MB8§§ YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY EIGHT LECTURES ON MIRACLES EIGHT %l tlje game &utljoi* JV««he evidences 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. t u £ PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION1 THE recent movement of thought in the direction of physical explanation of tho Gospel miracles or the reference of them to unknown laws of nature, has exhibited more of philosophical senti ment than philosophical discrimination. The movement has origin ated in a wish to meet scientific objections to miracles as isolated and anomalous facts ; and tho aim has been to reconcile iil . acles, or to shew that we have a right to expect and look forward to their reconciliation, with the claims of science. With this aim it was necessary that when writers spoke of the possibility of miracles being reconciled with the laws of nature, they should distinctly understand that they meant a reconciliation with the laws of nature in the scientific sense, — those laws which scientific men mean when they use this phrase. Unless there is a clear understanding on this point the whole labour of such an enquiry is thrown away. For how could the objections of physical science be met by even proving ever so clearly tho possible consistency of miracles with natural law in a different sense from that in which physical science understands it ? But though it was so necessary that those who aimed at some reconcilia tion of miracles with the laws of nature, in order to meet the objections of science, should keep the scientific sense of natural law distinctly in their minds, this has not been dxme ; but the expression "law of nature" has befen constantly used without any accurate or distinct meaning, and the result has been a considerable waste of speculating power. There has been the feeling that something must be done on this head, a general desire to satisfy scientific tests, and a disposition to give a guarantee that miracles if accepted shall only bn accepted as in some way or other coming Under natural law, and being instances of it. .But when this wish came to reason j when it eamo lo deal with tho question how this reduction of mirm-los to natural law was lo bo mado out, there was a largo interval between the desire felt, and the argumentative satisfaction of it; and Hie speculative aim issued in much confusion and obscurity. 1 This preface includes tho matter of some Kotos of tho First Edition, Preface to Second Edition Different naturalizing rationales of miracles have indeed from time to time been put forward by philosophers who have endeavoured to shew that it is not necessary to regard miracles as absolutely irregular events ; and have for that purpose framed suppositions upon which, assumed to be true, miracles would belong to a system and would be instances of law. But when we examine these naturalizing hypotheses, and the aspect in which they exhibit miracles, we do not find that miracles are under them naturalized physically, or reduced, any more than they were before, to natural law in the scientific sense. 1. We may count as a naturalizing rationale of miracles that defensive aspect taken of them as no violations of the laws of the Universe, and as in this sense no violations of the laws of Nature. Spinoza's position is that " nothing which takes place in nature can be contrary to the universal laws of nature." This defence accepts Spinoza's position, and applies it to the purpose of shewing that miracles are in a certain sense natural. The power which suspends a law of nature is just as natural in the Universe, as the law which is suspended. There is therefore no such a thing as a miracle in or with relation to the Universe ; one event is as natural as another. 2. Butler has proposed a naturalizing rationale of miracles which consists in the imaginary supposition that there may be miraculous dispensations going on in other parts of the Universe besides our own, and that therefore to an intelligent being who was made acquainted with these extraordinary Divine acts in other worlds, the miraculous proceedings in this world would present themselves as belonging to a class of events, or to an order of nature. " The only distinct meaning of that word [natural] is stated, fixed, or settled ; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e. to effect it continually at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once. And from hence it must follow that persons' notion of what is natural will be enlarged in pro portion to their greater knowledge of the works of God and the dis pensations of His providence. Nor is there any absurdity in suppos ing that there may be beings in the Universe whose capacities, and knowledge, and views may bo so oxtonsivo, as that tho whole Christian dispensation may to them appear natural, i.e. analogous or conform able to God's dealings with other parts of His creation ; as natural as tho visiblo known course of tilings appears to us. For there seems scorco any other possible sense lo be put upon the word, but that only in which it is here used; similar, stated, or uniform."' 1 Analogy, pt. i. ch. ii. Preface to Second Edition xi 3 Mr. Babbnge has suggested that a miracle may, for anything we know, be the result of the same original law of creation of winch nature itself is; the same mechanism which produces the order o nature, producing also the exception to it. And he has illust ated this conception by the analogy of a calculating engine which produces by the same adjustment a regular succession of numbers, and then an exceptional insulated number, after which it takes up agam. the old succession.1 ... . i • i Here, then, are three naturalizing rationales of miracles *.«¦. whicli divest miracles in a certain sense of their anomalous and irregular character, and engraft them upon system and order ^rationales which are serviceable and valu.able as meeting the. natural and reasonable desire, inherent in the human mind, for order and law in some sense, as necessarily attaching to all the works of God, and necessarily belonging to everything in the Universe. The human imnd rejects total irregularity and eccentricity as an impossibility in the Universe as a whole ; and therefore in the case of any visibly anomalous event suck as a miracle, the human mind is committed to the discovery of some point of view in which the event in question is not an anomaly but a natural event; and it is committed to shew that the point of > view in which such an event is natural is paramount to and takes precedence of that point of view in which it is anomalous The iirst position then, that I have noticed is not a mere conjectural hypothesis, but it effects this object with respect to miracles by an argument which, upon the supposition of the existence of a personal Deity, is irresistible and incapable of refutation. For if there is a Being m the Universe which can suspend * law of nature, the power which sus pends the law is evidently just as natural, and is just as much belong to the Universe as the power which sustains it. Again, Butler's imaginary supposition, though it is no more than imaginary, is still important as shewing the possibilities of the case; that there may be, for anything we know, certain miraculous dispensations Eoiiig on in other worlds which would make the miraculous dispensa tion in this world one of a ebi» or order of events, and m that light natural. Again, Mr. Babbago's hypothesis, by referring a miracle back to the original law of creation which produced the order ol nature, naturalizes it in some souse. But though those vnlioiial,* ol miracles have for their object tho naturalizing of miracles m some sense, it is evident when wo examine them, that none ol them are or profess to ha physical explanations of mimclcs, i.e. reductions ol them 1 Ninth Bridgwater Treatise, ch. viii. Xli Preface to Second Edition to laws of nature in the scientific sense of that term. In no case is the order upon which they engraft miracles, the order of the actual physical world of which we have experience. 1. The first position asserts tho supremacy of tho higher law of tho Divine Power over tho subordinate laws of visible nature. The order in which a miracle is inserted then by this position is obviously and by the very terms of the statement a spiritual and invisible order, not a physical or visible one. The same rationale of the naturalness of a miracle is sometimes expressed by another formula, for which we are indebted to Brown, that a miracle is not contrary to the law of cause and effect, but is only an effect produced by the introduction of a new cause. And this formula of Brown's has been put in an amended form by some writers, who urge that in a miracle there is no violation or suspension of tho laws of nature, which go on but are neutralized or counteracted by a higher law. But it is evident that tho naturalness which is gained for a miracle by either of these explanations, is not a naturalness, or a conformity to the laws of nature, in the scientific sense ; because the point upon which the naturalness of a fact turns in science, is not whether that fact has a cause simply, but whether it has a uniform or constant cause, i.e. whether it has the same antecedent by which it has been invariably attended in other cases. It is nothing to the scientific man to be told that the rolling away of the stone from the door of the sepulchre was in itself a natural fact which could have been effected by human machinery, and that the cause alone was supernatural ; because the character of the cause or antecedent is the very point of the question in his eye. Had the stone been rolled away by machinery, no fact could have boon more natural ; but if it was rolled away without the application of any human force, the fact was then unaccompanied by its ordinary and constant antecedent, and was therefore not a natural fact in the scientific sense. Nor docs the amended form of tho formula of Brown make the slightest difference on this head. It does not signify in the eye of the man of science how we describe tho substitution of another and a different antecedent of an event, for its ordinary and regular ono ; whether wo say Hint tho law of nature was in that case suspended, or continued but was neutralized by a higher law ; ho looks only to tho fact itself of a strange antecedent. Was eight recovered by moans of medical treat ment, or by the restoring force of time ? that was a natural fact, be cause these are ordinary antecedents of recovery. Was it recovered by tho word of a person 1 it was then not a natural fact, because it occurred not with its ordinary, but with a new and strange antecedent. Preface to Second Edition xni It is quite true that we see laws of nature any day and any hour neutralized and counteracted in particular cases, and yet do not look upon such counteractions as other than the most natural events : but it must be remembered that, where this is the case, the counteracting agency is as ordinary and constant an antecedent in nature as the agency which it counteracts. The agency of the muscles and the agency of the magnet are as ordinary as the agency of gravitation which they both neutralize. Medicine is as ordinary an agent as the disease which it resists. The action of salt is as constant a cause in nature as the putrefaction which it retards. All these facts then are natural. But where the counteracting power to a law of nature is an unknown power, a power not in nature, then the counteraction or neutralization of a law of nature is not a matural fact, being deprived of its ordinary and constant antecedent, and coupled with another and a now antecedent. Tho elevation of a body in the air by tho force of an aim, is a counteraction indeed of the law of gravitation, but it is a counteraction of it by another law as natural as that of gravity. Tho fact therefore is in conformity with the laws of nature. But if the same body is raised in the air without any application of a known force, it is not a fact in conformity with natural law. In all these cases the question is not whether a law of nature has been counter acted, for that does not constitute a fact contradictory to the laws of nature ; but whether it has been counteracted by another natural law. If it has been, the conditions of science are fulfilled. But if a law of nature has been counteracted by a law out of nature, it is of no pur pose, with a view to naturalize scientifically that counteraction of a law of nature, to say that the law of nature has been going on all the time, and only been neutralized not suspended or violated. These are mere refinements of language, which do not affect the Jkct itself, that a now conjunction of antecedent and consequent, wholly unlike the conjunctions in nature, has taken place. The laws of nature have in that instance not worked, and an effect contrary to what would have issued from thoso laws has boon produced. This is ordinarily called a violation or suspension of tho laws of nature ; nod it seems an unnecessary refinement not to call it such. But whatever name wo give to it, tho fact is the same ; and tho fact is not according to the laws of imluro in (ho scientific sonso. 