Powell's Study of Evidences of Christianity,

P- "3-

NOTE 2, p. 100.

Philosophers have applied the term " demonstrative " to
certain proofs of the existence of a God; and Avere these
reasonings demonstrative in the strict mathematical sense it

IV.] NOTE 2. 329
would not be correct to say that this great truth rested on
a ground of f'ait,h. But the term "demonstrative" does not
appear to be used in this instance, by those who appl}- it, in a
strict and mathematical sense. These kind of reasonings do
indeed pirocecd upon axioms which instinctively approve them
selves as rational ; and the axioms being admitted, a chain of
irresistible consequences finally educes from them this cardinal
truth -. but the axioms, though upon the broad ground of
reason and common sense obligatory, do not possess the rigid
force of mathematical axioms ; and the structure of reasoning
which is built upon them shares in the same defect. If we
take the very first axiom, e.g. Avbicb lies at the foundation
of the fabric, viz. that everything that begins to exist must
have a cause, however near to the nature of a mathematical
axiom this principle may be, we yet perceive a distinct difference
between this principle and an axiom of mathematics, when
we compare the two together. We cannot say, e. g. that
exactly the same self-evident certainty belongs to this truth
that belongs to the axiom that things that are equal to the
same are equal to one another. Nor therefore, when upon
the basis of the axiom that eA'crytbing that begins to exist
must have a cause, the argument proceeds, — Therefore there
must always be existence antecedent to what begins ; there
fore something must have from eternity existed ; an eternal
succession of Beings being neither caused from without nor
self-existeut, is an inconsistency : therefore what has existed
from eternity is one Being ; that one Being as existing from
eternity is the cause of all being that begins ; as existing
necessarily is omnipresent, for the necessity is the same every-
Avliere ; and as the cause of intelligent beings, is Himself
intelligent, — does this superstructure of reasoning possess
the strict force of a mathematical proof. The demonstrative
arg-ument for the existence of a God is indeed the accurate
working out of some strong instinctive maxims of reason,
but when we endeavour to pursue these maxims and the
reasoning upon them to tbe point of necessity, we are not
able to do so ; the subject eludes our grasp, because in truth
we have not faculties for perceiving demonstration or necessary

330 NOTE 2. [Lect.
connexion upon this subject-matter. Nor therefore do such
reasonings, though called demonstrative, when wc considci'
the astonishing nature of the great truth Avhich is educed
from them, appear to dispense with faith in tbe acccittancc
of and dependence upon them.
Locke strongly asserts the demonstrative nature of the proof
of the existence of a God. "It is as certain that there is
a God, as that the opposite angles, made by the intersection
of two straight lines, are equal." {Essay on the Human Under
standing, bk. i. ch. iv. s. i6.) " But though this be the most
obvious truth that reason discovers, and though its evidence
be, if I mistake not, equal to a mathematical certainty ; yet it
requires thought and attention, and the mind must apjily
itself to a regular deduction of it from some part of our
intuitive knowledge, or else we shall be as uncertain and
ignorant of this as of other propositions, which are in them
selves capable of clear demonstration  We have a more
certain knowledge of the existence of a God than of anything
our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I
presume I may say that avc may more certainly know that there
is a God, than that there is anything else Avithout us. When
I say we know, I mean that such knowledge is within our
reach, which we cannot miss if we will but apply our minds
to that, as we do to scA'eral other inquiries." The proof
comes under these heads : — " Man knows that he himself is ;"
" He knows also that nothing cannot produce a being, there
fore something eternal ;" " Two sorts of beings, cogitative and
incogitative ;" " Incogitative beings cannot produce a cogita
tive ;" " Therefore there has been an eternal wisdom." (Book
iv. chap. X.)
Clarke says —
"I proceed now to the main thing I at first proposed;
namely, to endeavour to shew, to such considering persons as
I have already described, that the Being and Attributes of
God are not only possible or barely probable in themselves,
but also strictly demonstrable to any unprejudiced mind, from
the most uncontestable principles of right reason 
" Now many arguments there are by which the Being and
Attributes of God have been undertaken to be demonstrated ;

IV.] NOTE 2. 331
and perhaps most of those arguments, if thoroughly under
stood, rightly stated, fully pursued, and duly se])aratod from
the false or uncertain reasonings which have sometimes been
intermixed with them, would at length appear to be sub
stantial and conclusive. But because I would endeavour, as
far as possible, to avoid all manner of perplexity and con
fusion, therefore I shall not at this time use any variety of
arguments, but endeavour by one clear and plain series of
projiositions necessarily connected and following one from
another, to demonstrate the certainty of the Being of God,
and to deduce in order the necessary Attributes of His nature,
so far as by our finite reason we are enabled to discover and
apprehend them. And because it is not to my present pm-pose
to explain or illustrate things to them that believe, but only
to convince unbelievers, and settle them that doubt, by strict
and undeniable reasoning ; therefore I shall not allege any
thing, which however really true and useful, may yet be liable
to contradiction or dispute ; but shall endeavour to urge such
propositions only as cannot be denied without departing from
that reason which all atheists pretend to be the foundation
of their unbelief." {Bemonstration, Sfc, Introduction.)
Mr. Goldwin Smith, while arguing that what does rest
upon probable evidence is not essential to religion, maintains,
though without any special reference to these reasonings, that
the evidence upon which the existence of a God rests is not
expressed by the phrase " probable evidence : " —
" I confess that I, for one, enter with the less anxiety into
any question concerning the validity of mere historical evi
dence, because I am convinced that no question concerning
the validity of mere Tiistorical evidence can be absolutely vital
to religion. Historical evidence is not a ground upon which
religion can possibly rest ; for the human testimony of which
such e\idence consists is alwaj's fallible ; the chance of error
can never be excluded : and the extraordinary delusions into
which great bodies of men have fallen shew that even in the
case of a multitude of witnesses that chance may be present
in a considerable degree, particularly if the scene of the alleged
fact is laid in an uncritical age or nation. Probable evidence,
therefore, is the highest we can have of any historical fact.
In ordinary cases we practically need no higher. The great
results of history are here ; we have and enjoy them as cer-
tainlj- as we have and enjoy any object of sense ; and it sig
nifies little by Avhat exact agency in any particular case the

332 NOTE 2. [Lect.
work of human progress was carried on. But in the case ol
a religion probable evidence will not suffice. Religion is not
a speculation which wc may be content to hold suhject to a
certain chance of error, nor is it a practical interest of flic
kind Avhich Butler has in his mind when he tells us that ^vc
must act on this, as in other cases, ou ])robability. It is
a spiritual affection Avhich nothing less than the assured
presence of its object can excite, ^^'^e may be quite content
to hold that the life of Cajsar Avas such as it is commonly
taken to have been, subject to certain chances of error arising
from his own bias as an autobiographer, and from the par
tiality, prejudice, or imperfect information of his contem
poraries ; but we should not be content to hold any vital
fact of our religion under the same conditions. We may be
ready to stake, and do constantly stake, our worldly interests,
as Butler truly observes, ujion probabilities, when certainty is
beyond our jiower. But our hearts would refuse their office
if we Avere to bid them adore and hold communion with a
probable God." {Rational Religion, Si'c., p. io8.)
When the evidence, however, of a Deity is described as
" demonstrative " or " not probable," such a description does
not appear to exclude a ground oi faith in the acceptance
of such evidence ; the conclusion being of so immense and
astonishing a nature that faith is required for relying upon
any reasoning or evidence, however strong, which leads to it ;
the mind naturally desiring the verification of such proof.
It must be observed that it is not only a Moral Deity
whose existence is an object of faith ; but a Deity at all,
i.e. such as is distinguishable from a mere universal force.
Language is sometimes used as if the ground of faith only
applied to the moral attributes of the Deity, and the mere
existence of a Supreme Intelligent Being were the conclusion
of reason without faith. But the ground of faith comes in
prior to the moral attributes of the Deity, because the exist
ence of a God at all in any sense Avhich comes up to the
notion of the existence of a Personal Infinite Being is of itself
— before going into any further question — such an amazing
and supernatural truth that it cannot be embraced Avithout
faith. Although, if we first suppose an Infinite Intelligent
Being, we cannot but go on to suppose that that Being
possesses a character; and, some character supposed, it cannot

IV.] NOTES 3, 4. ,333
but be, nolwithstaudiiig the confusion of things here, more
natural and easy for us to believe that that character is the
Moral or Righteous one, than that it is any other.

NOTE 3, p. 107.
" But were these views of tbe Divine attributes, on the
other hand, ever so well established, it must be considered
that the Theistic argument requires to be applied with much
caution ; since most of those Avho have adopted such theories
of the Divine perfections, on abstract grounds, have made
them the basis of a precisely opposite belief, rejecting
miracles altogether; on the plea that our ideas of the Divine
perfections must directly discredit the notion of occasional
inteqjosition ; that it is derogatory to the idea of Infinite
PoAver and Wisdom to suppose an order of things so im
perfectly established that it must be occasionally interrupted
and violated when the necessity of the case compelled, as the
emergency of a revelation was imagined to do. But all such
Theistic reasonings are but one-sided, and if pushed further
must lead to a denial of all active 0]3eration of the Deity
whatever; as inconsistent with unchangeable, infinite per
fection. Such are the arguments of Theodore Parker, who
denies miracles because 'everywhere I find law the constant
mode oi operation of an infinite God ;' or that of Wegscheider,
that the belief in miracles is irreconcilable with the idea of
an eternal God consistent with Himself," Sfn. {Powell's Study of
the Evidences of Christianity, p. 113.)
The writer admits that Avben the miraculous action of the
Deity is denied upon Theistic reasonings, the denial affects the
action of the Deity generally. But has not tbe same denial
the same result when built upon physical reasonings ?

NOTE 4, p. 107.
" All religion, as such, ever has been and must be a thing
entirely sui generis, and implies mystery and faith, however
rightly allied to knowledge, and susceptible of a variety
of external forms, according to the diversity of human
character and the stages of human enlightenment." {Powell's
Order of Nature, p. 197.)

.3.34 NOTE .5. [Lect.

NOTE 5, p. io8.
" Advancing jihilosoply^ unbesifatinglj^ disowns contradic
tion to physical truth in matters projierly amenable to science,
however they maj' have been associated with religious belief;
but, beyond the proAince of scientific knowledge, reason ac
knowledges a blank and a void, which can only be filled up
by conceptions of a totall^^ different order, originating from
higher sources, in no way opposed to reason, as they present
no ideas cognisable by it, but solely objects of spiritual appre
hension derived from Divine revelation." {Powell's Order of
Nature, p. 217.)
" I have spoken of the necessary limits of all scientific
deduction. To obviate serious misconception it is material
to insist on the distinction, that while the boundary line, by
which the deductions of science are so necessarily limited, is
thus carefully drawn, this is by no means to be misunderstood
as if it were meant as a negation of higher truths, but only
that they are of another order. On the contrary, the point
especially insisted on in the former essays was, that the ex-
tremel}- limited extent of strict inferences from the order of
nature forms the very ground for looking "to other and liigher
sources of information and illumination, if we would rise to
any of those more exalted contemjdations. In any concep
tions of the nature or attributes of God, or man's relations to
Him, we can only look to other sources of information and
conviction of quite a different order from those which science
can furnish. Those higher aspirations, which so many pure
and elevated minds own, can only be satisfied by disclosures
belonging, not to the proAinee of natural philosophy or any
deductions from it, — whose utmost limits in this respect we
haA'c thus far endeavoured to indicate, — but to something
beyond, and properly belonging to the higher jurisdiction
of moral or spiritual convictions. But cosmo-theology, though
incapialjle of anticipating any such sublime truths of a moral
and spiritual revelation, is in no way oppo-'ied to them; but,
on the contrai-}', as far as it extends may be serviceable, as
in some measure opening the Avay for them." {Ibid. p. 249.)
The attempt to disconnect religion with physics in one re
markable instance is thus commented on by Dr. Heurtley : —
" The miracles Avbich are connected Avith our Lord's Per
son and office are 'never,' we are told, 'insisted on in their
physical details, but solely in their spiritual and doctrinal

IV.] NOTE 5. 33.'>
api>lication.' The resurrecl ion, for instance, is ' emjihatically
dwelt upon, not in its physical letter, but in its doctrinal
spirit. '
" One is at a loss to conceive how any one could make
such an assertion as this, unless he thought 1)}' bis bold
confidence to impose upon himself and overbear the recla
mations of others. ]\Iost persons would rise from the perusal
of the 15th chapter of the First Epistle to tbe Corinthians
with the thorough conviction that how much use soever the
Apostle may make of our Lord's resurrection doctrinally, he
does most emjdiatically dwell upon it in its physical letter.
Its literal truth as a ' jjhysiological phenomenon' is the very
basis and substratum of all that is said on the subject. It is
implied throughout the whole of the Apostle's argument.
' I delivered unto you first of all,' says the Apostle, reminding
the Corinthians of tbe doctrine which he bad taught at
Corinth, ' that which I also received, how that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures ; and that He was buried,
and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scrip
tures; and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve.
After that He was seen of aboA'e five bundred brethren at once.
 After that He was seen oi James ; then of all the
Apostles ; and last of all. He was seen of me also  Noav
if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say
some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ?
But if there be no .resurrection of the dead, then is Christ
not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain,
and your faith is also vain. Tea, and toe are fo%ind false wit
nesses of God ; because toe have testified of God that He raised
up Christ ; whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise
not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised ; and
if Christ be not raised, your faith is rain ; ye are yet in your
sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are
perished  But now is Christ risen from the dead, and
become the first-fruits of them that slepit.'
" Will any one venture, after such a passage as this, to talk
of a merelj' ' spiritualized sense,' as though the resurrection
of the ' fullest dcA'clopment of apostolic Christianity' Avere
of a different kind from that which was recognised on the
very day on Avhich the historj' relates that it occurred, when
our Lord shewed tbe assembled disciples His hands and His
feet, and bade them handle Him and see that His body
was a real body, and by consequence His resurrection a real
resurrection, literally and physically true." {Replies to Essays
and Reviews,]). 172.)

