pression on our minds, not something in the external order of things.

I will not pursue this subject further. It is, in truth, perplexed, as all subjects must be which touch upon the Infinite. We may, however, I think, say that the objection which we have been considering is not negatively conclusive against all knowledge of miracles. It may be thought by some more philosophical, more logically consistent, to look upon any anomalous event as a case of unknown law. Even if we admit this, we are not therefore called upon to reject any well-attested narrative whatever. It has been said that no testimony can reach to the supernatural 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 belief and assumption of the parties.'' This is true, but it is equally true, and true for the same reasons, that no theory as to the impossibility or non-knowability of the supernatural, can be an absolute bar to our believing any given narrative. The event narrated may always be a case of unknown law. Neither of the à priori objections deserves to be thought such a bar, and in truth they are not the objections which have most weight at the present day. Even as to the reception of wonderful facts as strictly miraculous, men

1'Essays and Reviews.' Essay by Prof. Baden Powell.

incline more and more to abstain from resting their conclusions upon à priori grounds. They are more and more ready to listen to experience as their teacher. They shape and reshape their opinions according to the indications of observation. Foremost among the intellectual characteristics of the age is an immense accumulation of well-observed facts, and a disposition to frame speculative views by generalization upon them. But when we approach the subject of miracles from this side, we are again met by grave objections. We have not to encounter the sweeping canons of the à priori method, but we have, it is said, against us a long increasing presumption. More and more has the supernatural been reduced to the natural, and accordingly an expectation has arisen that any appearance of an infraction of the laws of nature, well attested as to facts, will in the end prove to be really due to a defect in our knowledge of nature or, in other words, that it is a case of unknown law. And, again, two special growths of the modern scientific mind, viz., a stricter mode of examining historical evidence, and a better understanding of men's ways of thinking in past times, have done a great deal to discredit the wonderful stories of antiquity. These converging lines of exclusion threaten to shut out the argument from miracles. The latter threatens to reduce the Scripture miracles to a residuum, which the former would

explain as natural events. If it be true, as is often said, that religious scepticism has increased in England of late years, that increase I believe is mainly due to the mental influences which I have just described; and not to the influence of Germany, nor to reaction, from the Oxford Tract, or from the Ritualistic movement; nor yet I trust to an impaired sense of the value of moral or religious truth. We will now leave the consideration of the à priori objections, and examine the argument before us with special reference to these modern ways of thinking.

PART III.

The evidential argument rested upon two positions the one that there is adequate evidence for the miracles of the Gospel; the other that there is not adequate evidence for any other miracles. The latter position was as essential as the former. The accounts of Christ's miracles have come down to us in company with a multitude of such accounts. the former are to maintain the character of special Divine interferences, the latter must be discredited. We will begin with the consideration of the latter, for in this way a broad view of the miraculous and its

If

evidence will be obtained, and we will subsequently examine how far the case of the Gospel is peculiar. The evidential writers by no means neglected this side of their argument. Bishop Douglas wrote his 'Criterion' expressly to prove that no miracles, except those of the Scriptures, were true. Paley, indeed, advanced a more guarded position, viz. ' that there is not satisfactory evidence that persons professing to be the original witnesses of other miracles, in their nature as certain as the "evangelical," have passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and properly in consequence of their belief in those accounts, and that they also submitted from the same motives to new rules of conduct.' He maintains that he has such evidence in the case of the Gospel. He denies that it exists elsewhere. though he makes the special strength of the evidential case to consist in possessing martyr testimony, and makes this the chief point of comparison between the Gospel miracles and others, still he argues in a way to throw total discredit upon all other miracles, and indeed his argument needs as much if it is to be really evidential. He at once sets aside several classes of miraculous narratives as not worthy to be compared with the accounts of the Gospels, and a review of these particular exceptions, as well as of the general proposition just stated, will give us a tolerably com

But

prehensive view of most of the principles involved in the credibility of a miraculous story, as we are now considering it.

First, then, we will consider Paley's general proposition. It goes upon the principle that sincerity and earnestness of faith are the great guarantee of credibility. If a man shows clearly by his conduct that he himself believes in a miracle, say the resurrection of Christ, of which he professes to be a witness, you are to believe him. How far, as a matter of fact, Paley has the kind of testimony which he claims to have, we will inquire hereafter. Let us now scrutinise the principle involved. Is it sound? Does it allow enough for human fallibility in exciting circumstances? The martyr may be the witness whose honesty is best established, but is he therefore the best witness? Are not men who die for their convictions often men more zealous than discriminating-moved, it may be, by noble feelings, but ill fitted to weigh evidence or interpret strange phenomena, often not of a judicial cast of mind, but apt, on the contrary, to contract ardent beliefs upon slender grounds? Macaulay, I think, has said that a cautious temper and a subtle intellect are not the stuff of which martyrs are made. But they are the materials that make a good judge of evidence and phenomena. Paley, and indeed all his school, seem to think that the great point is to