2. Tho imaginary hypothesis of Bishop Butler is only an ima ginary ono, and therefore it is not one of which physical science can take any cognizance. The claim of physical science is that miracks should be reconciled with the actual order of nature, of which wc have xiv Preface to Second Edition experience, not with an imaginary one of which we can only frame the conception. 3. Mr. Babbage's rationale of miracles, which includes the cause of the miracle in the original law of creation, leaves, as I shew in Lecture VI., the miraculous fact as really miraculous as ever. This hypothesis does not profess to reduce the miracle itself, to alter the type of tho fact, to divest it of its apparent eccentricity and re solve it to similarity with any known classes of facts. It leaves it a real exception to the order of nature, and recognises the isolation and the anomaly as quite real. But such being the case, Ilk;; hypothesis does not affect the position of a miracle in the eye of physical science, or accommodate it in any way to physical law in the scientific sense. This and the physical explanation of a miracle proceed indeed on wholly contrary grounds. Mr. Babbage explains the miracle as an exception to the order of nature ; the other or physical explanation explains it as not an exception ; i.e. not so in reality, but only in ap pearance. A meteor when stripped of its simply ocular irregularity as a phenomenon, and explained by science, is only an instance of the order of nature : a miracle is the same after it has gone through a physical explanation ; but a miracle remains an exception to that order, and is explained as such in Mr. Babbage's hypothesis. Let us take, e.g. the miracles of Christ's Resurrection and Ascen sion, as they stand recorded in the Gospels, and suppose them under the consideration of a physical philosopher who imposes tho test of consistency with the laws of nature. Would the objection of such a person to these stupendous and eccentric facts be met by a theory which simply pushed back and removed further off their causation. inserting it in the original structure of the machine of nature '{ Would the proposed distance of the root and original of these mar vellous events make any difference to him in his estimate of the facts themselves, and of their astounding and exceptional type ? It could not. His test is a totally different one, which is not affected by any such theory. His criterion is — can these marvellous events be re ferred ultimately to any known order of facts ? Can they be brought under the head of any actual classes of phenomena which we call the laws of nature ? If thoy cannot bo, tho tost of physical scienco is not met; tho facts remain anomalous, and that is tho very thing to which the physical philosopher objects. There are only two modes of reconciling miracles with natural law, in tho scientific sonso. 1. One is the discovery, could it be imagined possible, of inter- Preface to Second Edition xv mitting laws of -nature under which they came ; that is to say, could wo imagine that it was found out by observation that miracles, though exceptions, were recurring exceptions, and exceptions which recurred with the same invariable antecedents. Could we suppose, amid the apparent irregularity and disorder which marked the occurrence of miracles in the world, that traces of such a law as this could be made out ; and that these exceptions to the order of nature, were, as excep tions, uniform and regular ; in that case miracles would have been as truly brought under the laws of nature as the regular course of nature is. But the remark is obvious that no such intermitting law of miracles is seen in nature ; and it may be remarked further, that could we imagine such a law in existence, we could only imagine it by imagining also at the same time an alteration of the present order of nature. Such a conception would involve this result. For the re currence, with whatever intervals, of miracles as, e.g. resurrections from the dead with regularity and uniformity, or with the same in variable antecedents, would constitute a new order of nature.1 2. The other mode of reconciling miracles with the laws of nature in the scientific sense, is the construction of some hypothesis which if true, would bring them out of their apparent isolation, strip them of their apparent eccentricity, and reduce them to the head of known classes of facts. This has been done, and is constantly being done, with respect to eccentric natural phenomena. Explanations aro con structed which solve the apparent anomaly and irregularity, and shew how the extraordinary effect may have been in reality owing to well- known.laws acting under unwonted circumstances. And if the ex planations are admissible, these eccentric phenomena stand hypothe- tically under the head of natural law. Can the same thing be done then with respect to miracles 1 The answer is, that this must depend on what the miracles are. We have the miracles of Scripture before us. We are also in possession of science with its large powers and re sources for the construction of hypotheses and explanations. Can any scientific hypothesis be constructed which would bring tho miracles of Scripture, the greater and more stupendous as wolf as tho lessor ones, under natural law. It must bo admitted, that considering what • TJio analogy or tho luilhmolieal muoliim. fails with reference lo ii pity. sical law of miracles, there being no intermitting law of miracles in nature nuswering to tho intermitting law of numbers in tho machine Tlie machine upon the minn adjustment, always produces Hie hmiiii. .¦\oc|.|.i,,iml number ; which therefore belongs to the law of the machine, lint there is no regularity m the recurrence, of miracles com-spomlimj to this rcuhmly in the recurrence, of tho exceptional number. " XVI Preface to Second Edition some of the Scripture miracles are, such an expectation is chimerical ; that the nature of the anomalies is such that no scientific hypothesis is conceivable which can subjugate them, strip them of physical sin gularity, and reduce them to natural facts. Does the assemblage of miracles which gathers round our Lord, commencing with His birth, carried on in His ministry, and terminating in His Resurrection and Ascension, admit of any conceivable physical solution 1 It must be seen that the impediment to the reconciliation of miracles with the laws of nature in the scientific sense, arises from tho special character of that sense, from the peculiarity of the scientific definition of the laws of nature. The scientific sense of "laws of nature" is a particular restricted sense, it does not go outside of or take in anything but absolute physical facts, regarded as uniformly recurrent, or recurring with the same antecedents. Can the miracles of Scripture be reduced to this head ? Kecent reconciling speculation has by an ambiguous nse of the term " laws of nature" concealed the point of the question, and prevented persons from seeing what the real problem which they had proposed to themselves was. It must be observed, too, that it is not only the physical occurrence itself which in the case of these miracles has to be reduced to the order of nature, but the physical occurrence as corresponding to and fitting in with a command, an announcement, a whole set of preten sions on the part of the person who is the agent or the centre of thorn. Should the question e.g. ever be raised, whether the miracle of our Lord's Resurrection was a fact ultimately referriblo to natural law ; the fact about which the question would lie, i.e. about which we should have to enquire whether it might be ultimately natural or not, would be, not the simple resurrection of a man from the dead, but th.at re surrection as coinciding with the whole nature, mission and office of Christ, His whole character, lifo and ministry, as well as with the previous announcements of the event. It is impossible not to see, even when the occurrence itself is of the most marvellous kind, how immensely this correspondence to a notification and adaptation to a whole sot of circumstances add to the supernaturalness of tho miracle, and to its inexplicableness upon natural grounds. Bocauso all this points, upon the argument of design or coincidence, to a special interposition of God, as distinguished from unknown physical causa tion. Those circumstances of a miracle which distinguish it from an isolated marvel are also great evidences of its supernatural character. No physical explanation of it as an isolated marvel is an explanation of those circumstances which distinguish it from a marvel. Indeed, if we consider what a miracle in the religious sense is, that Preface to Second Edition XVII it is in its very nature and design something special, something in apparent contradiction to tho order of nature, and that it would not answer all its purposes urdc.4 it was; what reason can there be why such designed apparent exception to physical order should be in reality all the time an instance of physical order? If there is indeed no power in the universe equal to suspending the laws of nature, such a conclusion is wanted ; but if there is — and a miracle in the religious sense assumes such a power — why should there be this reversal of the appearance bj the reality? Why should the physical exception follow physical regularity? The special act be a uniformly recurrent act ? What is the meaning of such an appended condition ? And why should a miraculous interposition of the Deity not only agree with natural law in the universal sense, which in the reason of the case it must do, but also satisfy a particular restricted and technical sense of natural law assigned to the tenn in physical science? The authority of Bp. Butler has been quoted for the hypothesis of the referribleness of miracles to unknown laws of nature ; but tins is a misinterpretation of his meaning, as a reference to his whole argu ment wiH shew : — " If the natural and the revealed dispensation of things are both from God, if they coincide with each other and together make up one scheme of Providence ; our being incompetent judges of ono, must render it credible that we may be incompetent judges also of the other; sinco upon experienco the acknowledged constitution and course of nature is found to be greatly different from what, before experience, we should have expected ; and such as men fancy there lie great objections against: this renders it beforehand highly credible that they may find the revealed dispensation i.