336 NOTES 1,2. [Lect.

LECTURE V.
NOTE Lp- 120.
In the proof of miracles divines assume the existence of
a Deity. Butler " takes for proved that there is an intel
ligent Author of Nature and natural Governor of the World,"
before he enters upon the external and other evidences of
revelation. {Analogy, Introduction^ Paley assumes in like
manner, as the basis of his proof of the Christian miracles,
an intelligent and personal Supreme Being. " Suppose the
world we live in to have had a Creator ; suppose it to appear
from the i^redominant aim and tendency of the provisions
and contrivances observable in the universe, that the Deity
when He formed it consulted for the happiness of His sen
sitive creation ; suppose tbe disposition Avliich dictated this
counsel to continue ; suppose a part of the creation to baAi-e
received faculties from their Maker by which they are cajiable
of rendering a moral obedience to His will  Suppose,
nevertheless, almost the A\'hole race, eithft- by the imj)erfection
of their faculties, the misfortune of their situation, or by the
loss of some prior revelation, to want this knowledge, and not
to be likely without the aid of a new revelation to attain it;
under these circumstances, is it improbable a revelation should
be made ? is it incredible that God should interpose for such
a purpose?" {Evidences of Christianity , Preparatory Considera
tions.) " The Christian argument of miracles," says Arch
deacon Lee, " takes for granted two elementary truths — the
Omnipotence and the Personality of God." {On Miracles,
P- 39-) NOTE 2, p. 126.
"There is a very strong presumption against common
speculative truths, and against the most ordinary facts,
before the proof of them ; which yet is overcome by almost
any proof There is a presumption of millions to one against

v.] NOTE 2. 337
tbe storj'^ of Cajsar, or of any other man. For snjipose a
number of common facts so and so circumstanced, of which
one had no kind of proof, should happen to come into one's
thoughts; every one would, without any possible doubt,
conclude them to be false. And the like may be said of a
single common fact. And from hence it appears, that the
question of importance, as to the matter before us, is, con
cerning the degree of the peculiar presumption supposed
against miracles; not Avhether there be any peculiar pre-
sumjition at aU against them. For, if there be the presump
tion of milHons to one against the most common facts, Avhat
can a small presumption additional to this amount to, though
it be peculiar ? It cannot be estimated, and is as nothing."
{Analogy, part ii. ch. 2.)
Butler would appear in this passage to confound two
different kinds of improbability, Avhich Mr. Mill calls im
probability before tbe fact, and improbabihty afters. Ac
cording to this statement the main and principal presump
tion against a miracle is that presumption which lies against
all, even the most ordinary facts, Avhen they are imagined
antecedently. The jiresumption against any occurrence
taking place which it comes into one's head to imagine
taking place, is immense; and there is this presumption
beforehand, Butler says, against any miracle taking place;
™ " The mistake consists in overlooking the distinction between (what
may be called) improbability before the fact, and improbability after it ; two
different properties, the latter of which is always a ground of disbelief ; the
foi-mer is so or not, as it may happen  In the cast of a perfectly fair die
the chances are five to one against throwing ace ; that is, ace will be thrown
on an average only once in six throws. But this is no reason against believing
that ace was thrown on a given occasion, if any credible witness asserts it ;
since, although ace is only thrown once in six times, some number which is
only thrown once in six times must have been thrown, if the die was thrown
at all. The improbability, then, or in other words, the unusualness of any
ftict, is no reason for disbelieving it, if the nature of the case renders it certain
that either that or something equally improhable, that is, equally unusual, did
happen. . We are told that A. B. died yesterday ; the moment before
we were so told, the chances against his having died on that day may have
been ten thousand to one ; but since he was certain to die at some time or
other, and when he died must necessarily die on some particular day, while
the chances are innumerable against every day in particular, experience affords
no ground for discrediting any testimony which may be produced to the event
having taken place on a given day." {Logic, vol. ii. p. 166.)
Z

338 NOTE 2: [Lect.
but according to bis statement, this presumption Avliich
a miracle has against it /// common Avith all facts what
ever, is the great and main presumption against a miracle;
and any additional to this, which may be peculiar to it,
or attach to it because it is a miracle, amounts to nothing..
" What can a small presumption additional to this amount
to, though it be peculiar?" But this statement is not an
adequate representation of the presumption against a miracle,
and docs not carrj' our ccnnmon sense along Avith it, because
it does not distinguish between the different natures of an
improbability beforehand — uj^on a ground of mere random
anticipation — of any event, and imjirobability upon the
ground of the kind of event. He regards the latter as a mere
infinitesimal addition in quantity to the immense body of
already existing former presumption ; whereas the latter is
a presumption different in nature and kind from the former.
The presumption which there was beforehand against any
particular event is one which in its own nature immediately
gives way to the least evidence of such an event occurring,
because its sole ground was the want of evidence, Avhich is
ipso facto removed by evidence. A random guess is in other
words the entire absence of CAddence ; but the mere absence
of proof offers no resistance to proof. Whereas the impro
bability upon the ground of the kind of event goes on along
with the proof of that event, and resists that proof; — resists it,
even though it ultimately yield' to it. " The chances against
an ordinary event," says Bishop Fitzgerald, " are not specific
but particular: they are chances against tliis event, not
against this kind of event." {Article on Miracles: Bictionary
of the Bitjle.) On the other hand, the presumption against
a miracle is presumpition against the kind of CA'ent. Whereas
then Butler represents the " particular" presumption against
a miracle, which is the same that there is against any com
mon fact beforehand, as the principal improbability of a
miracle, and the " specific " presumption as so minute an
addition to this as to be incapable of being estimated, the
order and value of the presumptions ought to be reversed;
tbe former being in truth nothing of a presumption, that is

v.] NOTE 2. ,339
to saj', a presumption Avbicb does not tell in the least as soon
as ever evidence is offered ; the latter being a presumption
which acts Avlicn evidence is otfered. In this particular case
Butler's criterion is not a natural one; for the objection to
the kind of event a miracle is, is plainly our natural objection
to a miracle.
" Butler," says Bishop Fitzgerald, " seems to have been very
sensible of the imperfect state, in his own time, of tbe logic
of probability ; and though he appears to have formed a more
accurate conception of it than the Scotch school of philosophers
who succeeded and undertook to refute Hume ; yet there is one
passage in which Ave may perhaps detect a misconception of
the subject in tbe pages even of this great writer.
" It is plain that in this passage Butler lays no stress upon
the peculiarities of the storj' of Caesar, which he casually
mentions. For he expressly adds, 'or of any other man;'
and repeatedly explains that what be says apiplies equally to
any ordinary facts, or to a single fact 
" The way in which he proposes to estimate the presump
tion against ordinary' facts is, by considering the likelihood of
their being anticipated beforehand by a person guessing at
random. But surely this is not a measure of the likelihood
of the facts considered in themselves, but of the likelihood of
the coincidence of the facts with a rash and arbitrarj' anticipa
tion. The case of a person guessing beforehand, and the case
of a witness reporting Avhat has occurred, are essentially dif
ferent. In the common instance, for example, of an ordinary
die, before tbe cast, there is nothing to determine my mind,
AAdth any jirobability of a correct judgment, to the selection of
any one of the six faces rather than another ; and therefore
we rightly say that there are five chances to one against any
one side, considered as thus arbitrarily selected. But when a
jDcrson who has had opj)ortunities of observing the cast, re
ports to me the presentation of a particular face, there is
evidentl}^ no such presumption against the coincidence of his
statement and the actual fact ; because he has, by the suji-
position, bad ample means of ascertaining the real state of
the occurrence. And it seems plain that, in the case of a
credible witness, we should as readily believe his report of
the cast of a die Avith a million of sides as of one with only
six; though in respect of a random guess beforehand, the
chances against the correctness of the guess Avould be vastly
greater in the former case, than in that of an ordinary
cube  Z 2

340 NOTE 2. [Lt?(t.
" The truth is, that ihe chances to which Butler seems to
refer as a presumption against ordinary events, are not in
ordinary cases overcome by testimony at; all. The testimony
has nothing to do with them; because they are chances
against the event considered as the subject of a random
vaticination, not as the subject of a report made by an
actual observer. It is possible, however, that througbout
this obscure passage, Butler is arguing upon the principles
of some objector unknown to us ; and, indeed, it is certain
that some writers upon the doctrine of chances (who were
far from friendly to revealed religion) have utterly confounded
together the questions of the chances against the coincidence
of an ordinary event with a random guess, and of the pro
bability of such an event considered by itself." {Bictionary
of tlie Bible : Article on Miracles.)
Archdeacon Lee disagrees with Bishop Fitzgerald. " So
far is Bishop Butler from ignoring the distinction between
' probability before and after the fact,' or, as he expresses
himself with greater precision, 'before and after jiroof,' that
his Avhole argument proceeds ujjon its recognition." {On
Miracles, p. 75.) Bishop Butler's argument recognizes two
states of the case, before and after proof of the fact; nor
could it avoid doing so : but this is not the same as re
cognizing the two kinds of probability " before" and " after."
He recognizes improbability before proof, and certainty after
proof; but not that improbability which conflicts with proof,
that which is meant by " improbability after the fact." The
writer adds : —
"The two instances selected by Mr. Mill are indeed, as
he states, 'things in strict conformity to tbe usual course
of experience,' ' the chances merely being against them ;' but
they are not in the least analogous to tbe instances on which
Bishop Butler founds his proposition. The great difference
is, that we do know all the chances in the one case, and that
we do not know all the chances in the other. There are but
six sides to the die ; the chances, therefore, are but five to
one against ace, at any throw. The years of human life
cannot exceed a definite number, to which we can ap
proximate within moderate Hmits ; but the probability of
the events on which the ' Analogy ' depends cannot be thus
estimated. The history of Caesar, or of any other man, or

v.] NOTE 2. 341
common facts, are matters inca])able of being submitted to
calculus of probabilities. The cvt-nls of human life present a
variety to which no bounds can be set. A\'hat human calcu
lation can make full allowance for the influence of human
motiA'es ; or foresee all the ])ossible outbursts of human pas
sion; or reduce the contingencies of political change to the
dominion of unvarying law?" {On Miracles, p. 75.)
But does it make any ditt'erence in the nature of the im
probability before proof, now spoken of, whether or not we
can calculate the chances in question ? We know that tbe
chances are five to one against the throAV of ace in the cast
of the die, and that they are millions to one, or incalculable,
against the story of any common man, imagined beforehand ;
but the difference in the number of tbe opposing chances,
which constitutes improbability beforehand, makes not the
slightest difference in the weight of that improbability, when
evidence is given of tbe fact ; which weight is then nothing,
equally whether the antecedent chances are units or thou
sands. One die has six sides, another, let us sui^pose with
Bishop Fitzgerald, has a million; beforehand therefore the
chances, in these two cases, Avere respectively fiA'c to one
and a million to one against any particular throAV ; but this
difference in the number of chances beforehand would not
make a particular throw when made at all more difficult to
believe or make it require at all more evidence in the case of
one die than in the case of the other ; because the Aveight
of the improbability before the fact would, upon evidence
of the fact, vanish and disappear at once alike, whether that
improbability was five to one or a million to one. A die,
whether it has the one or the other number of sides, is equally
obliged to fall on some side ; which fall therefore is in either
case equallj"- devoid of strangeness, and therefore an equal
subject of evidence. In like manner any common man's
history has antecedently an incalculably greater number of
chances ag-ainst it than some one given ordinary event has,
but one does not require greater evidence than the other,

342 NOTE 3. [Le(t.

NOTE 3, p. 128.
" This of course turns on the general grounds of our
antecedent convictions. The question agitated is not that
of mere testimou}', of its A'alue, or of its failures. It refers to
those antecedent considerations whicb must govern our entire
view of the subject, and which being dejiendent on higher
laws of belief, must be paramount to all aiiestation, or rather
belong to a province distinct from it. What is alleged is a
case of tbe supernatural ; but no testimony can reach to the
supernatural ; testimony can apjily only to apparent sensible
facts ; testimony can only prove an extraordinary and perhaps
inexplicable occurrence or phenomenon : that it is due to
supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the previous
bcHef and assumption of the parties  If a number
of respectable witnesses were to concur in asseverating that
on a certain occasion they had seen two and two make
five, should we be bound to believe them ?
" This, perhaps it will be said, is an extreme case. Let us
suppose another. If the most numerous ship's company were
all to asscA'erate that they had seen a mermaid, would any
rational persons at the present day believe them ? That they
saw something which they believed to be a mermaid would
be easily conceded. No amount of attestation of innumer
able and honest witnesses would ever convince anyone A^ersed
in mathematical and mechanical science, that a pierson had
squared the circle or discovered perpetual motion. Antecedent
credibility depends on antecedent knowledge, and enlarged
views of the connexion and dependence of truths ; and the
value of any testimony will be modified or destroyed in
different degrees to minds differently enlightened.
"Testimoii}', after aH, is but a second-hand assurance; it
is but a blind guide. Testimony can avail nothing against
reason." {Powell's Study of Evidences, pp. 107, 141.)

v.] NOTE 4. 343

NOTE 4,

P- '3'

" The essential question of miracles stands (juite apart from
any consideration of testimony ; the question Avould remain
the same if we had the evidence of our own senses to an
aOeged miracle, that is to an extraordinary or inexplicable
fact. It is not tbe mere fact, but the cause or explanation
of it, whicb is the point at issue." {Pmvell's Study of Evi
dences, p. 141.)
" But material as, in reference to the study of the last
remark, is the discussion of testimony, it must still be ob
served that in the general and abstract point of vicAV this
is really but adventitious to the question of miracles; and
that, supposing all doubt as to testimony were entirely re
moved, as in the case of an actual witness having the evidence
oi his own senses to an extraordinary and perhaps inejplicable
fact, still the material enquiry Avould remain. Is it a miracle ?
It is here, in fact, that the essence of the question of credibility
is centred — not in regard to the mere external aj)parent event,
but to the cause of it." {Powell's Order of Nature, p. 286.)
" We have obserA-ed that a miracle is a matter of opinion ;
and, according to the ordinary view, the precise point of
opinion involved in the assertion of a miracle is that the
event in question is a violation or suspension oi the laws of
nature ; a point on which opinions will chiefly vary according
to the degree of acquaintance with physical philosophy and
the acceptance of its Avider principles ; especially as these
principles are now understood, and seem to imply the grand
conception of the universal Cosmos, and the sublime con
clusions resulting from it or embodied in it." {Ibid. p. 291.)
" Of old the sceptic professed he Avould be convinced by
seeing a miracle. At the present day, a visible miracle would
but be the very subject of bis scepticism. It is not the
attestation, but the nature of tbe alleged marvel, Avhich is now
the point in question." {Ibid. p. 296.)

344 NOTE 5. [Liic'i-.

NOTE 5, p. 132.
" There arc still some who contend that it is idle to object
to miracles as violations of natural laws, because we know
not the extent of creation ;  that wc arc surrounded
by phenomena whose causes or nature we are not and pro
bably never shall be able to explain  None of these
or the like instances are at all of the same kind, or have any
characteristics in common Avitli the idea of what is implied
by the term ' miracle,' which is asserted to mean something
at variance with nature and law. There is not the slightest
analogy between an unknown or inexplicable phenomenon
and a supposed suspension of a known law 1" [e.g. the fact of
a suspension of gravitation. — Order of Nature, p. 271.] —
{Study of Evidences, p. 109.)
"The philosopher denies the credibility of alleged events
professedly in their nature at variance with all physical ana
logy." (ibid. p. 135.)
" The literal sense of physical events impossible to science
cannot be essential to spiritual truth." {Order of Nature,
P- ?>1^)
" Questions of this kind are often perplexed by want of
due attention to the laws of thought and belief, and of due
distinction in ideas and terms. The proposition ' that an
event may be so incredible as intrinsically to set aside any
degree of testimony,' in no way applies to or affects the
honesty or veracity of that testimony, or the reality of the
impressions on the minds of the witnesses, so far as relates to
the matter of sensible fact only. It merely means : that
from the nature of our antecedent convictions, the probability
of some kind of mistake or deception somewhere, though we
know not where, is greater than the probability of the event
really happening in the way and from the causes assigned."
{Study oj' Evidences, p. 107.)
The transference indeed everywhere insisted upon by this
writer, of miracles from the region of history to that oi faith
(see following note), indicates of itself that the thing pro
nounced to be incredible, and to be incapable of being
accepted as real, is not the cau.se of the miraculous facts, but
the miraculous facts themselves as recorded. For were the
miracles credible as facts, and the supernatural causes alone
denied, why should not they be matters of history, to be

y-] NOTE (). 345
accepted upon historical evidence — the facts accepted, how
ever the causes avci-c disputed? But miracles are denied the
character of historical events, and relegated lo the domain ol'
faith; Avhich shews that, in the mind of the writer, the facts
themselves rank as incredible, and not the cause only.

NOTE 6, p. 135.
" The main point on which I would remark as evinced in
these and numerous other passages to the same effect, is,
that the acceptance of miracles as such seems to be here dis
tinctly recognised as the sole work of a religions principle of
faith, and not an assent of the understanding to external evi
dence, the appeal to which seems altogether disowned and set
aside. Conviction appears to be avowedly removed from the
basis of testimony and sensible facts, and placed on that of
spiritual impression and high religious feeling." {Poioell's
Order of Nature, p. 367.)
" The belief in miracles, whether in ancient or modern
times, has always been a point not of evidence addressed to the
intellect, but of religious faith imjiressed on the spiirit. The
mere fact was nothing : however well attested, it might be
set aside; however fabulous, it might be accepted, — accord
ing to the predisposing religious persuasion of the parties.
If a more i^bilosophical sur\-ey tend to ignore suspensions of
nature, as inconceivable to reason, the spirit of faith gives a
different interpretation, and transfers miracles to the more
congenial region of spiritual contemplation and Divine mys
tery." {Ibid. p. 439.)
" To conclude, an alleged miracle can only be regarded in
one of two ways ; either abstractedly as a physical event, and
therefore to be investigated I'V reason and physical evidence,
and referred to physical causes, possibly to known causes, but
at all events to some higher cause or law, if at present un
known ;  or, as connected with religious doctrine,
regarded in a sacred light, asserted on the authority of in
spiration. In this case it ceases to be capable of investigation
by reason, or to own its dominion ; it is accepted on religious
grounds, and can appeal only to the principle and influence
of faith.
"Thus miraculous narrarives become invested with the
character of articles of faith." {Powell's Study of the Evidences
of Christianity , p. 142.)

34() NOTES 7, «. [Lkct.

NOTE 7, ]). 136.
" The case indeed of the antecedent argument of miracles
is very clear, however little some are inclined to perceive it.
In nature and from nature, by science and by reason, avc
neither have nor can possibly have any evidence of a Beity
working miracles ; — for that avc must go out of nature and
beyond reason. If wc could have any such evidence from
nature, it could only prove extraordinary natural effects, Avhich
Avould not be miracles in the old theological sense, as isolated,
unrelated, and uncaused; whereas no physical fact can be
conceived as unique, or without analogy and relation to
others, and to the whole s^^stem of natural causes." {Powell's
Study of the Evidences of Christianity, p. 141.)

NOTE 8, p. 137.
" If miracles were in the estimation of a former age
among the chief supports of Christianity, they are at present
among the main difficulties and hindrances to its acceptance."
^ (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, p. 140.)
" In tbe popular acceptation, it is clear the Gospel miracles
are always objects, not evidences of faith ; and when they are
connected specially Avith doctrines, as in several of the higher
mj'steries of the Christian faith, the sanctity which invests
the point of faith itself is extended to the external narrative
in which it is embodied; the reverence due to the mystery
renders the external events sacred from examination, and
shields them also within the pale of the sanctuary; the
miracles are merged in tbe doctrines with which they are con
nected, and associated with the declarations of spiritual things
Avhich are, as such, exempt from those criticisms to which
physical statements would be necessarily amenable." {Ibid.
P- 1 43-)

VI.] NOTE 1. ;il.7

LECTUKE VI.
NOTE 1, p. 147.
" Consider why it is that, with exactly the same amount of
evidence, both negative and positive, we did not reject the
assertion that there are black swans, while we should refuse
credence to any testimony Avhicb asserted that there were men
wearing tlieir heads underneath their shoulders. The first
assertion Avas more credible than the latter. But why more
credible ? So long as neither phenomenon had been actually
witnessed, what reason was there for finding the one harder
to be believed than the other ? Apparently, because there is
less constancA' in tbe colours of animals than in the g-eneral
structure of their internal anatomy. But how do we know
this ? Doubtless, from experience. It appears, then, that we
need experience to inform ns, in what degree, and in what
cases, or sorts of cases, experience is to be relied on. Expe
rience must be consulted in order to learn from it under what
circumstances arguments from it will be valid. We have no
ulterior test to which we subject experience in general ; but
we make experience its own test. Exjierience testifies that
among the uniformities which it exhibits, or seems to exhibit,
some are more to be relied on than others ; and uniformity,
therefore, may be presumed, from any given number of in
stances, with a greater degree of assurance, in proportion as
the case belongs to a class in which the uniformities have
hitherto been found more uniform." — {Mill's System of Logic,
vol. i. p. 330.)
" In some cases of apparently marvellous occurrences, after
due allowance for possible misapprehension or exaggeration in
the statements, it might be conceded that the event, though
of a very singular kind, was yet not such as to involve anj-
thing absolutely at variance even with the known laws of
nature : — very remarkable coincidences of events ; — very un
usual appearances ; — very extraordinary affections of the human
body; — such especially as those astonishing but well-ascer
tained cases of catalepsy, trance, or suspended animation; —
very marvellous and sudden cures of diseases; — the pheno
mena of double consciousness, visions, somnambulism, and
spectral impressions; — might perhaps be included in this

348. NOTE 1. [Lkct.
class, and, subject to such natural interpretation, be entirely
admissible. Other instances might, however, be recounted more
absolutely at variance irith natural order, such, e. g. as im]ilicd
a subversion of gravitation, or of the constitution of matter ;
descripitions inconceivable to those impressed with the truth of
the great first princi])le of all induction — the invariable con
stancy of the order of nature.
" In such cases we might imagine a misapprehension or ex
aggeration of some real event, or possibly some kind of ocular
illusion, mental hallucination, or the like." — {Powell's Order
of Nature, p. 270.)
It must however be considered that in tbe case of a miracle
the fact which has to be brought Avithin the order of nature
is, not only the phj'sical occurrence which takes place in the
miracle, but that occurrence as coinciding with a positive
announcement. This prophetical element in a miracle, it
must be observed, enters not only into those miracles in
which the physical occurrence is of itself reducible to the
order of nature », but in those grander miracles as well, in
Avhicb the physical occurrence is itself a violation of the order
of nature. Should the question be raised, e. g. whether the
miracle of our Lord's Resurrection was or was not a fact ulti
mately referrible to natural law; the fact, about Avhich the
question would lie, and about which we should have to in
quire, whether it might be ultimately natural or not, would
be, not the simple resurrection of a man from the dead, but
that resurrection as coinciding with previous announcements
of it, and with the whole character, life, and professed mis
sion and office of Jesus Christ. And it is impossible not to
° " The simoon, or whatever it was, which swept off in one night the army
of Sennacherib, and which was adopted as the instrument for effecting the
predicted deliverance of Jerusalem, may have taken place in its appointed order
of nature. Nay, there is nothing repugnant to the soundest faith or the deepest
reverence in the supposition that the physical instruments employed for accom
plishing the deluge, which are repiesented under the image of the ' fountains
of the great deep being broken up, and the windows of heaven opened,' took
place in their appointed order in the cycle of nature's operations ; and that their
foreseen synchronism with the time appointed for ' the end of all flesh ' was
made subservient to the Divine counsels. The miracle is none the less for
being transferred from the fact itself to its prediction and adaptation." {Essayx
and Jievieios considered, hy Rev. II. A. Woodgate, p. 93.)

VL] NOTE 1. 349
see, even where the oc-currcnce itself is of the most marvellous
kind, bow immensely this consideration of its correspondence
to a notification, and adaptation to a Avhole set of circum
stances, adds to the supernaturalness of the miracle, to its
inexplicablencss upon natural grounds. Because all this
points, upon the argument of design or coincidence, to a
special interposition of God, as distinguished from unknown
physical causation. Those circumstances of a miracle which
distinguish it from an isolated marvel, are also the great
evidences of its supernatural character. No physical expla
nation of it as a marvel goes a step toAvard the explanation
of those circumstances which distinguish \tfrom a marvel.
Mr. Mansel makes some able and acute remarks upon the
characteristic of personal agency, in the case of miracles, with
reference to the question of their referribleness to natural
causes : —
" The fact of a work being done by human agency places
it, as regards the future progress of science, in a totally
different class from mere plij^sical phenomena. The appear
ance of a comet, or the fall of an aerolite, may be reduced
by the advance of science from a supposed supernatural to
a natural occurrence; and this reduction furnishes a reason
able presumption that other phenomena of a like character
Avill in time meet Avith a like explanation. But the reverse
is the case with respect to those phenomena which are nar
rated as having been produced by personal agency. In pro
portion as the science of to-day surpasses that of former
generations, so is the impirobabilitj' that any man could have
done in past times, by natural means, works which no skill
of the present age is able to imitate. The two classes of
phenomena rest in fact on exactlv opposite foundations. In
order that natural occurrences, taking place Avithout human
agency, may wear the appearance of prodigies, it is necessary
that the cause and manner of their production should be
unknown; and every advance of science from the unknown
to the known tends to lessen the number of such prodigies
by referring them to natural causes, and increases the proba
bility of a similar exiDlanation of tbe remainder. But on
the other hand, in order that a man rnay perform marvellous
acts by natural means, it is necessary that the cause and
manner of their production should be known by the per
former ; and in this case every fresh advance of science from

350 NOTES 2, 3. [Lect.
the unknown to the known diminishes the probability that
Avhat is unknown now could have been known in a former
age. " The effect, therefore, of scientific progress, as regards the
Scriptural miracles, is gradually to eliminate the hypothesis
which refers them to unknown natural causes." — {Aids to
Faith, p. 14.)

NOTE 2, p. 151.
" Pauticulau theories as to the manner in which miracles
have been wrought are matters rather curious than practically
useful. In all such cases we must bear in mind the great
maxim — Subtilitas natura longe superat subtilitatem mentis
hum.ana  Some find it easier to conceive of miracles
as not really taking place in tbe external order of nature,
but in the impressions made by it upon our minds 
It is plain that these various hypotheses arc merely Avays
in which different minds find it more or less easy to con
ceive the mode in which miracles may have been Avrought." —
{Bishop Fitzgerald's Article on Miracles : Bictionary of the
Bible, p. 382.)

NOTE 3, p. 157.
Archbishop Trench adopts the ordinary distinction between
the direct action of the Deity and His action by means of
general laws; His action in the order of nature and His
action in special interpositions. " An extraordinar}^ Divine
causality, and not that ordinary Avhicli we acknowledge every
where and in everything, belongs to the essence of the miracle ;
powers of God other than those which have been always
working." The v.'riter, however, does not suppose that the
difference lies in the Divine action itself so much as in the
revelation of it. " The unresting activity of God, which at
other times hides and conceals itself behind the veil of what
Ave term natural laws, does in the miracle unveil itself; it
steps out from its concealment, and the hand which works
it is laid bare." {Prelim.inary Essay, chap, ii.) The writer of

VL] NOTE 3. 3,51
tbe article on "The Immutability of Nature," in the Quar
terly Review, No. 220, speaking only of the philosophical
question, denies the jibilosopbical ground of the common dis
tinction just referred to. " It is only an arbitrary unjirovcd
hypothesis, that in the ordinary oiicrations of nature the Divine
Avill acts only indirectly and not directly, precisely as in the
case of miracles. Hoav can you draw a distinction between
the ordinary operations of the Divine Avill in tbe daily course
of things and its extraordinary in tbe miracles of Chris
tianity?  If a sovereign, directing the movements of
a mighty host by secret telegrams every minute, or con
cealed under a disguise, should on occasions for some wise
consistent object appear at the head of his troops and give
the Avord of command himself, Avould this startle the soldier ?
Would he call it an anomaly ?" (p. 376.)
The author of " Dialogues on Divine Providence " rejects
the distinction : —
" What do Ave knoAV of tbe laws of nature more than you
began by saying ? They express a certain uniformity in
nature ; they assure us that the same cause will be followed
bjr the same effect. But why this uniformity exists, ujhy
there is this connection between cause and effect, neither
they can tell us nor can anyone tell us of them 
" Ph. I am disposed to think you are right. If so, what
follows ?
" H. Only this : it is a mere figure of speech to sa}^ that
God acts through laws. The expression conveys to the mind
an idea of a medium interposed between tbe Worker and His
work. But the nature of general laws, if we liaA'c taken a
just view of them, justifies no such idea. If we explain the
expression, it comes simply to this — there is an uniformity in
God's Avorks. On the same occasions He acts in the same
way." {Bialogues on Bivine Providence, p. 17.)
" Providence and Law are both words by which we ex
press, or endeavour to express, certain truths about the
manner in which God works. Providence implies that in all
the dealings of God with His creatures, He acts consciously,
voluntarily, and knowingly, as an omniscient and omnipotent
agent. Law implies, that in His works and dealings we can
trace a certain amount of uniformity and resemblance, Avhich
the structure of our minds leads us to believe to exist in a

352 NOTE 3. [Lect.
still greater degree than we can trace it. In God, as a Being
of perfect knowledge and ]iei-fect jiower, there is no opposition
between the greatest iiniforiniiy of action and the most par
ticular regard for tbe issue of each action, in all its multiform
consequences. He sees all things from the first, effects all
that He Avills in His own way, never makes a mistake, never
miscalculates a consequence, never overlooks an element or a
condition, is never deceived or OA'crpowered by independent
and subordinate agents, never need suspend His steps to
watch an event, or retrace His course to rectify an error.
But the wisest of men must often do this : and so, misled by
a false analogy, we are apt to attribute to God the imper
fection of our own works. We form our calculations ; and
they prove erroneous because the immutable la;^'s around us
interfere with our plans in some unforeseen way. And this
makes us sometimes speak and think as if the events Avhich
depend on the laws which God has made were in some way
independent of Him, and out of the reach of His power. The
most profound and thoughtful among us can never lay down
universal rules of conduct with such absolute accuracy that
considerations of justice, equity, or expediency will not some
times lead him to make exceptions to his rule ; and we transfer
too readily this consequence of human imperfection to the
Supreme and Perfect Lawgiver  But do the limits
thus placed to our faculties afford us the least justification for
assigning any similar bounds to His ? Bare we assert that
His intuition of universal laws does not comprehend every actual
and possible piarticular instance? Is it not to attribute human
fallibility to Him, to think that the uniformity of action which
He is pleased to observe cannot coexist with the most perfect
and delicate regard to the tendencies and consequences of all
His actions ? We malce a great assumption if we regard
general laws as instruments and mediums of Divine operations."
{Bialogues ou Bivine Providence, p. 70.)
" Suppose then (I need not say that it is no merely'
imaginary case) a person choked by a fish-bone, and so
killed. Life and death, we all alloAV, are in the hands of
God A believer would not doubt that one who dies hy
an accident of thi. kind, dies at the time and in the manner
Avhich God, in His Providence, thinks best. The fish-bone
is the instrument of His Will. It has fixed itself in the
sufferer's throat by no miraculous agency, but in the ordinary
course of cause and effect. But only consider for a moment
the complication of causes which placed it there. The toil
of the crew of a fishing-boat some tAvo nights before, the

"^'L] NOTE 4. 3.53
conditions of wind and wave whicb caused a fish with a bone
of this particular shape to be caught, the demand and con
sequent supply whicb l)i-ought it to a town some hundred
miles from the sea, the little circumstances which led to the
purchase in the town of this individual fish, and a hundred
other points of detail ; such as the light by which the dinner
was eaten, the exact degree of hardness or softi/ess of the fish,
as dependent on the precise manner of cooking, even the
power of contractility in tbe eater's throat, Avhich may again
have depended on bis general health, or on the bracing or
relaxing state of the atmosphere. Vary but one of fihese
conditions, and the same result would probably not have
happened. And ].erhaps a medical man could not be found
till too late ; and his absence was caused by the illness of
another patient, itself dependent on causes equally remote and
obscure. Could you blame any one aa'Iio, having first accepted
the truth, that death in this case happened according to the
Providence of God, saw His finger also in every circumstance
which had led to it, and attributed them all to His Will."
{Bialogues on Bivine Providence, p. iii.)