^-wisc, if theyjudgo of it as they do of the constitution of nature, very different from expectations formed beforehand, and liable in appearance to great objections; objections against tho scheme itself, and against tho degrees and manners of the miraculous interpositions by which it was attested and carried on. . . . " If this miraculous power was indeed given to the world to propa gate Christianity and attest the truth of it, wo might, it seems, havo expected, that other sort of persons should havo boon chosen to bo invested with it; or that thc.so should, at the same time, havo been endued with prudence; or that they should havo been continually restrained and directed in the exercise of it : i.e. that God should havo miraculously interposed, if at all, in a different manner or higher 0 :.L XV1U Preface to Second Edition Preface to Second Edition XIX degree. But, from the observations made above, it is undeniably evident, that we are not judges in what degrees and manners it were to have been expected He should miraculously interpose ; upon sup position of His doing it in some degree and manner." {Analogy, Part II. ch. iii.) " The credibility, that the Christian dispensation may have been, all along, carried on by general laws, no less than the course of nature, may require to be more distinctly made out. Consider then, upon what ground it is we say, that the whole common course of nature is carried on according to general fore-ordained laws. We know indeed several of tho general laws of matter : and a great part of the natural behaviour of living agents is reducible to general laws. But we know- in a manner nothing, by what laws, storms and tempests, earthquakes, famine, pestilence, become the instruments of destruction to mankind. And the laws, by which persons born into the world at such a time and place, are of such capacities, geniuses, tempers ; the laws, by which thoughts come into our mind, in a multitude of cases : and by which innumerable things happen, of the greatest influence upon the affairs and state of the world ; these laws are so wholly unknown to us, that we call the events, which come to pass by them, accidental : though all reasonable men know certainly, that there cannot in reality be any such thing as chance ; and conclude, that the things which have this appearance are the result of general laws, and may be re duced into them. It is then hut an exceeding little way, and in but a very few respects, that wo can trace up thp natural course of tilings before us to general laws. And it is only from analogy that we con clude the whole of it to be capable of being reduced into them ; only from our seeing that part is so. It is from our finding that the course of nature, in some respects and so far, goes on by general laws, that we conclude this of the rest. And if that be a just ground for such a conclusion, it is a just ground also, if not to conclude, yet to appre hend, to render it supposable and credible, which is sufficient for an swering objections, that God's miraculous interpositions may have been, all along in like manner, by general laws of wisdom. Thus, that miraculous powers should bo exoilod, at such limes, upon such occasions, in such degrees and manners, and with regard to such per sons, rather than othorn ; that tho alfairs of tho world, being permitted to go on in their natural course so far, should, just at such a point, havo a new direction given them by miraculous interpositions ; that IhcNo iutovpouitioiui should bo oxaclly in such (legions and ronpeels only; all this may have been by general laws. These laws are un known indeed to us ; but no more unknown than tho laws from whence it is, that some die as soon as they are born, and others' live to extreme old age ; that one nan is so superior to another irt under standing ; with innumerable more things, which, as was before ob served, we cannot reduce to any laws or rules at all, though it is taken for granted they are as much reducible to general ones as gravitation. Now, if tho revealed dispensations of providence and miraculous interpositions be by general laws, as well as God's ordi nary government in the course of nature, made known by reason and experience, there is no more reason to expect that every exigence as it arises should be provided for by these general laws of miraculous interpositions, than that every exigence in nature should by tho general laws of nature ; j-et there might he wise and good reasons that miraculous interpositions should be by general laws, and that these laws should not be broken in upon, or deviated from, by other miracles." (Ibid. chap, iv.) Butler, then, is meeting objections to the scheme and evidence of Christianity ; and, among the rest, " objections agamst the degrees and manners of the miraculous interpositions by which it was attested or carried on." And one answer by which he meets these objections is, that " Christianity is a scheme or constitution imperfectly com prehended ; " and that therefore, in our ignorance of the mode in which God's miraculous interpositions havo been conducted, there is nothing against the supposition that they havo been oil along con ducted by "general laws." Upon which supposition, he observes, tho apparent defects in tho exercise of these miraculous powers and the objects answered by them may be satisfactorily accounted for ; because " there is no more reason to expect that every exigence as it arises should be provided for by these general laws of miraculous interpositions, than that every exigence in nature should by the general laws of nature." We now come to that point of the argument at which Butler is misapprehended ; i.e. where he is supposed to refer miracles to unknown laws of nature, whereas his mention of the laws of nature is for a very different purpono, Having made tho Bupponition of miraculous intei-positions being " by general laws of wisdom," although theso laws aro unknown to us, ho confirms that supposition by ft refornueo lo tho unknown laws of nature by -which wo arc surrounded on all sides. Our ignoranco, ho says, of the general laws of miraeulous interpositions, is no reason that Micro may not be such laws ; for wo aro ignorant of many of the laws of natural phenomena, " storms, tempests, earthquakes, famine, pestilence ; '' and yet wo uto certain that those events do take place in obedience XX Preface to Second Edition to certain, laws. The unknown laws of nature are introduced, not as being the laws by which miracles take place, but as furnishing a parallel to those laws, upon the point of being unknown, which is a characteristic common to both. He does not say that the laws by which miracles take place are physical laws as those are by which earthquakes and pestilences take place ; but that our ignorance of the physical laws by which earthquakes and pestilences occur is a precedent for our being ignorant of the general laws of wisdom by which miracles occur ; which laws may exist notwithstanding, and have governed those interpositions all along. The common ground is not the identity of the laws under which extraordinary natural phenomena and miraculous interpositions come, but the similarity of the ignorance of the laws in both cases. Such is the meaning of Butler. The " general laws of miraculous interpositions " and the general laws of nature are two different sets of laws in the argument; but the one supplies a ground for a supposi tion respecting the other ; the existence of unknown laws of nature shews the possibility of there being unknown laws of miraculous interpositions. Why, the objector asks, if God has interposed mira culously, have not these interpositions been more general, and more effectual 1 Why have not miraculous corrections been applied more largely to the faults and omissions which are inherent in the opera tion of the laws of nature, as Icing general laws, directed to the general as distinguished from private and individual advantage ? The answer of Butler is, that these miraculous interpositions them selves may, for anything we know, have been all along conducted by general laws ; and thus that the benefit from them may have been limited by the same cause which has limited the benefit of the laws of nature. The phrase, then, " general laws of wisdom," is not a phrase which, in Butler's meaning, stands for the laws of nature or points to any physical solution of miracles. Tho phrase expresses and stands for certain general rules laid down by Providence, so to speak, for its own guidanco ; according to which rules " miraculous powers are exerted at such times, upon such occasions, in such degrees and manners," &c; which general rules Providence observes, although on particular occasions partial advantages might follow from tho infrac tion of them ; the partial disadvantages of such rules, and their failure to provide for " every exigence," being the very condition of their general benefit. And thus understood, the supposition that " God's miraculous interpositions may have been all along by general laws of wisdom," would substantially mean that there was an in- I Preface to Second Edition xxi v herent limit in the nature of tilings to the utility of miracles, beyond which they would produce injury and disadvantage ; the general bad result of the excess being greater than tho particular benefit of it ; which intrinsic limit was necessarily observed by the Author of Nature, who conducted these interpositions in agreement with these intrinsic reasons, and by rules which coincided with them. The hypothesis of unknown physical law, then, cannot meet the miracles of Scripture as they stand : and in order to apply such an explanation with any success, it is necessary that a previous step should havo been taken with respect to the miraculous facts them- . selves. This whole hypothesis in truth supposes, for its own feasibility, tho previous application of a rationalistic criticism to the Gospel history ; it supposes a prior reduction of the typo of the miraculous facts recorded in it, so as to accommodate them to the proposed explanation, and make them proper subjects of a scientific solution. In order to be open to such treatment in the first instance, the material must have been prepared by criticism; in which case it entirely depends on the extent to which such criticism goes, what the material is which is finally dealt with, and what facilities it affords for such treatment. This hypothesis means, in short, a scientific explanation of some extraordinary events which may be supposed to have been the original of the Gospel history. Such an original is, in the minds of those who entertain it, of vague and indefinite composition ; but so long as the imagination secures a type of fact which, however vague, is subject-matter of scientific explanation, there is a ground made for a scientific explanation to enter upon and occupy. The preparation, however, Of the material is necessary in the first instance; the critical idea is virtually the dominant one in this whole hypo thesis of unknown law ; the mind has, consciously or unconsciously, adopted it, allowed it to play its part, and given it authority to deal with, the facts, before that hypothesis is applied. The real instrument of reduction to law which is employed in this hypothesis is therefore criticism. Ono view of historical evidence opens the ,-oad most effectually lo a scientific explanation of Gospel facts; another view closes it. For if those miracles really took place as they arc recorded, no hypothesis can bridge over the chasm between them and physical law in tho scientific sense. In the theological senso of natural law, which includes the invisible laws of Divino power, all the miracles of Scripture aro instances of natural law ; but the idea of reconciling them with the natural law of science is chimerical, unless wuh the previous aid of rationalistic criticism. r PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION T must be observed that the controversy respecting miracles tends to a stationary point, at which each side 6eea what its real pre mises are, and sees that it is separated from the other by a difference of first principles. This has perhaps been the case in the recent discus sion of this question. In the first place, those arguments which profess to settle the question of miracles by a kind of mathematical method, deciding agamst their possibility by general formulas, may be said to bo abandoned by men of philosophy and science. Thus we cannot read Spinoza's professed demonstration against miracles without being struck with the sort of antiquated and obsolete character which it carries upon the very surface of it. Nor has a recent attempt, which is noticed in these Lectures, to settle the question by a quasi-mathe matical proof been supported by men of science. The more the human mind has gone into this question, tho more it has seen reason to put aside all a pri.ori ground against miracles as wholly inadequate, and to consider that the only question which has to be decided on this subject, and which seriously demands our attention, is the question of evidence — whether certain alleged miraclei have taken place or not. But when, having put tho speculative class of arguments against miracles aside, we go to the practical question of evidence, wo find our selves here again, before long, coming to a standstill in controversy, ** bectuiso it soon appears that tho two Hides havo uo common criterion t, of good evidence and bad • that what is slrong evidence to ono man is weak to another ; what is sufficient to ono is defective lo another. And, what is especially lo llio purpose, this dill'erenoe does not arise merely from a different esliinalo of witnesses and external data ; which is nr. accidental variation, depending on a (bieluating individual judg ment : but it arises from a deeper and more stilled cause, in llio funda mental principles and assumptions of the two sides; their respective preliminary premises and inward convictions. We may note it as a law xxiv Preface to Third Edition Preface to Third Edition xxv of evidence, that our estimate of the evidences of any fact necessarily varies according to the greater or less antecedent probability which we attach to the fact. We see this very clearly when the antecedent probability is of the kind which arises from ordinary experience- we accept, without any hesitation, the evidence of any one we meet upon a common every-day fact; while the very same evidence if brought m support of an extraordinary fact, would not satisfy us, and we should accept it, if we did, with difficulty. That is to say antecedent probability makes sound, and the want of it makes weak evidence. The truth is, no one is ever convinced by external evidence only; there must be a certain probability in the fact itself, or a certain admissibility in it, which must join on to the external evidence for it, in order for that evidence to produce conviction. Nor is it any fault in external evidence that it should be so ; but it is an intrinsic and inherent defect iu it, because in its very nature it is only ono part of evidence which needs to be supplemented by another, or a prion premiss existing in our minds. Antecedent probability is the rational complement of external evidence; a law of evidence unites the two ; and they cannot practically be separated. I have spoken of the antecedent probability which is founded upon ordinary sensible experience. But there is an antecedent probability also^ winch is formed not by common sensible experience but by original ideas, instinctive impressions, and fundamental convictions of the mini Such aro tho principles of natural religion, which is the name we give to certain moral and religious assumptions, which form the groundwork upon which some proceed in all considerations of evidence; but which are not embraced and adopted by all minds. Those inward premises affect the wholo idea of God in the human mind, and with it the whole view of miracles, their place in tho scheme of Providence, their use, and their probability. There are two ideas of the Divine Being which spring respectively from two sets of first principles— one of which gathers around conscience, the other round a physical centre. There is tho idea of God as the Suprcnw Mundane Being, the Impersonation ofthe causes which are at work in tho dovolopmont aud completion of tho visible world; who looks— not from heaven— with calm satisfaction upon tho suc cessful expansion of the original seed of this vast material organism —tho Universal Spectator of tho fabric of Nature, the growth^ ait, and the progress of civilization. And thero is tho idea of Him as Moral Governor and Judge expressed in the majestic language of Inspiration, which proclaims the " High and lofty One that inhabitelh eternity, whose name is Holy: keeping mercy for thousands, for giving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." It must make all the difference in our notion of miracles, and in the antecedent probability with which the evidence of miracles is accompanied, whether we entertain one of these ideas of God or the other. If we entertain the former, there is nothing for miracles to do, they have no place in the system of things according to our conception of it, they are wholly foreign and alien facts, incon gruous, discordant, and unmeaning. If we entertain the latter, there is a reason for them : they have a natural place in the whole scheme of things, as we conceive it ; especially they have a use, as a guarantee to a revelation, should it please God to make known to us anything in His spiritual relations to us, which we do not know by our natural reason. The antecedent probability then arising from this inward source has tho samo effect regarding external evidence, in giving greater admissibility to it, that the antecedent probability of sensible experi ence has. It is true they are probabilities arising upon wholly dif ferent ground, and they may be called probabilities of different kinds; but each of them is probability, and as such this consequence attaches to each of them alike, viz. that of affecting the strength of external evidence. Tho same evidence must appear very different to us, be measured differenMy, and have a more or less persuasive power, according as its subject-matter has this inward ground of probability attaching to it or not. And this must apply to the evidences of the miracles which are the credentials of the G ospel d ispensa tion. Accord ing to our conception of the system of providence, and tho place which miracles havo in that system, their use and their probability, a difference must arise in the value of the lustorical evidence of those miracles. Nor is this a difference of imagination, but of reason; because, as has been said, it is a very law of evidence, that external evidence must be supplemented by antecedent prob.ibility. External or historical evidence has an intrinsic defect in it, for the purpose of full persuasion standing alone, without this internal auxiliary, 1 iccause evidence is, hy its very nature, a double thing, in which an outer part has its complement in an inner, and both together make the wholo thing. Antecedent probability is a constitutional element nf evidence, and external testimony lias reasonably a dilferenl weight, accordiug as it conies to us with or without it. From this evidential law it is plain that those who, upon too assumption of certain principles, reject tho evidence of the Cupped miracles, may, upon that assumption, be reasonable in that rejection ; aud yet that those who, upon the assumption of other principles, xxvi Preface to Third Edition Preface to Third Edition xxvn accept the evidence of the Gospel miracles may upon that assump tion be quite reasonable m that acceptance. What is inadequate evi dence to those who hold no belief in any power equal to produce Zl : 7 m My PUrP°a° t0 whioh the/ vould apply, may be ade quate, and reasonably adequate, to those who proceed upon a belief in both of these points These two schools of minds live indeed in different universes; and what has or has not, in their eyes, a natural place in he umverse, .must depend upon tvhat conception' of tho universe they entertain. As has been observed elsewhere— "The primary ideas and sentiments which constitute natural rehgion area legitimate basis for the mind to proceed upon "in it estimate of the proof of revelation; they correspond to thcprindnle cquSdtFththotsd of 'r^r >hkh enaWe SpXt acquainted with those departments to judge of evidence on matte™ belonging to them; only with this difference, th th princMes of science ultimately compel universal reception ; thTluX* of principles does not. But this distinction does not interfere with the nrixtof assertion, as regards those principles, on he pS of those ^blyl^ZC^^ 5 ri^* toaaL'aa truth itt is S sistioly true to themselves and which others cannot disprove. Those to ?£» £*% ?ngl,Da • con™tioM * them, have a So aPpea to them as their starting-points and their reasoning Ve. Thev cannot of course appeal to t£eir own original belief as bind n* otbeS but they can appeal to it as the full jultification of themselves and froK fa~Iea.ttitude, ^.^ds revelation which mayblcbawn fiom it. Such a primary behef is, therefore, a strictly philosophical premiss, for the purpose for which it is used. Were it used indeed tor the purpose of proving revelation to those in whom the behef tL tLTi ' nt°vPremis8 cou¥ ^ ™™ unnhilosophical: but 1 is not used for this purpose ; it is only used for the purpose of recommending revelation to ourselves, and to others who^vTtbe same primary belief with ourselves, and for this purposed is a philo sophical premiss." (Quarterly Review, July 1870 ) P Dr. Newman has drawn attention, in his Grammar of Assent, to this property of the antecedent ground, among the principles of evidence; adding to his forcible explanation of it, the valuable rule and memento, that tho real argumentative weight of antecedent pre mises must lie in those premises as thoy actually exist in the individual's mind, and not as they are presented in propositions' I .his u very obvious when it is stated, and yet it requires to be stated, or the truth will not occur to us. Men of philosophical pre tensions, who, upon their own promises, reject tho evidences of revela tion, think they can completely understand and grasp the antecedent premises of behovers, because these are expressed in intelligible pro- n positions ; and they infer that, understanding them, they can decide conclusively upon the inadequacy of them. But these persons are labouring under a mistake all the time in supposing that they do know what these premises really are. They are what they are in the minds of those who hold them. But they do not know what that is ; nor therefore do they know their depth, their force, their stringency, the weight they carry with them in the balance of reason, as they exist in the.individual's mind. They are at hberty then to speak for themselves, and to say, that they are obliged, upon their ante cedent premises, to reject the evidences of revelation ; but they cannot say that it is unreasonable in others to accept them upon theirs; because, in truth, they do not lenow theirs; they know them in words and phrases, but they do not know them as they really exist in life and fact. Take, e.g., to quote from the same quarter again — the sense of sin. " This is a knowledge which those who possess it start with as an advantage in the estimate of the Christian revelation : i.e. they have a right to say that they