NOTE 4, p. i6o.
Naturalizing rationales of miracles which assume the
truth of the miracles themselves, as Divine interpositions,
must plainly be distinguished from, because they are different
in their whole ground and purpose from, those naturalizing
rationales which aim at dejjiiving the miracles of their
miraculous character, and reducing them to natural law in
the popular sense. The hints, somewhat scattered and ob
scure, which Bislioj) Butler has thrown out, of a naturalizing
hypothesis of miracles, i.e. of the possibility that although
excejitions to law they are at the same time consistent with
and instances of law in some wider sense, have been inter
preted in some quarters in a sense very different from that
designed by the suggester himself It is no physical ex
planation of a miracle which Butler has in view. He as
sumes the truth of the Scripture miracles in the ordinary
sen.se as Divine interpositions, the question which is raised

354 NOTE 4. [Lect.
by him being Avhether these very instances of Divine inter
position, suspending the laws of nature, do not themselves
follow general laws.
What he means indeed by " general laws," when he makes
the supposition "that God's miraculous interpositions may
have Ijeen all klong by general laws of Avisdom," is not very
clear. He appears first to have in his mind certain general
rules laid down by Providence — so to speak — for its own
guidance on this subject, according to which " miraculous
powers are exerted at such times, upon such occasions, in such
degrees and manners," &c., (part ii. chap, iv.) ; Avhich general
rules Providence observes, although on particular occasions
certain apparent advantages might follow from the infraction
of them ; that such rules should issue in partial disadvantage
— ^that they should not provide for " every exigence," being the
very condition of theii- general benefit. And thus understood
the supposition that " God's miraculous interpositions may
have been \>y general laws of wisdom," would substantially
mean that there was an inherent limit in the nature of things
to the utility of miracles, beyond Avhich they Avould produce
injury and disadvantage ; the general bad result of the excess
being greater than the particular benefit of it; and that this
intrinsic Hmit Avas necessarily observed by the Author of
Nature. But if this be Butler's meaning, such a supposition
as this is not about the miracles themselves that they are
part of an order of nature, but to the manner of conducting
them that it is referrible to a plan or system in the Divine
mind. ° He appears to refer in the next place to an imaginary
» " But the only distinct meaning of that word [natural] is stated, fixed,
or settled : since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an in
telligent agent to render it so, i. u. to eifect it continually at stated times,
as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once. And from
hence it must ftdlow that j ersons' notions of what is natural will be enlarged
in proportion to their greater knowledge of the works of God, and the dispen
sations of His Providence. Kor is there any absurdity in supposing that
there may be beings in the universe whose capacities, and knowledge, and
views may be so extensive as tl:at the whole Christian dispensation may to
them appear natural, i.e. analogous or conformable to God's dealings with

VL] NOTE 4. 355
supposition he has made of " similar " or " analogous " Divine
dealings to that of the miraculous dis]icnsation of Christianity
going on in other worlils ; upon which supposition, such a
miraculous dispensation would be natural, because " natural "
means " similar, stated, or uniform," and this miraculous dis
pensation Avould then be similar to and uniform with other
miraculous dispensations in other parts of the universe. Such
a supposition then as this has the effect of creating- an order
of nature to Avhich the miraculous dispensation of the Gospel
belongs, because it takes the latter out of its isolation and
attaches it to a vast class of similar Divine dealings going
on in other Avorlds. But Avere this supposition true in fact,
it would not be a physical explanation of miracles; for the
order to Avhich they are attached is not an order of material
nature, but an order of similar suspensions of material nature
in other worlds ; and the naturalness is gained not by altering
the miraculous character of the facts, but by the addition
of other sets of the same kind of facts, by the existence
of a class of facts in other parts of the universe upon the
same miraculous IcA^el as those here. The supposition, how
ever, is Avholly imaginary : we do not know that other worlds
besides our own are inhabited, still less that they are in
habited by reasonable creatures, and still less that tbe in
telligent beings in them have revelations made to them.
The consideration indeed that we do not know that there is
not an order of nature of this level to AA'hich miracles belong,
is a consideration of some weight, but it has not anything
to do with a physical theory of miracles.
In one jiassage, indeed, Butler throws out the idea of a
common ground for miracles and irregular physical pheno
mena, " storms and tempests, earthquakes, famine, pesti
lence." (pt. ii. ch. iv.) But with respect to the physical
analogies suggested there, it must be remarked, that the
strict sense of " law," as applied to physical facts, had not
other parts cf His creation ; as natural as the visible kno'wn course of things
appears to us. For there seems scarce any other possible sense to be put
upon the word, but that only in which it is here used ; similar, stated, or
uniform." {Analogy, pt. i. ch. ii. ) A a 2

350 NOTE 1. [Ijkct.
then been defined in philosophy; whicb accounts for some
confusion in this part of Butler's language. He does not
appear to be aware that general laws, in the ph.ysical worid,
are simply recurrent antecedent facts; and that therefore
miracles, did they come under a common head Avitli such
physical phenomena as he mentions, Avould follow recurrent
physical antecedents. For this latter is an assertion to
which his whole language elsewhere would be opiposed.
Mere marvellous occurrences might come in in such a train
of physical causes, but miracles are understood by Butler in
the religious sense, as Divine interpositions, special acts of
the Divine Avill ; in which sense they stand upon a different
ground, with respect to law, from that of irregular phj'sical
phenomena. We have, again, in Mr. Babbage's rationale of miracles, a
naturalizing theory of them whicb leaves their miraculous

^6

character and their evidential use intact; and which there
fore is not to be confounded with physical explanations of
miracles : —

" Let the reader imagine himself sitting before tbe cal
culating engine, and let him again observe and ascertain,
by lengthened induction, the nature of the law it is com
puting. Let him imagine that he has seen the changes
wrought on its face by the lapse of thousands of years, and
that, without one solitary exception, he has found the engine
register the series of square numbers. Suppose, now, the
maker of that machine to say to the observer, ' I will, by
moving a certain mechanism, which is invisible to you, cause
the engine to make a cube number instead of a square one,
and then to revert to its former course of square numbers;'
the observer would be incHned to attribute to him a degree
of power but little superior to that v/hich was necessary to
form the original engine.
" But, let the same observer, after the same lapse of time,
the same amount of uninterrupted experience of tbe uni
formity of the law of square numbers, hear tbe maker of that
engine say to him, ' Tbe next number which shall appear on
those wheels, and which j-ou expect to find a square number,
shall not be such. "When the machine was originally ordered
to make these calculations, I impressed on it a law, which

VL] NOTE I. 357
should coincide with that of square numbers in every case
except the one which is now about to ajipcar, after which no
future exception can ever oec-ur; but tlu" unvarying law of
squares shall be pursued until the machine itself perishes from
decay. " Undoubtedly the observer would ascribe a greater degree
of power to the artist who thus willed that event at the dis
tance of ages bef'(ji-c its arrival.
" If the contriver of the engine then explain to him, that,
by the very structure of it, he has power to order any number
of such apparent deviations from its laws to occur at any
future periods, however remote, and that each of these may
be of a different kind ; and if he also inform him, that be
gave it that structure in order to meet events which be fore
saw must happen at those respective periods, there can be
no doubt that tbe observer \vould ascribe to the inventor
far higher knowledge than if, when those events severally
occurred, he were to intervene, and temporarilj' alter tbe cal
culations of the machine.
" If, besides this, he were so far to explain the structure of
the engine, that the observer could himself, by some simple
process, such as the mere moving of a bolt, call into action
those apparent deviations « henever certain combinations were
presented to his eye; if he were thus to impart a power of
]H-edicting such excef)ted cases, dependent on the Avill, al
though otherwise beyond the limits of the observer's power
and knowledge, such a structure would be admitted as evi
dence of a still more skilful contrivance." — {Ninth Bridgwater
Treatise, ch. A'iii.)
This rationale then of a miracle, it must be observed,
supposing we adopt it as the account of the extraordinary
physical occurrence, does not account for the part which the
human agent takes in the announcement of that occurrence ;
— which latter is the distinguishing characteristic of a miracle,
without Avhich it would be a mere marvel. For the law
Avbich would produce the exceptional physical occurrence
would not suffice to exjjlain the act of the individual and
personal agent in the matter : the act of the human will
not coming under the same head as a subject of law with
the material event. And therefore the personal agency in
a miracle, which corresponds with the outward occurrence,
is still left unaccounted for in this rationale, or is thrown

358 NOTE 4. [Luct.
back upon a Divine impulse at the moment. The analogy
of the machine bore fails. But, besides this, the operation of
this law is perfectly secret; it is in a state of invisible exist
ence up to the ]5articular moment at Avhich the miracle on
each occasion takes place, Avhen the cause originally implanted
in nature comes on a sudden into action. But such a law
is not a law of nature in the phj^sical sense, Avhich is in its
very essence a law in action, consisting of recurrent physical
antecedents ; it is only, as some may consider, a more
philosophical conception of Divine action. It may be added,
that however convenient an illustration tbe action of the
arithmetical machine may be of this conception of Divine
action, it does not explain such action really, or make it any
the more comprehensible to us.
The case of a secret law of miracles, impressed originally
upon creation, Avould be somewhat analogous to the supposi
tion of a creational law in force for the production of suc
cessive species, which law did not shew or substantiate itself
by uniform operation, but left enormous chasms and gaps
between the different animal formations which started Avhole
into sudden existence. A creational laAv which does not shew
itself by facts, i. e. by uniformity of operation, is not a law
of nature, but only a mode of conceiving Divine action, viz.
as a causing from the first, instead of being action at the time.
Such a distinction is simply speculative. For secondary causes,
to constitute an order of nature, must be A'isible ; in the
absence of which Aisibility, either a miracle or a new species
is a change upon the order of nature in the midst of which it
appears, w^hatever be the mode of its causation.

VL] NOTE 5. 3.59

NOTE 5, p. 165.
Neander contemplates a miracle in this light, as assuming
this highest and supreme region of free-will : —
" Many will admit certain facts to be inexplicable by any
known laws, and at tbe same time refuse to grant them a
miraculous or supernatural character. Some are led by an
unprejudiced admission of the facts to acknowledge, without
any regard whatever to religion, that they transcend the
limits of existing science, and content themselves with that
acknowledgment, leaving to the j)rogress of natural phi
losophy or psychology to discover the laws, as yet un
known, that Avill explain the mysterious phenomena 
It is not upon this road that Ave can lead men to recognize
the supernatural and the divine ; to admit the powers of
heaven as manifesting themselves upon earth. Miracles be
long to a region of holiness and freedom, to which neither
experience, nor observation, nor scientific discovery can lead.
There is no bridge between this domain and that of natural
phenomena. Only by means of our innard affinity for this
spiritual kingdom, only by hearing and obeying, in tbe
stillness of the soul, the A'oice of God within us, can we
reach those lofty regions." {Life of Christ, bk. iv. ch. 5.)
Archbishop Trench dwells on the same point of view : —
" If in one sense the orderly workings of nature reveal
the glory of God, in another they hide that glory from our
eyes ; if they ought to make us continually remember Him,
yet there is danger that they Avill lead us to forget Him,
until this world around us shall prove not a translucent
medium, through which we behold Him, but a thick im
penetrable veil, concealing Him wholly fi-om our sight.
Were there no other purpose in the miracles than this,
namely, to testify the liberty of God, and to affirm the will
of God, which, however it habitually shews itself in nature,
is yet more than and aboA'e nature; were it only to break
a link in that chain of cause and effect, Avhicli else Ave should
come to regard as itself God, as the iron chain of an in
exorable necessity, binding heaven no less than earth, they
Avould serve a great purpose, they would not have been
Avrought in vain." {Notes on the Miracles: Preliminary Essay,
ch. ii.)

3(j() NOTE 5. [f^w-i'-
A miracle is popularly called "a violation of the laws of
nature." This phrase is objected to bj' some writers, upon
tbe ground that the laws of nature which are spoken ol as
violated in a miracle, are not really violated but continue in
force all the time, that force being not annihilated but only
counteracted by a force or law above them.
"Wc should term the miracle," says Archbishop Trench,
" not the infraction of a law, but behold in it the lower law
neutralized, and for tbe time put out of working order by
a higher  Continually aa'C behold in the world around
us lower laws held in restraint by higher, mechanic by dy
namic, chemical by vital, physical by moral ; yet we say not,
when the loAver thus gives place in favour of the higher, that
there was any violation of law, or that anything c:)ntrar3' to
nature came to pass; rather Ave acknowledge the law of a
greater freedom swallowing up the law of a lesser. Thus
Avlien I lilt up my arm, the law of gravitation is not, as far
as my arm is concerned, denied or annihilated ; it exists as
much as ever, but is held in suspense by the higher law
of my will. The chemical laws which would bring about
decay in animal substances still subsist, even when thej' are
checked and hindered by the salt, which keeps those sub
stances from corruption." {Ibid.)
Upon the same ground Mr. Llewellyn Davies objects to
the description of a miracle as " a suspension of the laws of
nature : " —
" We do not saj- that the knowledge and the will of man
when they come into play suspend the laws of nature. If
I hold a stone in my hand, or set a magnet so as to hold
up a heavy piece of iron, tbe law of gravity acts as regularly
as if the stone or the iron fell to the ground. If the skill of
a physician cures a patient of a fever, no physiological law
is suspended any more than if the patient were left alone
to die. But the human knowledge and will do effect results.
Suppose them Avithdrawn, and things would be very diff'erent
from A\'hat thej^ are. So with the Divine Will. We ought
not to saj^ that any operation of it, however miraculous,
suspends the laws of nature." {Signs of the Kingdom of
Heaven, p. 37.)
Dr. Heurtley objects to the term " violation," but not to
the term "suspension :" —
" A miracle is a violation neither of the laws of matter nor

VI.] NOT!'] 5. ;;(ii
of any other laws of nature. It is simply the intervention of
a Being possessing or endued with su/icrhumau ]iower, — an
inloi-A^ention which, though it- tcnijiorai-ily modifies or sus
pends the operation of the laws ordinarily in o]ieration in the
Avorld, is yet in itself exercised in strict accordance with the
law of that Being's nature, or sujwrinducd nature, by whom it
is exercised." {Replies to E,ssays and Reviews, p. 148.)
The writer of an article in the Christian Remembrancer
(October, 1863) objects to both terms, "suspension" and
" contradiction : " —
" An important inquiry still remains, viz. whether our
definition of a miracle as an event with a supernatural cause
is a sufficient one ? In later times, as we know, this defi
nition has not been thought sufficient ; but another idea has
been added to it, viz. ' contrary to nature,' ' suspension of
a natural law or cause.' The inquiry is a most important
one ; for, if we adopt this addition, we lay the miracle open,
as we shall see, to very formidable objections. In addressing
ourselves to the solution of this point, the first thing to
be ascertained is, whether this idea necessarily enters into
our conception of a miracle. A little consideration will shew
that it does not. Any event clearly ascertained to have a
supernatural cause would undoubtedlj^ be regarded as mi
raculous, even though not contrary to nature. The stone,
for instance, rolled away from tbe door of the sepulchre
we regard as a miracle, on the simple ground that it was
done by angels. Yet it cannot be alleged that that event
was contrary to nature, or that it involved a suspension of
a law of nature. The same act might have been performed
by man or by mechanical power, and in that case it Avould
have been perfectly natural. We thus see that the dis
tinguishing mark of the miracle, to our mind, is, not contrary
to nature, but having a supernatural "cause. We see, too,
that the supposition of the suspension of the law of nature
does not apply to aU miracles. It does not apply to a miracle
considered as a miracle. Consequently, if it does apply to
some miracles it must be accidental to them."
By what particular expression we denote the difference
from the order of nature involved in a miracle, Avhether we
do or do not call it a violation of natural law, a suspension,
&c., is a question of language and no more, so long as we
strictly understand that the natural laws to which these terms

362 NOTE 5. [Lect.
" violation " and " susjiension " are applied arc one set of
laAvs only, viz. that which comes within the cognizance of
our experience. The effect of these laws is in the particular
instance of a miracle hindered or prevented ; something takes
place which would not take place if these laws alone were m
operation. Whether this prevention of tbe effect, or this
other effect, be called a violation of the law or not, is
immaterial, as far as regards the particular law in question ;
it makes no difference whether avc say that that law is
suspended, or continues in force but is count eracted. The
phrase " violation or suspension of law " in its ordinary
signification, has reference only to the particular material
laAvs Avhich are concerned in the case, and therefore, as
commonly used, it does not appear to be objectionable.
What is of importance is that, if a miracle be a violation or
suspension of particular laws, there are other higher laws of
which it is an instance, at the very time that it is a violation
or susjiension of the lower ones : and that a miracle is thus
not against law upon the scale of the whole of the universe ;
the giving way of lower law to higher being itself an in
stance of law, the violation of the particular being the
observance of the Avhole.
" What in each of these eases is AA'rought may be against
one particular law, that law being contemplated in its iso
lation, and rent away from the complex of laws, whereof
it forms only a part. But no law stands thus alone ; and
it is not against but rather in harmony with the system
of laws ; for the law of those laws is, that when powers come
into conflict, the weaker shall give way to the stronger, the
lower to the higher.- In the miracle this world of ours is
drawn into and within a higher order of things ; laws are
then at work in the world, which are not the laAvs of its
fallen condition, for they are laws of a mightier range and
higher perfection; and as such they claim to make them
selves felt, and to have the preeminence and the predominance
which are rightly their own." {Trench, Notes on the Miracles .-
Preliminary Essay, ch. iii.)
Bishop Fitzgerald expresses the same idea Avith some
philosophical additions : —
" Again, when miracles are described as ' interferences with

VL] NOTE 5. 363
the laws of nature,' this description makes them appear im-
probalile to many minds, from their not sufliciently con
sidering that the laws of nature interfere with one another;
and that we cannot get rid of 'interferences' upon any hy
pothesis consistent with experience. When organization is
superinduced upon inorganic matter, the laws of inorganic
matter are interfered with and controlled ; when animal life
comes in there arc now interferences ; when reason and con
science are superadded to will, we have a new class of con
trolling and interfering powers, the laws of which are moral
in their character. Intelligences of pure speculation, who
could do nothing but observe and reason, surveying a portion
of the universe — such as the greater part of the material
universe may be — wholly destitute of living inhabitants,
might have reasoned that such powers as active beings pos
sess were incredible, that it Avas incredible that the Great
Creator Avould suffer the majestic uniformity of laws Avbicli
He was constantly maintaining through boundless space and
innumerable worlds, to be controlled and interfered with at
the caprice of such a creature as man. Yet Ave knoAv by
experience that God has enabled us to control and interfere
with the laws of external nature for our own purposes ; nor
does this seem less improbable beforehand (but rather more),
than that He should Himself interfere with those laws for
our advantage." {Article on Miracles : Bictionary of the Bible,
p. 376.)

364 NOTE 1. [Lect.

LECTUEE VII.
NOTE 1, p. 179.
The proof of Mahomet's measure of mankind lies in the
whole moral code of Mahometanism ; less however in that
code taken by itself, than in it as compared with the Gospel
system of morals from which it was so conspicuous and igno
minious a descent. Mahomet was perfectly acquainted with
the Gospel and with the moral standard of the Gospel : he
wrote the Koran with the Bible, both the Old and New
Testament, before him ; he knew that the spirit and practice
of the later disjiensation was an advance upon that of the
earlier, and that the standard of morals had been a matter of
growth and progress ; yet in promulgating a new religion,
Avith the higher standard before his eyes, he adopted the
lower one, and retrograded not only from Christianity but
from Judaism. Not only was he fully acquainted with the
Gospel revelation, but even professed big own to carry out
and to succeed it in the Divine counsels : yet in engrafting
his own religion upon the Law and the Gospel, he wholly
threw aside the moral development and progress whicb marked
the succession of the two dispensations ; and his own dis
pensation which was given out to be an advance even upon
the Gospel, and the crown of the whole structure of reve
lation, went back for its moral standard to a stage prior to
both. It is commonly stated that the Mahometan code,
though far inferior to that of the Gospel, was still an im
provement upon the moral standard of the Arabian tribes
which Mahomet converted. But it is one thing to institute
a carnal and lower moral system, as an adaptation to man's
Aveakness, at an earlier and an infant stage in the progress
of revelation, Avhen no better system has come to light;
another thing to institute the same in the maturity of reve
lation, when the legislator has a more perfect moral system

VIL] NOTE 1. 365
before his eyes. The true principle of adaptation and accom
modation has not resjicct to the inferior condition of the party
which is the subject of it singly and solely ; nor is that cir
cumstance alone one to justify the a]ii)lication of tbe prin
ciple : were it so, Christianity could in no age of the world,
not even in our own, be preached to the heathen without
some intermcdi.ate religion being preached first as an accom
modation. The principle of adaptation, as a legitimate rule
and principle, has respect not on\y to the condition of the
people to be converted, but also to the progress of revelation.
The moral condition of the unconverted world may be bad,
and of course is bad ; but nothing can justifj' the choice of
a lower religion and moral code to which to convert them,
AA'hen there exists before us a higher one. Yet this was
ilahomet's course ; — a course which indicates his estimate of
human nature.
Thus on tbe subject of polygamy, divorce, and concu
binage, the Mahometan code was doubtless an accommoda
tion to the moral standard of the Arabian tribes ; but it Avas
an accommodation Avhen the Gospel existed, and it was an
accommodation much lower than that of the Mosaic law.
Mr. Forster, who partly excuses Mahomet upon the ground
of accommodation, says : " The same cause or causes which
introduced into the Mosaic code the tacit admission of poly
gamy, and the more express toleration of divorce, Avould
operate with equal force to extort from the legislator the
recognition of the state of concubinage." " But," he adds,
" the Hberty of concubinage granted or rather preached by
the pretended successor of JNIoses, Avidely separates the re
ligions in their moral aspect — the studiously restricted latitude
.of the one, the unbridled and unbounded Hcentiousness of the
other." {Mahometanism Unveiled, a'oI. i. p. 332.) Again :
" The Mahometan law of divorce, as it stands in the Koran,
like so many other parts of that pretended revelation, is a
compound of the precepts of the Pentateuch and the tradi
tional adulterations of the Rabbins." (p. 330.)
The same estimate of human nature moulds the legislator's
directions on the subject of the property rights of wives and

366 NOTE J. [Lect.
orphans. Here are cases in which the proverbial rapacity of
the Oriental would 1)C very difficult to deal Avith ; and a
stringent rule, which admitted of no cscajic, Avould provoke
him, and only appear, in the eye of the accommodating law
giver, certain to meet with violation, and, along Avith vio
lation, contempt. The directions therefore in the Koran are
constructed with evident loopholes : " And give Avomen their
dowi-A' freely ; tmt if they voluntarily remit unto you any part of
it, enjoy it with snilf action and advantage." {Koran, ch. iv.)
It is easy to see Avbat the practical operation of such a clause
as this would be, — that it Avould be no difficult matter for a
man in many cases to extort or win a consent from a female
under his power to a surrender of part of her property. K.
proviso respecting female orphans leaves a dangerous dis
cretion to the guardian : " And give not unto those Avho are
of ^ceak understanding the substance Avbich God hath ap
pointed you to preserve for them " {Ibid.) : a good rule if
used fairlj', but which is rather suggestive of an unfair use
of it. It Avas not likely that an Arabian guardian Avould
part Avith the legal possession of any property sooner than
was necessary ; nor was overhaste in surrendering an estate
to a female orphan of weak mind a fault which he
Avould be in the least likely to commit. He need hardly
then have been cautioned against it. And on the other
hand, he might and Avould not improbably extract from such
a rule a permission to constitute himself an arbitrary judge
of his ward's power to manage her own affairs, and to detain
her property upon the slightest excuse on that head.
The promulgator of a new religion, who Avith a high and
spiritual code before him adopts a lower and laxer one as
that of his religion, not only adopts that lo-n'cr code but
implicitly pronounces judgment upon tbe higher one which
be rejects. He says virtually that he considers such a code
impracticable, that it may be put forth in a book, but that
human nature cannot be brought to practise it, and that it
is better to have far easier laws more obeyed, than more
difficult ones less.

VIL] NOTE 2. 367

NOTE 2, p. 1 88.
" If the special character of this deliverance be investi
gated, we find it summed up in the Avord nirvana, ' extinction,'
' blowing out.' Such was tbe sujireme felicity of the Buddha :
such the goal to which he ever ]iointed the aspirations of his
followers. It was formerly disputed whether more is meant
by the expression nirvana than ' eternal quietude,' ' unbroken
sleep,' ' impenetrable apathy ;' but the oldest literature of
Buddhism Avill scarcely suffer us to doubt that Gautama in
tended by it nothing short of absolute ' annihilation,' the
destruction of all elements Avhich constitute existence 
But Avbile we charge tbe creed of Gautama with atheism and
nihilism, avc must acknowledge that it rose in one respect
superior to all other heathen systems, — ^iii the loftier tone of
its moralit}'  We must not overlook the emphasis
which Buddhism uniformly placed upon a class of gentle and
retiring virtues, — which were wellnigh banished from the
rest of heathendom, — meekness, resignation, equanimity under
suffering, forgiveness of injuries. Much as these are found
to differ from the corresponding virtues of the Christian, and
symptomatic as they often are of womanly, instead of manly
and heroic qualities, they could scarcely fail to benefit a mul
titude of savage tribes to which they were propounded. For
example, when the Buddhist finds himself assailed by calumny
or open violence, he restrains bis animosity by reflecting that
the blow has been necessitated by misdemeanours committed
in some previous existence. He is thankful that no heavier
penance has fallen to his lot, and even at the last extremity,
Avhen death itself must be confronted, he can welcome it as
the appointed means of liberation from this unclean body.
" Truth, hoAvever, calls for the addition, that fair and lovely
as might be the outward forms of Buddhism, its inherent
principles Avere such as made it AA'ellnigh powerless in the
training of society, and therefore it has left the countries
Avhich it overran the prey of superstition and of demon- wor
ship, of political misrule, and spiritual lethargy. Confessing
no supreme God, who is at once the Legislator and the Judge,
its moral code was ultimatel}' void of all authority. Denying
also the true dignity and freedom of the human agent, it
invested moral sentiments and relations Avith a kind of
physical outsidedness ; they were all parts of a great system
with which the fortunes of the Buddhist, Avhy be knew not,
were mechanically connected. He spoke, indeed, of ' laws,'

368 NOTE 2. [Lect.
but these were only common rules of action, according to
which all things are found to hajipcn : vice had no intrinsic
hideousness, and virtue was another name for calculating
prudence; Avbile love itself was in the creed of Buddhism
little more than animal sympathy, or the condolence of one
sufferer with bis fellow. ' Buddhism also could discourse of
' duty,' but such duty, as it had no object and no standard,
was devoid of moral motive : it shrank into a lifeless acqui
escence in some stern necessity, a blind submission to some
iron law. The Buddhist's principle of action was 'I must;'
be could not say ' I ought.' (llardwick's Christ and other
Masters, pt. ii. pp. 66-70.)
Dr. Rowland Williams's representation of the Buddhist
doctrine of nirvana is a slight, but very slight, modification
of Mr. Hardwick's statement. " It seems acknowledged that
such a conception of passiveness in Deity affects your notions
of the life to be expected hereafter : for it takes away all
clear individuality, and leaves a breathless absorption." {Chris
tianity and Hinduism, p. 528.) Tbe Brahman doctrine of the
final state professes some difference from the Buddhist; but
both schools maintain in common the characteristic of imper-
sonalitj' as attaching to the final state. " When liberated
from the body, the soul of one who has attained such blessed
ness of knowledge goes straight \iy tbe shortest way, AAdiethcr
it be, as some hold, through the solar rays and tbe realm of
fire, to the abode of the gods, and from thence, being helped
at each stage by the presiding deities who for that object
chiefly dwell at convenient distances, it is conducted, like a
faint person by a guide, until it enters the realm of Indra,
and thence attains the very abode of Prajapati, who is no
other than pure Brahm; — or even if the path of the sjiirit
should be in any respect different from that wdiicli our sacred
books baA'e presenlcd to tbe imagination in wise parables, —
still in any case the soul which has never prostrated itself in
worship to any meaner or more earthly being, but gazed
steadfastly with the eye of devout knowledge upon That
ineffable which is' without stain as it is without duality, goes
straight, whatever may be the shortest Avay, to reunion Avith
the pure and divinest being of Brahm, and having been long

VIL] NOTE 3. 309
ago freed from every trammel, or impression, or personality,
is restored to Oneness, becoming therein iKjt a thinker, but
thought; not omniscient, but omniscience; not joyful, but
very joy. Not indeed that I myself my friend (would that
it Avere so !), profess to have attained as yet the certainty
of this blessedness, but rather shall count myself happy if
I gain possession of the lower liberation whicb Ijelongs to the
humbler feelers after immortality. Yet the impediment aHke
to greater achievement by myself, and which prevents so
many men from even thinking of these things, or suspecting
their own glorious capacities, resides chiefly in that which we
baA'e already spoken of: for the human soul, being cased in
a body, as in a succession of sheaths, the first of which is
intellectual or apprehensive, and the second affectionate or
capable of joy and grief, and the third merely psychic or
vital, unites itself with these so as to form a p>ersonality , and
thus individualises itself in isolation from the supreme soul :
therefore also in its many passages from life to life the
unhappy soul of man carries Avith it this subtle body above
spoken of, and thereby is constituted what we call a person."
{Christianity and Hinduism,]). 92.) This personality, howcA'cr,
A'anishes in tbe final state, when the soul is restored to one
ness. " You wiU not," continues the Brahman speaker in the
dialogue, " accept the term void as an adequate description of
the mysterious nature of the soul, but  you will
clearly apprehend soul [in the final state] to be unseen and
ungrasped being, thought, knowledge, and joy, no other than
very God." {Ibid.)