do. It is not knowledge in a scientific sense, but it is knowledge in such a sense as that those who have it are in stinctively assured that they are in possession of some truth, and are influenced by it in their judgment of Revelation' and its proof. It is knowledge, so far as it is a kind of insight, partial but real as far as it goes, into the nature of something, in which we aro fundamentally concerned, and on which God's dealings with us in Revelation pro fess to hinge. It corresponds, in its place and results, to a principle of knowledge in some special department. It is impossible not to see what a strong root of Christian conviction and belief, what an in troduction to the Christian dispensation, this sense of sin in the mind of St Paul was. St. Paul filled two remarkable places; he was at once the first philosophical teacher of Christianity, and the first great convert of promulgated Christianity. What is the most conspicuous premiss, then, which we observe working in his mind, to beget his belief in the Christian dispensation, and assure him of its being- a real authentic revelation from God 1 We see it in the epistles which suc ceeded his conversion. It is tho sense of sin. Tho apprehension of tho trcmondous, mystorious fact of sin, pervades all his opiHtlcs, as the great preliminary lo the acceptance of the Gospel. It was an assurance in his mind, which was of the naturo of a profound know ledge, answering to tho accurato acquaintance witli some truth in soino special department. Could any human being have persuaded Rt. .Pmil that ho knew no moro about sin than Gallio or Ucroil, and that ho and tho Saddueeo Ananias stood exactly on the, f.amo lewl npon this article of knowledge / Ho fell he had a knowledge of this pubject which other people had not. This formed the basis of the Christianity which he preached and propagated; anil if ho persuaded xxviii Preface to Third Edition himself by the same arguments hy which he persuaded others, it was the basis of his own conversion to Christianity." — Quarterly Review, July 1870. The logical position therefore of the Christian and infidel toward each other is this : one of the parties taldng certain fundamental per ceptions—or what appear to him to be such— which form the sub stance of natural religion as his starting-points, and judging from them as a reasoning base, ac:epts from that base of judgment the evi dences of Christianity. Can the other refute his inference 1 He can not, for he does not know his base. He knows the truths of natural religion in the form of propositions ; he cannot possibly know them as they exist in the individual's mind. He cannot know then how much legitimate force they exert in the estimate of the evidences of revelation. Can he then disprove the principles themselves ? He cannot, for they are not in opposition to any known truth ; while the immense concurrence in them, and the general homage paid to them, protects them from the charge of fanaticism. The conclusion upon the premises then, and the premises themselves, are alike out of reach of his refutation ; the acceptance of the Christian evidences upon the assumption of natural religion, and natural religion itself, are ahke safe from the disputant's assault. It is thus that the argument as to evidences tends to a standstill- approaches to a posture of the two parties toward each other, in which neither upon his own premises can refute the other upon his ; or force his own conclusion upon the other, their respective ante cedent grounds remaining the same. How could we expect those who do not hold the principles of natural religion to accept the historical evidences of Christianity ? They are wanting in those inward antecedent convictions which aro a necessary complement of external evidence, and without which all external evidence cannot obtain an entrance into a mind. But at the samo lime the corollary from this is that tho rejection of Christianity by such minds can never be urged as a reflection upon Christianity, because, indeed, such minds havo not tho full argument for Christianity boforo them. They aro not in possession of it, because they havo cut themselves ofi' from tho foundation; and therefore there is nothing npon which the edifice of Christian belief can grow up in them. The Com! ist treats as utter delusions and mistakes tho ideas of a God, of prayer, of im mortality ; ho declares that tho assertion that these aro instincts of human nature, is false ; that human nature has not got these instincts, and has no such longings, and feels no such wants ; that Preface to Third Edition xxix human nature cannot only do without them, but that, where they are not artificially inserted in it by false training and education, it does do without them. But how can the rejection of Christianity by those who are without a necessary part of the evidences for Christianity — viz., the preliminary convictions, be urged as any difficulty, or as a fact which tells against Christianity. In this stationary attitude then of the two parties to each other in the argument of miracles, there has sprung up on the side of the opponent of miracles what he regards as the argument of history. The controversialist who uses this argument abandons reasoning; he does not even weigh evidence ; all he does is to state facts. He asserts that, as a matter of fact, the pretension to exercise supernatural power has gradually declined, and been given up in civilized society; that magic, witchcraft, and other forms of superhuman agency have become obsolete, have ceased to retain their hold on tho actual belief of mankind ; and that the continuance of these claims has been found in fact inconsistent with human progress and advancement. Could anything, however extraordinary, it is asked, happen now, of which all reasonable persons would not agree to wait for a physical explana tion, instead of attributing it to a supernatural cause ? This is a change, then, it is asserted, and a transition of fact, that we are going through ; argument does not affect this change in the mind of society ; these pretensions were given up in the actual belief of mankind, even at the very time that they retained their place in reasoning and philo sophy ; the human mind is yielding to laws of progress, which even its own intellectual opposition cannot stop; and faith in these claims has retreated before the influence of civilization. But such being the argument against tho supernatural deduced from actual liistory, and tho known change in human belief ; I must observe that there is one broad line of distinction which separates all this purposeless, trilling, and low supernatural, — magic, witchcraft, and the liko, from tho miraculous credentials of the. Christian revela tion ; viz., that, as a matter of fact, while the belief in the former has become obsolete, tho belief in the other has continued, and stood its ground. Tho belief in the Christian miracles has now possession of tho moss of society, educated as well as uneducated. This, then, is au answer from fact to an argument from fact: lho argument in that much belief in supernatural has gone with civilization, and (he answer is that the belief in the Christian miracles continues with cm- li ration. It is indeed true that the very first instinct of a rational mind at this day, on hearing the description of that supernaturalism which characterized rude ages, is to s.ay — this cannot be true : such trivial, xxx u„ refacc to Third Edition mean, and objectless crowds of miracles, as those of old magic and witchcraft, must be false : tho order of nature is a solemn fact, and the interference with it must be, under the Divine Providence a solemn fact too. The current supernaturalism then of rude ages is disbelieved. But the miraculous basis of Christianity is accepted. One fact then is met by another fact : the fact of mankind's disbelief is met by the fact of mankind's belief. It may be replied, indeed, that the distinction which is now maintained between the Christian supernatural and the vulgar is illogical, and will not be found capable of being upheld. But that is to reason; and the new form of argument excludes reasoning, and ties itself to fact. It is the peculiar boast of the new controversial ground— that it does not argue but only state. The fact is stated then that legendary supernatural is abandoned ; and that is met by tho counter fact that the Christian supernaturalism is retained. Wo have reasoning to offer if tbe law of the argument allows it ; but if it is the very merit of this new argu ment that it settles the question by the statement of facts ; that is tbe aggressive fact, and this is the defensive fact ; and the one fact as a refutation of the Christian miracles, is directly answered by the other fact in support of them. The belief in legendary super naturalism has been practically given up in educated Bociety for nearly two centuries ; and yet with the full consciousness of this abandonment of a large region of professed supernatural agency, the Christian miracles have continued to be believed. The distinction has been maintained, it has kept its ground, and it has sustained a long period of trial, during which the most intelligent and acute minds, fully alive to the progress which the human intellect had made in throwing off superstitious belief in superhuman agency, have nevertheless firmly maintained the belief in the miracles of Chris tianity. This is a fact of history, and an existing fact of society ; and it is an express reply to the other fact for the purpose for which that fact is used.1 1 See Note 6, Leet. VIL Ni 1- CONT E N T S LECTUEE I MIKACLES NECESSARY FOR A REVELATION St. John xv. 24 If I had not done among them tlie works that none other man iid, they Iiad not had sin. LECTURE II ORDER OF NATURE Gen. viii. 22 H'hile the earth remaincth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and trimmer and winter, and day wad night sliall not cease. LECTURE III INFLUENCE OF TIIE IMAGINATION ON BELIEF Psalm exxxix. 14 Marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. LECTURE IV BELIEF IN A GOD llr.nilKWH xi. 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by tho word of Ood. L XXXll Contents -%.