NOTE 3, p. 189.
The elevating principle in patriarchal religious life Mr.
Davison considers to have heen prophecy : —
" I conclude by resuming the authentic testimonies of
prophecy. The dispensation of it was not confined to Abra
ham. It reached through tbe Patriarchal age, and the whole
body of predictions belonging to this age easily combine
together. The oracles of God became to the Patriarchs a
bond of personal religion. His name and His worship were
B b

370 NOTE 3. [Lect.
invested Avith authority and honour among them, whilst idol-
ati-}^ and corruption of life and practice polluted the nations
around them. Their faith was directed by multiplied pro
mises of His favour, but still involving the same specific
objects which were contained in the revelation to Abraham,
the blessing of mankind, and the possession of Canaan. But
prophecy deigned to take these early disciples of it by the
hand. We see their personal fortunes, and in many par
ticulars their life and conduct, were guided by it : this was a
present pledge, a sensible evidence, of the faithfulness of God
in all His promises ; and so the supjiorts of their faith grew
with the enlarged duties of it : reserved and distant hopes
acquired a footing to rest upon, and drew strength from the
conviction which they had, not only of His revelation, but of
His experienced providential care and goodness. ' They drank
of the brook in the way.' Immediate mercies guaranteed the
greater in prospect. Such was the service rendered to reli
gion by prophecy in the Patriarchal age, whicb was the first
aera of its more copious promulgation." {Bavison on Prophecy,
P- 93-)
Again, the institution of sacrifice, typical under tbe Mosaic
law, and before it, according to the general opinion of
divines, of the Great Atonement upon the Cross, educated the
devout Jew, and imparted to him ideas tending toward the
Gospel as their goal, so making his religious character an
anticipation of the Christian one.
" The action of the moral and ceremonial law combined,
I conclude therefore to have been such as would produce, in
reasonable and serious minds, that temper which is itself
eminently Christian in its principle ; viz. a sense of demerit
in transgression ; a willingness to accept a better atonement
adequate to the needs of the conscience, if God should pro
vide it, and a desire after inward purity, which bodily lustra
tion might represent, but could not supply ; in short, that
temper which David has confessed and described, Avhen he
rejects his reliance upon the legal rites -. ' For thou desirest
no sacrifice, else would I give it thee ; but thou delightest
not in burnt-offerings.— Wash me throughly from my wicked
ness, and cleanse me from my sin. Lo, thou requirest truth
in the inward parts, and shalt make me to understand wis
dom secretly.' In which state of mind, produced, as I under
stand it to have been, by the instruction of the law, there is
such a preparation made for a Christian faith, although it is

VIL] NOTE 4. 371
clear there was no distinct perception of the Christian otject
of faith, that we cannot reasonably doubt the penitent of the
Law Avould have been tbe devout disciple of the Gosjiel, had
God been pleased to reveal to him the real sacrifice of jiro-
pitiation Avhich the Law did not provide, and thereby the
pardon and acceptance which the penitent so earnestly de
sired." {Bavison on Propihecy, p. 143.)
" With reference to the Patriarch and the Jew, those anti
cipations of Gospel truth had a twofold purpose, immediate
and ))rospective : prospective in the gradual preparation of
the world for Christianity; immediate in the infusion of
Christian feelings, sentiments, and hopes into the bosoms
of the faithful even in the earliest times  Such Avere
the sentiments of Abraham, when at the successive resting-
places in his pilgrimage ' he builded an altar unto the Lord,
and called on the name of the Lord.' And such no doubt
Avere the sentiments of many a primitive worshipper, when
he laid his hand and confessed his guilt upon the bead of the
victim." {Br. Hawkins's Bisconrses on the Historical Scrip
tures, p. 154.)
" Imo vero, ut sic loquar, quemadmodum se Veritas habet,
non nominum consuetude, Christianus etiam ille tunc populus
fuit." {Augustine, Serm. 300.)

NOTE 4, p. 194.
" Il est dangereux de trop faire voir ^ I'homme combien il
est egal aux betes, sans lui moutrer sa grandeur. II est
encore dangereux de lui trop faire voir sa grandeur sans sa
bassesse. " II est non seulement impossible mais inutile de connaitre
Dieu sans J.-C. lis ne s'en sont pas eloignes, mais ap-
proches ; lis ne se sont pas abaisses mais. . . . Quo quisquam
optimus est,pessimus si hoc ipsum quod sit optimus ascribat sibi.
" Aussi ceux qui ont connu Dieu sans connaitre leur misere
ne I'ont pas glorifie mais s'en sont glorifies. Quia no7i cognovit
per sapientiam, placuit Beo per stultitiam piradicationis salvos
facere. " Non seulement nous ne connaissons Dieu que par J.-C.
mais nous ne nous connaissons nous memes que par J.-C."
{Pensees de Pascal, pp. 85, 316, 317.)
" It was a beautiful and generous thought which Plato
adopted, that all sin arises from ignorance; and that man
B b 2

372 NOTE 5. [Lect.
only needs to be enlightened as to the true good in order
to embrace and follow it. But solvitur ambulando is a good
rule. The Avorld has had the advantage of some experience
since the days of Plato ; and that experience has not been
of a nature to establish beyond question tbe justice of liis
view. The idea of Plato was tried for more than three
bundred years, and the result was that certain stern facts
Avere graven deep into the consciousness of mankind. So
ciety under the discipline of philosophy had attained thus
far — to the absence of all faith and of every higher motive,
to uniA'crsal selfishness and moral degradation — in a word,
to a state of things at which men like Plutarch were over
come with despair. Now facts such as these have hitherto
been supposed to prove that knowdedge alone is not a re
generator ; that (Toc^ia does not always beget epois, nor is
e7Tiurrj/x?7 always and necessarily the Icrxvpov, tbe fiyep-oviKov,
and the dpyj-Kov. At any rate, one fact is abundantly
certain, that Christianity professedly and pointedly took its
stand on the opposite position, the insufficiency of know
ledge, cultivation, and every natural means. Man could
only be raised through the introduction into the world of
a Divine power. How well is all this depicted by St. Paul,
not only in passages such as this, ' For after that in the
Avisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them
that believe,' but, more strikingly still, in the despairing
cry of the natural man, ' O wretched man that I am ! who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?' and then,
in the exulting thought that at length a Deliverer had been
found, ' I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' "
{Christian Remembrancer : Article on Miracles, October, 1863.)

NOTE 5, p. 198.
" If at the present day any very extraordinary and un
accountable fact were exhibited before the eyes of an un
biassed, educated, well-informed individual, and supposing
all suspicion of imposture put out of the question, his only
conclusion would be that it was something he was unable
at present to explain ; and if at all versed in physical studies,
he would not for an instant doubt either that it was really
due to some natural cause, or that if properly recorded and
examined, it would at some future time receive its explana
tion by the advance of discovery.

VIIL] NOTE 1. 373
" It is thus the prevalent conviction that at the present
day miracles are not tu be expected, and consequently alleged
marvels are commonly discredited." {Powell's Study tf the
.Evidences of Christianity, p. 107.)

LECTUKE VIIL

NOTE 1, p. 208.
" This important circumstance," says Dr. Newman, " must
be considered, which is as clear as it is decisive, that the
Fathers speak of miracles as having in one sense cea:>ed with
tbe Apostolic period ; — that is, (considering they elsewhere
speak of miracles as existing in their own times,) they say
that Apostolic miracles, or miracles like tbe Apostles', whether
in their object, cogency, impressiveness, or character, Avere no
longer of occurrence in the Church ; an interpretation which
tliej^ themselves in some passages give to their own words.
' Argue not,' says St. Chi-ysostom, ' because miracles do not
happen now, that they did not happen then  In those
times they were profitable, and now they are not.' He pro
ceeds to say that in spite of this difference, the mode of con
viction AA'^as substantially the same. ' We persuade not by
philosophical reasonings, but from Divine Scripture, and we
recommend what avc say by the miracles then done. And
then they persuaded not by miracles onlj^, but by discussion.'
And presently he adds, 'The more. evident and constraining
are the things Avhieh happen, the less room there is for faith.'
{Horn, in 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3.) Again, in another part of his works :
' Why are there not those now who raise the dead and perform
cures? I Avill not say Avhy not; rather, why are there not
those now who despise the present life ? Why serve we God
for hire ? When however nature was weak, when faith had
to be planted, then there were many such ; but now He wills,
not that we should hang on these miracles, but be ready for
death.' {Hotn. VIIL in Col. s. 5.)
" In like manner St. Augustine introduces his catalogue of
contemporary miracles by stating and allowing the objec
tion that miracles were not then as they had been. ' Why,
say they, do not these miracles take place now, whicb, as
you preach to us, took place once ? I might answer that

374 NOTE 1. [Lect.
they were necessary before the Avorld believed, that it might
believe.' {Be Civ. Bei, xxii. 8.) He then goes on to say
that miracles were wrought in his time, only they were not
so public and well-attested as the miracles of the Gosjiel.
" St. Ambrose, on the discovery of the bodies of tbe two
Martyrs, uses language of surprise which is quite in accord
ance with the feelings which the miracles of Antony and
Hilarion seem to have roused in Alexandria and in Sicily.
' You know, you yourselves saw that many were cleansed
from evil spirits, verj' many on touching with their hands the
garment of the saints Avere delivered from tbe infirmities
Avbich oppressed them. The miracles of the old time are come
again, when by the advent of the Lord Jesus a fuller grace
Avas shed upon the earth.' Under a similar feeling he speaks
of the two corpses, Avhich happened to be of large size, as
' mirse magnitudinis, ut prisca astas ferebat.'
"And Isidore of Pelusium, after observing that in the
Apostles holiness of life and power of miracles Avent together,
adds, ' Now, too, if the life of teachers rivalled the Apostolic
bearing, perhaps miracles would take place ; though if they
did not, such life would suflice for the enlightening of those
who beheld it.' {Ep. iy. 8o.)
" The doctrine thus Avitnessed by the great writers of the
end of the fourth century is declared by as clear a testimony
two centuries before and two centuries after. Pope Gregory
at the end of the sixth in commenting on the text, ' And
these signs shall follow those that believe,' says, ' Is it so,
my brethren, that, because ye do not these signs, ye do not
belicA'e ? On the contrary they were necessary in the begin
ning of the Church : for, that faith might grow, it required
miracles to cherish it withal ; just as when we plant shrubs,
Ave water them till they seem to thrive in the ground, and as
soon as they are well rooted, we cease our irrigation. This is
what St. Paul teaches, ' Tongues are a sign not for those who
believe, but for those who believe not ;' and there is some
thing yet to be said of these signs and powers of a more
recondite nature. For Holy Church doth spiritually every
day, what she then did through the Apostles corporally.
For when the Priests by the grace of exorcism lay hands on
believers and forbid evil si^irits to inhabit their minds, Avhat
do they but cast out devils ? And any believers soever who
henceforth abandon the secular words of the old life, and
utter holy mysteries, and rehearse as best they can the praise
and power of their Maker, what do they but speak with new
tongues ? jMoreover, Avhile by their good exhortations they

VIIL] NOTE 1. 375
remove evil from the heart of others, they are taking up
serpents, &c  Which miracles arc tbe greater, because
they are tbe more sjiiritual ; the greater because they are
the means of raising not bodies but souls ; these signs then,
dearest brethren, by God's aid, ye do if yc will.' {In Evang.
ii. 29.) And St. Clement of Alexandria at the end of the
second century : ' If it was imputed to Abraham for righteous
ness on his believing, and we are the seed of Abraham, we
too must believe by hearing. For Israelites we are, who are
obedient, not through signs, but through hearing.' {Strom.
ii. 6. p. 444)." — Essay on the Miracles of the Early Ages,
P-39- The confession of the Fathers that miracles had ceased in
their days, while at the same time they allude to miracles
going on in their day, has evidently reference to the kind of
miracles Avhich the current marvels of their OAvn day were,
as compared with the body of Gospel miracles. In the body
of Gospel miracles, the greater miracles, as they are called,
miracles of a sublime and majestic type indicative of a supreme
dominion over nature, occupy a prominent place ; amid the
current miracles of the Patristic age they appear so rarely,
and, when they do appear, are mentioned with so little of that
circumstance and particularity which constitute a condition
of truth in facts, that thej' do not materially affect the cha
racter and rank of those miracles as a mass. As a body they
consist of exorcisms, visions, cures in answer to prayer ; the
latter in the fourth century becoming connected with the
memories and relics of particular saints and martyrs. Ire-
nseiis, in a well-knoAvn passage {Contra liar. ii. 31), alludes to
some who had been raised to life again by the prayers of the
Church — peTo. vrja^TeCas TroXkrjs (cot kiraveias eTreaTpeyj/e to Ttvevpa
TOV rerekevTriKOTos. But the reference is so vague, that it
possesses but little weight as testimony. " Irenaeus," ob
serves Dr. Hey, "only affirms this in general without men
tioning any particular instance, and it is somcAvbat strange
that no instance was ever produced in the three first centuries.
.... There is not bowcA'cr the same want of instances Avith
regard to the other branches of miracles said to have been
performed in the Church, namely, seeing visions, prophesying.

376 NOTE 1. ' [Lect.
healing diseases, curing demoniacs, and some others." {Kay s
Tertullian, p. i68.) Neander doubts wbetbcr Ircna-us is clear
in his own mind as to what he intended to assert here, and
suj)|)oses that be may not have meant by the death from
which the persons had been raised real death, but only some
form of apparent death {Church History, sect, i.), but at any
rate the indefiniteness of the reference takes away all accuracj'
from the reported fact. Professor Blunt attaches somewhat
more value to the statement of Irenajus than either Neander
or Hey, but still comments on the obvious vagueness and
indefiniteness of it : —
" Here we have another witness, he also a man of education
and research, and though perhaps not a martyr to the death,
a man who, for the sake of teaching the truth, Avas content to
forego the charms of his native land, and migrate to a distant,
a barbarous, and as it proved a dangerous station ; avc haA^e
this man, I say, still testifying in another quarter of the
Avorld, too, in Gaul, to the existence of miraculous powers in
the Church ; exorcism ; healing both of natural infirmities
and sickness ; prophecy ; tongues ; discerning of sjiirits ; and
even raising the dead -. but perhaps expressing himself with
different degrees of confidence whilst treating of these several
gifts. Thus, with respect to exorcism, 'some really and truly
eject evil spirits,' {ol pev yap batpovas i\avvovai ^e^attos Kal
d\r]9&i), is his language — 'we have heard, brethren speak with
tongues, and detect spirits,' so I understand KaOm koI -nokkSiv
aKOvopev dbek(f>&v ev rrj eKKkrjn-Cq irpotjir^TiKa. ^apia-para eyovTUiv,
Koa ¦navToba'ncus kakovvTwv bia tov Ylvevp-aros ykdaaais, koi to.
Kpv(j;>ia T&v av9pa>T(i)v els (fiavepbv dyovTiDv em tu avp(f)epovTi
And in these instances, as well as in some others which I have
named, he uses the present tense, baLpoi>a<; ekaivovtri, irpoyva-
(Tiv e)(ova(,, Tohs Kipvovras l&vrai, •){api(jpaTa eyfovnov, TtavTO-
SaTrais yXtorrtrats kakovvToov, to. Kpvipia Tuv dvdpomuiv els (pavepov
dyovTb)!'. But when the miracle of raising the dead is touched
on, the expressions are less definite, saepe evenit fieri, irokkdKLs,
the phrase indefinite as to time — o Kijpios, ol diroaTokoi, fj -jrao-a
eKKKrjcria, the language again indefinite as to agents — so the
tense in these cases is no longer the present, but the aorist,
TO Ttvevpa TOV Terekevrr] kotos eTT4a-Tpe\j/e, the spirit of the dead
returned — exapia-dt], he was granted to the prayers of the
saints — veKpol rjyep6r\crav Kal irapipetvav ovv fipiv, the dead
have been raised up, and have continued Avith us. There is

VIIL] NOTE 1. 377
something remarkable, at least, in tbe change of tense, some
thing which, when collided with the looser construction of
the sentences, would lead us to think that though Irenaeus
had no doubt of the fact of tbe resurrection of the dead
having been effected by the brethren, be bad not witnessed
a case with his own eyes." {Blunt on the Early Fathers,
P-387-) Augustine again, long after, alludes in his list of miracles
{Be Civ. Bei, xxii. 8) to some cases in which persons had
been raised to life again Ha- prayer and the intercession of
martyrs, whose relics were applied. But though Augustine
relates with great particularity and length of detail some
cases of recoveries from complaints in answer to prayer, his
notices of the cases in which persons had been raised to life
again are so short, bare, and summary, that they evidently
represent no more than mere report, and report of a very
vague kind. Indeed, with the preface Avhich he prefixes to
his list, he cannot be said even to profess to guarantee the
truth or accuracy of the different instances contained in it.
" Heec autem, ubicunque fiunt, ibi sciuntur vix a tota ijjsa
civitate vel quocunque commanentium loco. Nam plerunnpic
etiam ibi paucissimi sciunt, ignorantibus caeteris, maxime si
magna sit ciAdtas ; et quando alibi aliisque narrantur, non
tantum ea commendat auctoritas, ut sine difficultate vel dubi-
tatione credantur, quamvis Christianis fidelibus a fidelibus
indicentur." He puts down the cases as he received them
then, without pledging himself to their authenticity. " Eu-
charius presbyter . . . mortuus sic jacebat ut ei jam pollices
ligarentur : opitulatione memorati martyris, cum de memoria
ejus reportata fuisset et super jacentis corpus missa ipsius
presbyteri tunica, suscitatus est  Audurus nomen est
fundi, ubi ecclesia est et in ea memoria Stephani martyris.
Puerum quondam parAnilum, cum in area luderet, exorbitantes
boves qui vehiculum trahebant, rota obtriverunt, et con-
festim palpitavit exspirans. Hunc mater arreptum ad eandem
memoriam posuit; et non solum revixit, verum etiam illaesus
apparuit." There are three other cases of the same kind,
in which there is nothing to verify the death from which

378 NOTE 1. [Lect.
the return to life is said to take place, .is being more than
mere suspension of the vital ])owers ; but the writer does not
go into particulars of description or proof, but simply inserts
them in his list as thc}' have been reported to him.
The comments of the heathen world upon the miracle of
our Lord's Resurrection, which are incidentally alluded to
in the Apologetic and other treatises of the Fathers, shew
how completely the heathen distinguished between their own
current miraculous ijretonsions and real and undoubted
miracles, where they had the opportunity of comparing tbe
two. They had their own popular and established super
naturalism, Avhich they professedly respiected and accepted ;
their exorcisms, their rites of augury, their oracles, their
miraculous cures, Avhich were registered in temples ; but as
soon as a miraculous fact was presented to them, about Avbich
there could be no doubt that it was miraculous, thej'^ exhibited
as much astonishment and incredulity as if they only pre
tended to belicA'e in the powers of nature and the order of
nature. That a man should rise from the dead was treated
by them as an absolutely incredible fact. " The mystery of
the Resurrection," saj^s Origen, who speaks of it as including
the miracle of Christ's Resurrection, which he has just men
tioned, " is spoken of by tbe unbelieving with ridicule " —
©pvXkeiTai. yekdpevnv vtto t&v ania-Tcav. {Contra Cels. lib. i.
s. 7.) Celsus places the account of our Lord's Resurrection
in the same list with the legendary descents of Zamolxis,
Rhampsinitus, Orpheus, Protesilaus, Hercules, and Theseus
into the infernal regions, and their return thence. " Has
any one," he asks, " who has been really dead, ever risen
again?" (Hb. ii. s. 55.) Celsus, it is true, did not profess
much belief in current heathen supernaturalism ; be speaks
however of the art of magic not like one who wholly rejected
it, excepting philosophers from liability to the magician's
influence, just as Origen excepted devout Christians from the
same. (lib. vi. s. 41.) "Celsus," says Neander, "expresses
himself as though he considered magic to be an art possessed
of a certain power, though held by him in no great account."
{Church History, sect, i.) Caecilius, the representative of hea-

VIIL] NOTE 2, 379
thenism in the " Octavius" of Minutius Felix, professes his
belief in the rites of augurj', in heathen prophecy, and in
various heathen rniracles ; but he declares that be cannot
believe that any one has ever risen again from the dead ; —
" Quis unus uUus ab inferis remeavit horarum saltem com-
meatu?" (c. vii. xi.) The heathen Autolycus challenges
Theophilus to produce an instance of a dead man rising to
life again. Augustine, in the 22nd book of the " De Civitate
Dei," devotes himself to the defence of the doctrine of the
resurrection, against the notion of the philosophical heathens
that it was a simple impossibility ; and the particular resur
rection of Christ is defended against the same charge. " Sed
hoc incredibile fuit aliquando : ecce jam credidit mundus
sublatum Christi corpus in ccelum, resurrexionem carnis."
(c. V.)

NOTE 2, p. 224.
" We lay out of the case such stories of supernatural events
as require on the part of the hearer nothing more than an otiose
assent ; stories upon which 7iothing depends, in which no interest
is involved, nothing is to be done or changed in consequence of
believing them. Such stories are credited, if the careless assent
that is given to them deserve that name, more by tbe in
dolence of the hearer, than by his judgment; or, though not
much credited, are passed from one to another Avithout in
quiry or resistance. To this case, and to this case alone,
belongs what is called the love of the marvellous. I have
never known it carry men further. Men do not suffer
persecution from the love of the marvellous. Of the in
different nature we are speaking of, are most vulgar errors
and popular superstitions : most, for instance, of the current
reports of apparitions. Nothing depends upon their being
true or false. But not, surely, of this kind were the alleged
miracles of Christ and His Apostles  They Avho
believed Christianity acted upon it. Many made it the
express business of their lives to publish the intelligence.
It Avas required of those Avho admitted that intelligence,
to change forthAvith their conduct and their principles, to
take up a different course of life, to part with their habits
and gratifications, and begin a new set of rules and system

380 NOTE 3. [Lect-
of behaviour. The A])ostles, at least, weie interested not to
sacrifice their ease, their fortunes, and their lives, for an idle
tale; multitudes beside them wore induced, by the same tale,
to encounter opposition, danger, and sulfcrings.
" We may add to what has been observed of the distinction
Avhich we are considering, that, where miracles are alleged
merely in affirmance of a prior opinion, they who believe the
doctrine may sometimes propagate a belief of the miracles
which they do not themselves entertain. This is the case of
what are called prions frauds ; Ijut it is a case, I apprehend,
which takes place solely in support of a persuasion already
established. At least, it does not hold of the apostolical
history. If the Apostles did not believe the miracles, they
did not believe the religion ; and, without this belief, Avhere
was the piety, Avhat place Avas there for anything which could
bear the name or colour of piety, in publishing and attesting
miracles in its behalf? If it be said that many promote the
belief of revelation, and of any accounts which favour that
belief, because they think them, whether well or ill founded,
of public and political utility; I answer, that if a character
exist, which can with less justice than another be ascribed to
the founders of tbe Christian religion, it is that of politicians,
or of men capable of entertaining political views. The truth
is, that there is no assignable character which will account
for the conduct of the Apostles, supposing their story to be
false." {Paley's Evidences, pp. 131, 133.)

NOTE 3, p. 227.
" One of the saddest portions of modern controversy," says
Dr. Pusey, " is the thought how much is owing to forged
writings ; to what extent the prevailing system as to the
Blessed Virgin came in upon the authority of writings which
Roman Catholic critics now own to have been wrongly, as
cribed to the great Fathers A^'hose names they bear; to Avhat
extent the present relation of Rome to the Eastern Church
and to ourselves is owing to the forged Decretals  The
forgery of the Decretals after they had ' passed for true during
eight centuries' was oAvned by all, even by the Church of
Rome. But the system built upon that forgei-y abides
still." {An Eirenicon, pp. 236, 255.)
" Up to this period the Decretals, the letters or edicts of

VIIL] NOTE 3. 381
the Bishops of Rome, according to the authorized or common
collection of Dionysius, commenced with Pope Siricius, to-
Avards the close of the finirth century. To the collection of
Dionysius was added that of the authentic councils, which
bore the name of Isidore of Seville. On a sudden was pro
mulgated, unannounced, Avithout preparation, not absolutely
unquestioned, but apparently overawing at once all doubt,
a new code, which to the former authentic documents added
fifty-nine letters and decrees of the twenty oldest Popes from
Clement to Melchiades, and the donation of Constantine;
and in the third part, among tbe decrees of the Popes and
of the councils from Silvester to Gregory IL, thirty-nine false
decrees, and the acts of several unauthentic councils. In
this A'ast manual of sacerdotal Christianity the Popes appear
from the first the parents, guardians, legislators of the faith
throughout the whole world  The author or authors
of this most audacious and elaborate of pious frauds are un
known ; the date and place of its compilation are driven into
such narrow limits that they may be determined within a few
years, and within a very circumscribed region. The false De
cretals came not from Rome ; the time of their arrival at Rome,
after they were known beyond the Alps, appears almost cer
tain. In one year Nicholas I. is apparently ignorant of their
existence, tbe next he speaks of them with full knowledge."
— {Mil/nan's Latin Christianity, pp. 303, 305.)
A writer in the Christian Remembrancer, April 1854, has
investigated Avith the most elaborate care and most pene
trating research the miracle of the " House of Loretto." He
concludes : —
" It is a fiction that has exercised and is still exercising
enormous practical influence throughout Western Christen
dom  It has amassed treasures that would have fed
almost the entire poor of Europe for their lives. It has
extorted homage from Erasmus, from Descartes. Into it
has been introduced the purest of virgins and holiest of
mothers, for the purpose of stamping with her authority the
clumsiest as well as the falsest of all legends. It forms,
finaUv, the sixth Lection of a special office set forth by Papal
infallibility, and by no means obsolete, in which Almighty
God is venerated for a miraculous exercise of His power,
which, according to the framers of the story, clearly ought
to have been exerted, but never was! While the seventh
Lection consists of a portion of the first chapter of St. Luke's

382 NOTE 4. [Lect.
Gospel, in the preceding one — as it were to illustrate the
contrast between light and darkness- — what follows is as
sumed to be no less trustAvorthy I
" ' The house in which this Virgin Avas born, hallowed by
the divine mysteries, and snatched by tbe ministry of angels
out of the hand of the infidel, was translated first into Dal-
matia, and afterwards into the territory of Loretto, in the
province of Picenum, during the Pontificate of the holy
Celestine V. And it is proved to be the very one in which
the Word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us, as Avell
by papal diplomas and the abundant A'cneration of the whole
Avorld, as also by the constant power of miracles and the
grace of heavenly benefits. Whereupon Innocent XII., moved
by these things, in order that the faithful might be more
effectually stirred up, and put in mind of the worship of our
most beloved mother, gave directions to celebrate with mass
and office appropriate, the translation of the said holy house,
Avhich is observed throughout the whole proAdnce of Picenum
Avith anniversary solemnity.'
" What a train of melancholy reflections is thus afforded
by December loth ! The largest portion of Christendom by
far insisting upon Papal infallibility as a vital principle ;
Papal infallibilitj' thus solemnly pledged to an untruth !"

NOTE 4, p. 228.
" Solas pro sanctitate virtutes exposcere videtur S. Joannes
Chrysostomus in inscript. actorum {pag. 64, Oper. tom. 3) ;
Actio quidem bona etiam sine signis eos, a quibus peracta fuerit,
introducit in coelum. Miraculmn autem, et signum absque conver-
satione deducere ad vestibula ilia non possunt : quod ipsum
latins prosequitur Anastasius Episcopus Nicaenus, qui vixit
post Concilium Trullanum (teste Cardinali Bellarmino de
Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis) in opere cui titulus, Be quastionibus
in sacram Scripturam, qu. 23. to. 1. Biblioth. Patrum, ubi ait:
Non oportet autem aut virum orthodoxnm ex signis, aut Pro-
phetam dijudicare, quod sit sanctus ; sed ex eo quod ritam recte
instituit 8fc. Quoniam, ergo, ut ostensvm est, a peccatoribus et
incredulis sapie Jiunt signa et prophetia per quamdam dispensa-
tionem, non oportet de cetera ex rebus ejusmodi dijudicare quem-
piam,, ut sit sanctus ; sed ex eorum fructibus, ut dicit Bominus,
cognoscetis eos, Fructus veri et spiritalis viri ostendit etiam
Apostolus dicens ; Fructus autem spiritus est charitas, gaudium,
pax. Fides, Mansuetudo, continentia. Supra vidimus, B. Petrum

VIIL] NOTE 5. 383
Damiani nulla in historia vitffi S. Dominici Loricati miracula
narrasse, et respondissc, id mirum esse non debere, cum nee
legatur, ullum factum fuisse miraculum a Bcatissima Virgine
Maria, nee a S. Joanne Baptista. Callisto 11. summo Pontifici
miracula requirenti pro Canonizatione S. Coiiradi Episcopi
Constantiensis Ulricus ejusdem Ecclesiao Episcopus ita re-
spondit {apud Pistorium Script, rer. Germ. tom. 3. p. 638) .-
OjKrarn dedi, ex Patrum schedulis, hujus Viri dignissimam Beo
conversationein potius, quam miracula, qua nonuumquam re-
probis cum Sanctis communia sunt, continentibus, sequens opus-
culum colligere, vestraque sublimitati examinandum dirigere. . . .
" At, his minime obstantibus, de necessitate tum virtutum,
aut martyrii, tum miraculoi-um in causis Beatificationis et
Canonizationis nulla rationabilis dubitatio esse potest, uti
saepe in hujus operis decursu a nobis dictum est. Virtutes,
et miracula exposcit Honorius III. in cap. Venerabili de testib.
et atiestat. ubi sic loquitur : Supier vita, et miraculis, Si'c. Et Gre-
gorius IX. in bulla Canonizationis Sancti Antonii Patavini,
Ecclesiam triumphantem ab Ecclesia militante distinguit, et
pro sanctitate in Ecclesia triumphante solam ait sufficere
perseverantiam usque ad finem, pro Ecclesia vero militante
duo statui necessaria, virtutem videlicet morum, et A'critatem
signorum, uti videri potest lib. ^. hujus operis cap. 4.2. num.11.
Resumi quoque possunt, quae in primo hujus ipsius operis
libro fuse a nobis adducta sunt de necessitate miraculorum
etiam in causis martymm. Ad persuadendam miraculorum
necessitatem in causis Beatificationis et Canonizationis satis
superque esset asserere, inconcussam semper fuisse et esse
AjiostoHcas sedis praxim miracula in his causis requirendi,
quam praxim exornant Contelorius de Canoniz. SS. cap. 19.
n. 2. BaldeUus Theolog. Moral, tom. 2. lib- 3. disp. 14. num. i.
Pater Mabillon in epistola edita sub nomine Eusebii Romani
ad Theophilum Galium, num. 12. Rotae Auditores in relatione
causarum S. Franciscae Romanae, par. 3. art. I. de miraculis
in genere," &c. {Benedict XIV, Opiera, lib. iv. pars iii. c. 5.
§§ 2> 4-) NOTE 5, p. 230.
It is disputed when ecclesiastical miracles begin. Dr. Hey
denies that the Apostolical Fathers make any allusions to
themselves working miracles.
" For fifty years after tbe ascension of Christ, none of the
Fathers made any pretensions to the possession of miraculous