„ LECTURE V TESTIMONY Acts i. 8 Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judoui, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. LECTURE VI UNKNOWN LAW Sr. John v. 17 Mg Father worketh hitherto, and I work. LECTURE VII 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 VIII FALSE MIRACLES Matt. vii. 22 Hang will sag to Me in that dag, Lord, Lord, have vie not prophesied in Thy name 1 and in Thy name have cual out devils ? and in Thy name done many wonderful works 1 f V LECTURE I MIRACLES NECESSARY EOR A REVELATION, St. John xv. 24 If I had not done among them the works thai none other wan did, they had not had sin. HOW is it that sometimes when tlie same facts and truths have been before men all their lives, and pro duced but one impression, a moment comes when they look different from what they did? Some minds may abandon, while others retain, their fundamental position with respect to those facts and truths, hut to both they look stranger; they excite a certain surprise which they did not once do. Tho reasons of this change then it is 11. it, always easy for tho persons themselves to trace, but of tlie result they are conscious ; and in some this result is a change of belief. An inward process of this kind has been going on re cently in many minds on the subject of miracles'; and m some with the latter result. When it came to the question —which every ono must sooner or later put to himself on this subject— did these things really take pbro? are 11 icy Mailers of fact? (hoy have appeared to themselves f<> be brought to a standstill, and to be obliged to own an inner refusal of their whole reason to admit them among tin: actual events of the past. This strong repugnance seemed to be the witness of its own truth, to be accompanied by a A Miracles necessary [Lect. i! I] for a Revelation clear and vivid light, to be a law to the understanding, and to rule ivithout appeal the question of fact. This intellectual movement against miracles i3 partly owing, doubtless, to the advance of science withdrawing minds from moral grounds 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 op posed to miracles as those who know most about it ; and for a very good reason. For it is evident that the objection 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 connexion of those laws, traced them farther back, and resolved them into higher and simpler laws ; hut simply because they are opposed to that plain and obvious order of nature which everybody sees. That a man should rise from the dead, eg. is plainly contradictory to our experience ; therein lies the difficulty of believing it ; and that experience belongs to everybody as much as to the deepest philosopher. A cause, which has had just as much to do with it as science, is what I may call the historical imagination. B.y 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 thcvo is too lit.Ho of it in tho mass of mon, to whom tho past is a figured Burfaco rathor than nn actual extension backward of time, in which tho actors had all. tho feelings of tho hour and saw it passing by thorn as we do, — the men who were then alivo in tho world, the men of tbe day. Tho past is an inanimate image in their minds, which docs not beat with the pulse of life. And this want of reahty 1* <.< Vi,. attaching to the time, certain occurrences in it do not raise the questionings, 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 rea lized 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 because an event is strange, and an event is strange because it goes counter to and jars with presumption. Shall surprise then give life to belief or 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 to gether ; 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 influence of custom and education than to any strong principle of faith within ; and it is to he 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 provenling wonder, intercepts doubt too, and nl tlio samo tiino oxcludcs from deep belief and protects from disbelief. But doopor faith and disbelief throw off in common the dependonco on mcro custom, draw asido tho interposing veil, plnco thomsolvcs faoo to face with tho conlonfs ot the past, and expose themselves alike to the ordeal of wonder. I would, however, givo a passing caution against ono Miracles necessary [Lect mistake which a ml^ed^^^ Pile 0^ f"11 a ^ ™SeS a cleara^t ^d sperkin/eonC ^ ^ imagines tlie Pei'sons "ting Kft,fJ UPJ ; Perfecfc sc^> and fills it with the detail ol actual life. The world which it thus pictures it a tuts IT! ^' ttranskti"S character and motives, th rioo t J ^ r1'0 " m°dem ^e> in OTdCT ^ make tiTJSi 1 ft T8i- ¦ W tLe PC1'i0d> then> illt0 ^h "at on of ?o ff ^^ ^ tlmt °f the first Promul- .ation of the Gospel, tho miraculous events of that epoch dly wou^d ' 7 IMde thdr aPP<™o «t the present, day, would, receive a natural explanation. Tlie person I am supposing has hitherto, then, made no mistake' of fact do so. Lut just at this juncture he is apt to make una rnlportedT^i? ^J " t0 ^ because he hs a "e lat tb f S ,m r^*0* t0 Uie WOrld of a distant and t mi 1 ^ *** "" that WOvld aild ifc* contents, he co^ld S 1 T ^ ^ ^^ Xt SeemS t0 him as * e could hung back a report from thence, and assure ns at nothing really took place in that world of the nature that we suppose. But in truth he no more knows by X process o the imagination what took place in that wo l" ^nlZ P"rT m°WS: f°r WG Cannot ^ <** W 2Z2? t' -Z1116 lmaSinatio» "Mimes knowledge, and does not make it : it vivifies the stock we have, but doe not add one item to it. The supposition-' Had we Hvcd n he world at that time we should have seen that tZ Mas nothmg more miraculous in it then than there is now' carries a certain persuasiveness with it to some; but it have T* rPJroSi!i0n- Th6y "^ * an effort of »»d have raised a vivid image of the past, but they have not earned the least knowledge of its events by this act. Tha- I] for a Revelation ^ 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 tes timony which has come down to us. With this prefatory notice of a prevalent intellectual feature of the day, — for this effort to realize the past, to make it look like yesterday, does not only characterize in dividual writers, but is part of the thought of the age, — I enter upon the consideration of the position which I have chosen as the subject of these Lectures ; viz., that Miracles, or visible suspensions of tlie order of nature for a provi dential purpose, are not in contradiction to reason. And, first of all, 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 supplied in any other way. There is one great necessary purpose, then, which divines assign to miracles, viz., the proof of a revelation. And certainly, if it was tlie 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 is true ? Our reason cannot prove the truth of it, for it is by the very supposition beyond our reason. There must be, then, somo 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 coincidence. Tlie greatest marvel or interruption of the order of nature occurring by itself, as the very consequence of being con- Miracles necessary ¦ [Lect. I] for a Revelation nected with nothing, proves nothing; but if it takes place in connexion with the word or act of a person, that coinci dence proves design in the marvel, and makes it a miracle; and if that person professes to report a message or revela tion 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 miracle 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 communi cation 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 commu nication : it is explained by its own place in nature, and is connected with its own antecedents and consequents only, having no aUusion or bearing out of them. 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 attestation. It is true that prophecy is such an attestation, but though the event which fulfils pro phecy 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 extraordinary coincidence which was contained in it. And hnnoo ib follows that could a complolo physical solution bo given of a wholo miracle, both tho marvel and tho coincidence too, it would ceaso from that momont to perform its function of evidence. Apparent evidence to thoso who had made tho mistake, it could bo 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 tho Divine will, though they are not viable interferences with the order of nature. But special providences, though they convey some, do not convey full evidence of, design. Coincidence is a matter of degree, and varies from the lowest degree possible to the 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 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 conduct, 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 miracu lous. It must be observed, however, that a special providence is an indication of a special Divine design, to whatever ex tent it is so, only as being an indication of extraordinary Divine agency somewhere ; for from the ordinary nothing special would have been inferred. But extraordinary Divine agency partakes substantially of a miraculous character; though that character is not placed directly 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 remote, and comparatively hidden ; but still however high up in the succession of nature, such e.Urnor- dinary agency is, at tho point at which it does occur, pro- tornnlnval ; because by nature wo mean God's general law, or usual acts. A special providence thus dilfers from a miraclo in its evidence, not in its nature ; it is an invisible miracle, which is indirectly traceable by means of wmio remarkable concurrences in the events before us. If a s Miracles necessary [Lect. 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 coinci dence is too remarkable 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 suggests but does not compel this interpre tation. The death of Arius, e.g. was not miraculous, be cause the coincidence of the death of an heresiarch takin- place when it was peculiarly advantageous to the orthodox kith, to which it would have been advantageous at any time, was not such as to compel the inference of extraordi nary Divine agency; but it was a special providence, be cause it carried a reasonable appearance of it. The miracle of the Thundering Legion was a special providence, but not a miracle for the same reason, because the coincidence of an instantaneous fall of rain with public prayer for it car ried 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 surprising and inexplicable must be the coinci dence in events in order to constitute the proof of extra ordinary Divine agency; and therefore in that class of miracles which consists of answers to prayer, the most un accountable kind of coincidence alone can answer the pur pose. And the same principle applies to other miracles The appearance of the cross to Constantino was a miracle or a special providence, according to which account of it we adopt. As only a meteoric appearonce in the shape of a cross, without the adjuncts, it gave some token of preter natural agency, but not full evidence. It may be conceded, indeed, that the truths which are communicated in a revelation might lo conveyed to the II for a Revelation / 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 process altogether secret, and without the ac companiment 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 causo to arise an extraordi nary idea ; for though the character 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 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 tho idea was imparted to the mind of a particular person that an atonement had been made for Vie sins of the whole world, and that the Divine nowcr slopped 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 ho has it, but so far from that person being able to give proof of that event to others, he would not even have received evi dence of it himself. In an enthusiastic mind, indeed, the rise, without anything to account for it, of the idea that IO Miracles necessary [Lect. such an event had taken place, might of itself produce the Iclicf 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 tho future destruction of a city, and of the future captivity 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 of prophecy, then, the simple event which ful fils 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 guar antee. If, then, a person of evident integrity and loftiness of character rose into notice in a particular country and com munity eighteen centuries ago, who made these communi cations 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 wcild 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 bo tho Lamb of God that taketh away tho sins of tho world; that ho thus stood in a mystorious and superna tural relation to tho wholo of mankind; that through hi in alono mankind had access to God ; that he was tho head of an invisible kingdom, into which ho should gather all tho generations of righteous men who had lived in the world ; that on his departure from hence he should return I] for a Revelation 1 1 \ to hpaven 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 all that were in their graves should hear his voice and come forth, they that had done good unto tho resurrection of life, and they that had done evil unto the resurrection of damna tion,— if this person made these assertions about himself, and 'all that was done was to make the