384 NOTE 5. [Lect.
powers. We have already spoken, in a former Lecture, of
those Fathers who arc called the Apostolic, of Ignatius, Poly-
carp, Barnabas, Hennas; now it is an historical truth not
to be omitted, that not one of those pious men, though they
Avere the jmncipal governors of the Church, and the imme
diate successors of the Apostles in that government (as well
as their companions and friends), ever sj^caks of himself as
capable of counteracting the ordinary jjowers of nature ; they
all endeavour to inculcate the morality and religion of the
Gospel, but that merely as men, possessed indeed of the sense
and meaning of the sacred writers, but entirely void of their
extraordinary power  I only affirm, hoAvever, that none
of the Apostolic Fathers sjieaks of himself as endued with a
power of working miracles ; we must not absolutely say that
no miracles have ever been said to be wrought about the time
they lived : because there is a very celebrated letter extant
from the Church of Smj'rna, giving an account of the mar
tyrdom of Polycarp, Avliich is said to have been attended with
circumstances sufficiently miraculous." — {Kay's Tertullian,
p. 16.5.)
Professor Blunt decides that they allude to miracles as
going on in the Church : —
" It has been disputed whether the Apostolical Fathers,
properly so called, speak of contemporary miracles at all.
Considering how short are their works, and the practical
purpose for which most of them are written, the absence of
all allusion to miracles in them Avould prove little or nothing,
and might well be accidental. Such an expression, however,
as that of Clemens Romanus, that there was in the Church of
Corinth ' a plentiful outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon all,'
{nkrip-qs YIievpaTOs'Ayiov eK^vrrts eirt Trdrray eyCuero) — or that of
Ignatius, addressed to the Church of Smyrna, ' that it was
mercifully blessed vrith every good gift,' {ev Travrl x_a.pl(rp.aTi,)
' that it was wanting in no good gift,' {avvaTeprjTos ovaa
-navTos xapifTMaToj) — such phraseology, I say, being compared
with that of times both before and after, Avhen it undoubtedly
had miraculous as well as other gifts in contemplation, Avould
lead us to think, I agree with Dodwell, that Clemens and
Ignatius did not exclude such gifts from their account." —
{Blunt on the Early Fathers, lect. vi.)
Bishop Kay states his Adew of the early Church miracles in
the following ^lassage : —
" The supposition that miraculous powers were gradually

VIIL] NOTE 5. 385
withdraAvn from the Church, appears in a great measure to
account for the uncertainty whicb has ])revailed respecting
the period of their cessation. To adopt the language of un
doubting confidence on such a subject would be a mark no
less of folly than xu'esumxition ; but I may be allowed to state
the conclusion to which I have myself been led, by a com
parison of the statements in the Book of Acts with the
writings of tbe Fathers of the second century. My con
clusion then is, that the jjower of working miracles Avas not
extended beyond the disciples, upon whom the Apostles con
ferred it by the imposition of their hands. As the number
of those disciples gradually diminished, the instances of the
exercises of miraculous poAA'crs became continually less fre
quent, and ceased entirely at the death of the last individual
on Avhom the hands of the Apostles had been laid. That
event would, in the natural course of things, take place before
the middle of the second century ; at a time when, Chris
tianity having obtained a footing in all the proAdnces of the
Roman Empire, the miraculous gifts conferred upon its first
teachers had performed their apx)ropriate office, —that of x>rov-
ing to the Avorld that a New RcA'clation had been given from
heaven. What then would be the effect xJrodnced upon the
minds of the great body of Christians by their gradual cessation?
Many would not observe, none Avould be Avilling to observe it ;
for all must naturally feel a reluctance to believe that powers,
Avhich had contributed so essentially to the rapid diffusion of
Christianity, were withdrawn. They who remarked the ces
sation of miracles would probably succeed in persuading them
selves that it was onlj"- temporary, and designed by an all- wise
Providence to be the prelude to a more abundant effusion of
supernatural gifts upon the Church. Or if doubts and mis
givings crossed their minds, they would still be unwilling
openly to state a fact which might shake the steadfastness of
their friends, and would certainly be urged by the enemies of
the Gosj^el as an argument against its Divine origin. They
would pursue the plan which has been pursued by Justin
Martyr, Theophilus, Irenaeus, &c. ; they would have recourse
to general assertions of tbe existence of supernatural powers,
without attempting to produce a specific instance of their
exercise  Let me repeat, that I offer these observa
tions with that diffidence in my o\A'n conclusions which ought
to be the predominant feeling in the mind of every inquirer
into the Avays of ProAddence. I collect from passages already
cited from the Book of Acts, that the power of Avorking
miracles Avas conferred by the hands of the Apostles only ;
c c

386 NOTE 5. [Lect.
and consequentlj' ceased with the last disciple on whom their
hands were laid. I perceive in the language of the Fathers,
who Hved in the middle and end of the .second century, when
speaking on this subject, something which betrays, if not
a conviction, at least a suspicion, that tbe power of working
miracles AA'as withdraAvn, combined with an anxietj' to keep
up a belief of its continuance in the Church. They affirm in
general terms that miracles were performed, but rarely A'cn-
ture to produce an instance of a particular miracle. Those
who folloAA'cd them were less scrupulous, and proceeded to
invent miracles; very different indeed in circumstances and
character from the miracles of the Gospel, yet readily belicA^ed
bj' men Avho Avere not disx)osed nicely to examine into the
evidence of facts which they Avisbed to be true. The success
of the first attempts naturally encouraged others to practise
similar impositions upon tbe credulity of mankind. In CA'cry
succeeding age miracles multiplied in number, and increased
in extravagance ; till at length, by their frequency, they lost
all title to the name, since they could no longer be considered
as deviations from the ordinary course of nature." {Kay's
Tertullian, pp. 98 et seq.)
Upon the question of the continuance of miraculous powers
in the Chm-ch our earlier divines decline to draw any x)recise
line, and are favourable to an indefinite prolongation of their
existence in the Church. Thus Jackson ; —
" Generally, miracles were usual in tbe infancy of Chris
tianity, as we read in ecclesiastical stories : nor can it be
certainly gathered when they did certainly cease. To say
they endured no longer than the primitive Church, can give
no universal satisfaction, saA'e only to such as think it enough
for all the world to have the light of the Gospel locked up in
the chancel of some one glorious church : for some churches
were but in the prime or change, when others were full of
Christian knowledge. The use of miracles at the same in
stant was befitting the one, not the other. For God usually
speaks to new-born children in Christ by miracles or sensible
declarations of His power, mercy, or justice : as parents deter
their children from evil in tender years by the rod, or other
sensible signs of their displeasure ; and allure them to good
ness with apples, or other Hke visible pledges of their love :
but Avhen they come to riper years, and are capable of dis
course, or apprehensive of Avholesome admonitions, they seek
to rule them by reason. Proportionably to this course of

VIIL] NOTE 5. 387
parents' doth God sjK-ak to His Church: in her infimcy
(wheresoever planted), by sensible documents of His power;
in her maturity, by the ordinary ]n-eaeliiiig of His word,
Avhich is more apt to ripen and confirm true ('hristian faith
than any miracles are, so men would submit their reason unto
the rules set down in Scripture, and uni)artially examine all
events of time by them, as elsewhere, God wiUing, we shall
shcAV. " These grounds, avcII considered, Avill move any sober spirit
at the least to suspend his assent, and not suffer his mind to
be hastily oyerswayed with absolute distrust of all such
miracles, as either our writers report to have been Avrought
in this our land at the Saxons' first coming hither, or the
French historiographers record in the first conversion of the
Franks, or in the prime of that Church." {Jackson's Com
ments on the Creed,h\z.. i. ch. 13.)
Professor Blunt dissents from Bishop Kay's position re
specting the early Church miracles : —
" Though the Bishop of Lincoln's theory is one Avbich is
well calculated te reconcile a sceptical age to the acceptance
of ecclesiastical miracles in a degree, and though I have some
times felt inclined to adopt it myself, yet on further reading
and further examination of the subject, I am led to doubt if
the testimony of the Fathers can be squared to it, if it can
satisfy the conditions of the case." {On the Early Fathers,
p. 406.)
Warburton admits some s^^ecial miracles, rejects the great
body, especially those of later times, and for the rest adopts
the position of a suspense of judgment: —
"Not that it is my purpose positivel}' to brand as false
ever}' pretended miracle recorded in ecclesiastical and civil
history, which Avants this favourable capacity of being re
duced to one or other of the species explained above. All that
I contend for is, that those miracles, still remaining unsup
ported by the nature of that evidence which I have shewn
ought to force conviction from every reasonable mind, should
be at j)i'esent excluded from the jirivilege of that conviction.
" Indeed, the greater jjart may be safely given up. Of the
rest, which yet stand undiscredited by any considerable marks
of imposture, Ave may safely suspend our belief, till time hath
afforded further lights to direct our judgment." {Bivine
Legation, bk. ix. ch. 5.) c c 2

ADDITIONAL NOTE, ]^. 13.
An able and thoughtful Avriter on "Miracles," in the
Christian Remembrancer, puts the necessity of miracles
as evidence of our Lord's Divine Nature in the following
jjoint of view : —
" Truths, such as ' God is a Spirit,' or, ' Do unto others as
you would they should do unto 3'ou,' are abstract truths,
resting on fundamental principles in the human mind. They
therefore api)eal to the human mind for their t-vidence, and
to nothing else. By a mental process they are transformed
from the sphere of feeling or intuition into that of logic, and
Avhen Ave appeal to an innate sense for their truth we simply
appeal to the consciousness of every man to say whether this
process has not been rightly performed. But tbe proposition,
God was incarnate in Jesus Christ for the deliverance of the
world, is of a totally different nature. It is not an abstract
truth, but a historical fact, and con.5ec^uently by no jiower of
intuition could we assure ourselves of its truth. However
much the fact embodied in these Avords may ansAver to a want
and longing in the heart, however much the thought of it
may thrill our nature to its very depth, still this is no proof
of its truth. This very want and longing has given rise to
many pretensions, Avhich, alas ! avc know to baA'e been base
less. That God was Incarnate in Christ Jesus is a fact which
must rest upon evidence just as any other historical fact.
There is no power of clairvoyance in the human mind by
which we can see its truth independent of evidence.
" But this writer not only fails to perceive that the Chris
tianity he adopts is a historical fact resting ux)oii evidence,
but that it is a supernatural fact, and, consequentlj', that it
needs evidence of a peculiar kind. It is evident that to prove
that our Lord was Incarnate God we need not only evidence
that He lived and died, that His Hfe was blameless, and that
He spake as never man spake, — all this would prove that He
was wonderful among the sons of men, — but we need some
thing more before we can acknowledge tbe justice of His
claim to be the Son of God. That He was God Incarnate
Avas a fact above nature ; it could, therefore, onl}' be proved
by a manifestation above nature, that is by miracle.
" This is so important that it merits further consideration.
We say that the fact that Christ was God being a super
natural fact could only be proved by a supernatural mauifesta-

ADDITIONAL NOTE. 389
tion. Now this assertion rests upon a fundamenlal jirincijilc
of all our knowledge. We cannot know things according to
that Avhich they are in themselves, but only in and through
the phenomena they manifest ; and hence our judgment as to
what anything is, is entirely dependent on the manifestations
connected with it. How, for instance, do wc satisfy ourselves
as to the nature and identity of anything? Supposing a
substance is presented to a chemist, and he is asked to deter
mine of what nature it is, how does he proceed ? He begins
by carefully observing all its qualities, and noting the pheno
mena to Avhieh it gives rise, in any circumstances in Avhich it
may be placed. He places it in every possible relation, and
notes the signs and tokens which are manifested. If it should
happen that these phenomena are identical Avith those of any
previously known substance, the identity of the substance
inquired about Avith that substance is determined. But should
the phenomena manifested be altogether unknown and strange,
it is immediately set doAvn as a new substance, and the idea
we have of that substance is constructed out of the pheno
mena it manifests. In the same way the naturalist proceeds
in determining the various spiecies of plants and animals. He
observes not only physical characteristics and relations, but,
in the case of animals, actions and habits ; and from these be
is enabled to conclude as to the presence or absence of mind
and intelligence, and generally as to the inner nature. In
the same way, by a x'rocess of induction, we judge of the
characters and mental capacities of those among whom we
mix. We are in no doubt when we are in the presence of
a felloAv-being with human nature and sympathies like our
selves. We see his inmost nature manifested in a thousand
outward tokens, from which we draw an almost instantaneous
and infallible conclusion.
" It is in precisely the same way that we are to judge of
the nature of Christ. If He exhibited in His words and
actions only what was human, our unavoidable conclusion
must be that He was nothing more. Whatever reason we
may have for putting faith in His truth and goodness, still
had He claimed to be the Son of God and exhibited no sign,
we must have supposed that He was under a delusion. On
the other hand, if in His words and deeds He exhibited
tokens above man, we might not be able from these tokens,
taken by themselves, to conclude that He was God, but we
could certainly conclude that in Him was more than man.
" But the matter may be put in even a stronger light.
As we cannot know things in themselves, but only in and

390 ADDITIONAL NOTE.
through their outward manifestations, so wc cannot think
the existence of any being in relation with the things of
this world without snjiposing the outAvard tokens under
which it is revealed to us. According to this principle,
miracles are the natural and necessary consequence of the
Godhead in Christ, so much so that we cannot think Him
truly God and imagine them absent.
" Let us realize to ourselves the circumstances.
" Supposing the question bad been, not Avhether He tran
scended, but whether He fell short of, what is human ; every
one coming into His presence and coiiA^ersing with Him could
easily satisfy himself. A hundred outward tokens would
reveal the presence of a liA'ing human soul. But just in
the same Avay would it be evident to those around Him that
His nature transcended that of man. If He were really more
than man, there would be some outward token to manifest
that higher nature. It is utterly impossible that it could be
otherwise. However much He might hide His glory, still
a thousand tokens, each transcending what belongs to man,
would be visible. His verj' look. His air, the tone of His
voice, His wisdom and goodness. His more than human
knowledge, feeling, and sympathy, all these superadded to
the Aisible assertion of His authority over nature, would com
bine to point Him out as one more than human. We do not
know that due weight, in an evidential point of view, has
ever been given to the astonishing fact that the unanimous
verdict of every one x)rivileged to come near our Blessed Lord
has been that He Avas more than man. In this, friend and
enemy, Jew, Ebionite, Christian, Gnostic, alike agree. Amid
the innumerable theories that for 1800 years have been
dcAdsed to explain the natiu-e of that manifestation that took
place in Christ, all agree in this, that He was more than man.
" Miracles are thus the natural and necessary consequence
of the Godhead in Christ ; so necessary indeed that it is im
possible to think Him truly God and imagine them absent :
just as we cannot think man existing Avithout a certain con
formation of bodjr, and certain acts which are the appropriate
expression of humanity, so no more can we think the Godhead
in Christ without imagining those manifestations which are
the tokens of God." {Christian Remembrancer, October, 1863.)

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