assertions, what would bo the inevitable conclusion of sober reason respect ing that person ? The necessary conclusion of sober reason respecting that person would be that be was disordered in his understanding. What other decision could we come to when a man, looking like one of ourselves and only exem plifying 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 un earthly grandeur might be the result ? By no rational being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing announcements. Miracles are the necessary complement then of the truth of such announce ments, which without them are purposeless and abortive, the unfinished fragments of a design which is nothing un less 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 ab sence of either of which neutralizes and undoes it. (i.) But would not a perfectly sinless character be proof of a revelation ? Undoubtedly that would bo as great a miracle as any that could bo conceived ; but where is tlie proof of perfect sinlossnoss ? No outward lifo and conduct, how ever just, benevolent, and irreproachable, could prove tins, because goodness depends upon tho inward motive, and the perfection of the inward motive is not proved by the out ward act. Exactly tho same act may bo perfect or imper- 12 Miracles necessary [Lect. feet 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 charac ter; but not as proved by the outward goodness of His life, by His character, sublime as that was, as it presented 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 evi dence of Christianity. And first, it is urged that the in trinsic 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 undiscoverable by reason. Internal evidence is itself an appeal to reason, be cause at every step the test is our own appreciation of such and such an idea or doctrine, our own perception of its fit ness ; but human reason cannot in tho 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 lias approved itself to the mind of mankind as a grand and sublime idea ; in debased shapes it has prevailed in almost every religion of tho heathen world, and it occupies a marked space in tho history of human thought. The Christian doctrine appeals to every lofty nspiration of tho 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. I] for a Revelation 13 \ 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 ? 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 dispensation, and to conclude from a thought of man an act of God. To do this is to attribute to ourselves perceptions of the Divine will beyond our conscience ; i.e., to attribute to ourselves supernatural 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 supernatural 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. However 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 no longer necessary now, when we have these effects before us. This is a kind of proof then of a revelation which is peculiarly adapted to produce inward conviction — 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 (he natural consequences of that belief of themselves prove it ? 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 14 Miracles necessary [Lect. 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 eau indeed in imagination con ceive such a universal spread of individual holiness and goodness as would amount to a supernatural manifestation: as, e.g. if we supposed that the description of the Christian Church given in parts of prophecy was literally fulfilled, and " the people were all righteous."1 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, 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 deflec tion of Christians from the Gospel standard, a certain number — so large indeed iu comparison with the corres ponding 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 religious 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 Chris tianity stand upon a strongor ground as Christian cvidonco; but it must bo remembered that this connexion introduces another element into tho argument, different from and additional to the simple fact of the results, viz. tho fulfil ment of prophecy contained in them, — an element of proof which is in essence miraculous prool. (2.) 1 Isaiah lx. 21. I] for a Revelation 15 v 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. The indirect proof from results has the greater force, and carries with it the deeper persuasion, because it is additional and auxiliary to the 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 suppose, 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 supernatural fact is the proper proof of a supernatural doctrine; while a supernatural doctrine, on tho 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 miracle;.; is he therefore released from tho defence of miracles ? Is the question of their truth or falsehood an irrelevant ono to him ? i6 Miracles necessary [Lect. Is his faith secure if they are disproved ? By no means : if miracles were, although only at the commencement,necessary to Christianity; and if they were actually wrought and there fore form part of the Gospel record and are bound up with the Gospel scheme and doctrines ; this part of the structure cannot be abandoned without 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 support 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 behef is still, affected by their refutation. Accepting as he does the supernatural truths of Christianity and its miracles upon the same report, from the same witnesses, upon the authority of the same documents, he cannot 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 ? If they are wrong upon the evidences of a revelation, how can we depend upon their being right as to the nature of that revelation ? If their account of visible facts is to be received with an explanation, is not their account, ol doctrines liable to a like explanation ? Revelation then, even if it does not need the truth of miracles for the benefit of their proof, still 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 ? The result is still the same. For the Christian miracles are bound up inseparably with tho wholo corpus of Christian tradition. But if tradition has been mistaken with respect to facts, how can wo 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 U* I] for a Revelation 17 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 ? 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 per formed 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 department of the miraculous. But, in the next place, the miraculous Birth of our Lord, His Resurrection and Ascension, were inserted in the Chris tian Creed ; which cardinal miracles being accepted, the lesser miracles of our Lord's ministry had naturally a sub ordinate place as evidence. If a miracle is incorporated 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. Tlie great miracles therefore, upon the evidence of which the Christian scheme rested, being thus inserted in the Christian Creed, the belief in the Creed was of itself the belief in the miraculous evidence of it. The doctrinal truth of the Atonement, its acceptance, and the enthronement of the Son of God in heaven at His Father's right hand, is indeed in the abstract separable from the visible miracles of the Resurrection and Ascension which were tho evidence of it; but actually in the Christian 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. (3.) i8 Miracles necessary [Lect. Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of Chris tianity must stand or fall together. These two questions — the nature of the revelation, and the evidence of the revela tion — cannot be disjoined. Christianity as a dispensation undiscoverable by human reason, and Christianity as a dis pensation authenticated by miracles — these two are in necessary combination. If any do not include the super natural character of Christianity in their definition of it, re garding the former only as one interpretation of it or one particular traditional form 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 maintained as a revelation undiscoverable by human reason, a revelation ot a supernatural scheme for man's salvation, without the evidence of miracles. And hence it follows that upon the supposition of tho Divine design of a revelation, a miracle is not an anomaly or irregularity, but part of the system of the universe ; be cause, 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 communication between the two being wanted, a miracle is the instrument of that communication. An exception 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 instruments as a class. A key is out of relation, either to the insido or outside taken separately of the inclosure which it opons ; but it is in relation to both taken together as being tho instrument of admission from tho one to the othor. Take any tool or implomcnt 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 placo as the medium between I] for a Revelation 19 the workman and the material. And a miracle is in perfect order and place as the 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 possibility of a miracle ; but the truth of this inference depends entirely on the definition wo give of a miracle. If a miracle is defined to be something which contradicts the order of the whole, then, we admit that nothing which is out of the order of the whole can exist or take place, and therefore we allow that there can le no such thing as a miracle. But if a miracle is only a con tradiction 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 refuting 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, hut will only look upon it as a marvel beginning and ending with itself. "A miracle," he says, " as an interrup tion teethe order of nature, cannot give us any knowledge of God, nor can we understand anything from it." (4.) It is true we cannot understand anything from an interrup tion of the order of nature, simply as such; but if this interruption has an evidential function attaching to it, then something may be understood from it, and something of vast importance. Wo must admit, indeed, an inherent modification in tho function of a miracle as an instrument of proof. To a simple religious mind not acquaint od with ulterior con sidcrations a miraclo appears to be immediate, conclusive, unconditional proof of tho doctrine for which it is wrought ; but, on reflection, we see that it is checked by conditions ; that it cannot oblige us to accept any doctrine which is 20 Miracles necessary [Lect. contrary 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 not complied 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 authority of conscience itself checks and qualifications ? And were a person so disposed, could he not make out an apparent case against tho uso of conscience at all— that there were so many con ditions from this quarter and the other quarter limiting 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 ? But in truth, a miracle is never without an argumentative force, although that force may be counterbalanced. Any physical force may be counteracted by an impediment, but it exists all the while, 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 tho doctrine is such that we cannot accept it, we resist tho forco of a miraclo in that in stance; still that forco remains and produces its natural elfect when there is no such obstruction. If I am obliged by the incredible nature of an assertion to explain the miracle for it upon another principle than tbe evidential,. I do so ; but in the absence of this necessity, I give it its natural explanation. A rule gives way when there is an I] for a Revelation 21 exception to it made out ; but otherwise it stands. When 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 theTe is no intrinsic objection to the doctrine. When, then, a revelation is made to man by the only in strument 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 all we are con cerned with is its competency. Is it a good instrument ? is it effective ? does it answer its purpose ? does it do what it is wanted to do ? 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 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 instru ment, 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 believed upon its miraculous evidenced 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 accomplish, because it is easy to satisfy thoso who do not inquire. But this is not the state of tho case which we havo to meet on tlie subject of tho Christian miracles. Tho Christian being tho most intelli gent, tlvo civilized portion of the world, these miracles aro accepted by the Christian body as a whole, bythe thinking and educated as well as the uneducated part of it, and the Gospel ia believed upon that evidence. Allowance made 22 Miracles necessary [Lect. for certain schools of thought in it, this age in which we live accepts the Christian miracles as the foundation of its aith. But this is a great result-the establishment and the continuance of a religion in the world,-as the religion too of the intelligent as well as of the simpler portion of 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 especially which was anxious that its belief should be rational, and should rest upon evidence? Uf 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 civilized world, educated and un- educated ? 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 beheve upon rational grounds; that indeed, if there is a difference, it has been tho mstrumont of conviction rather to tho reasoning ol.ua of minds than tho unreasoning. A miracle is in its own nature an appeal to tho reason; and its evidence contrasts in this respect with the mere influence of sentiment and tradition. These are strong witnesses to the nature of n !] for a Revelation 23 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 testimony 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 testimony reaches us, through however ma*y links, the miracle which it attests is the same evidence that it ever was. Scientific 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 re gular 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 will not be as strong as it is now. Whatever value, then, the testimony to the Christian miracles had when that testimony first took its place in pubhc 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 of the importance and the greatness of a miracle as an instrument indefinitely, for indeed we do not know its full effects, we are in the middle, or perhaps only as yet in the very beginning of its history as a providential engine for the preservation of a religion in tho world. A miracle is remarkably adapted for the original propagation of a religion, but thin in only ii h first work, The question must still always arise, and must bo always rising afresh. in ovory generation afterwards, — Why must I beiiovo in this revelation ? So far, then, from tho use of miracles being limited to a first start, oven supposing a religion ff Miracles necessary [Lect. could spread at first by excitement and sympathy 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 xts birth upon along career, to supply ground for rational behef 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 belief, striking as it has been, cannot blind us to the fact that tho belief of the Mahometan is in its very principle irrational, because he accepts Mahomet's super natural account of himself, as the conductor of a new dis pensation, upon Mahomet's own assertion simply, joined to his success (S.) But this belief is in its very form irra tional ; and whatever may be the apparent present strength and prospects of Mahometanism, this defect must clin* to is very foundation, with this corollary attaching to it °viz that %f the law of reason is allowed to work itself out in the history of human religions, the ultimate dissolution of the Mahometan fabric of belief 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; because the Christian beheves m a supernatural dispensation, upon the proper evidence of such a dispensation, viz. the miraculous. Ante cedently, indeed, to all examination into the particulars of the Christian evidence, Christianity is the only religion in the world which professes to possess a body of direct exter nal evidence to its having come from God. Mahometanism avows the want of this ; and the pretensions of other reli gions to it aro mockery. One religion alone produces a body of testimony— testimony doubtless open to criticism —out still solid, authentic, contemporaneous testimony to miracles— a body of evidence which makes a stand, and J] for a Revelation 25 r upholds with a natural and genuine strength certain facts. And in this distinction alone between Mahometanism and Christianity, we see a different estimate of the claims of reason, lying at the foundation of these two religions 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 con sider miraculous evidence at all wanted to attest a super natural dispensation, but that his word was enough, shews an utterly barbarous idea of evidence and a total miscal culation of the claims of reason which unfits his religion for the acceptance of an enlightened age and people ; whereas the Gospel is adapted to perpetuity for this cause especially, with others, that it was founded upon a true calculation, and a foresight of the permanent need of evi dence ; our Lord admitting the inadequacy of His own mere word, and the necessity of a rational guarantee to His re velation 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 ;" 1 " The works that I do bear wit ness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me." 2 1 St. John xv. 24. s Ibid. v. 36. LECTURE II ORDER OF NATURE Of.it. viii. 22. While tlie 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 mir aculous must depend on the nature of the belief to which the miraculous is opposed. And first, what is meant by the order of nature ? 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 inadequate definition of what we mean by that important phrase — just omitting indeed the main point. For that order of nature which we assume in all 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 gono, and wo have nothing more to do with it: it is that which has not come under our obser vation, and which is as yet no part of our knowledge, which concerns us ; not yesterday's but to-morrow's stato of tho case. We entertain a certain belief respecting what will bo tho stato of tho case to-morrow with reference to tho Order of Nature 27 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. "What we mean, then, by the phrase ' order of nature' is the connection of that part, of the order of nature of which we are ignorant with that part of it which wo know— the former being expected to be such and such hecause the latter is. But this .being the case, how do we justify this expectation, i.e. how do we account for the belief in the order of nature ? This belief, then, is defined as consisting in an expecta tion of likeness— that the unknown is like the known, that the utterly invisible future will be like the past. " This,'" says Bishop Butler, "is that presumption or probability from analogy expressed in the very word continuance which seems our only natural reason for believing the course of the world will continue to-morrow as it has done, so far as our experience and knowledge of history can carry us back." (1.) 1 But though the fact is very obvious that we do expect the unknown to be like the known, the future like the past, why is it that we do ? on what ground does this ex pectation arise ? whence is it " that likeness should beget this presumption ? " The answer to this question will decide the mental character of our belief in tho uniformity of nature, and so enable us to estimate the weight of the objection to the miraculous thence arising. On asking ourselves tho question, then, why we believe that tho future order of nature will bo like the past, why such aud such a physical fact will go on repeating itself as it has done, say tho rising of tho sun, or the ebb and flow of tho tido, 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 reflection. We mean by self-evident that of which tho 28 Order of Nature [Lect. 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 rt will not rise to-morrow. These two facts are quite consistent with each' other, as much so as any other two tacts 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 bo assigned for this connexion, i.e. for this belief that the future will be like tho past, they all 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 per manent cause produces permanently recurring effects. But what is there to shew tho existence of a permanent cause ? Nothing. 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 permanent, 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 ? We can only say, because we believe 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 singular occur rence we should have but the very faintest expectation of II] Order of Nature 29 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 recurrence would then be a certainty to us, its cessation a marvel. But what has taken place in the in terim to produce this total change in our belief ? From the mere repetition do wo 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? All we can say is that the known casts its shadow before ; we project into unborn time the existing types, and the secret skill 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, full of the scene behind, sees it again in front. Or is it to give a reason why wo believe that the order of nature will be like what it has been, to say that wc do not know of this constancy of nature at first, but that we get! to know it by experience ? What do we mean by know ing from experience ? We cannot mean that the future facts of nature have fallen within our experience, or under our cognizance ; 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 expecta tion of the future ; which is the same as saying that wo believe the future will be like the past : but to say this is not to give a reason for this belief, but only to state it. Or do we think it giving a reason for our confidence in the future to say that though " no man has had experience of what is future, every man has had experience of what was future ? " This is a true assertion, but it does not help us at all out of the present difficulty, because the confidence Order of Nature [Lect 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 invisible, 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 himself 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 know of the then future course of nature ? Nothing. At this moment he knows no more of its future course dat ing from this moment. However at each present instant the future emerges into light, this only moves forward the starting-point of darkness; at every fresh step into the future the future begins afresh, and is as unknown a future as ever, behind the same impenetrable veil which has always hid it. Whatever time converts into the known we are always on the confines of the unknown ; and what ever 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 future will be like the past. But, such being so, this professed reason for the belief 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 tho next momont bo liko what it has been up to this moment, ie. for our belief in tho uniformity of nature ? None. No demonstrative reason can bo givon, for tho contrary to tho rccurrenco of a fact of nature is no contradiction. No probable reason can be given, for all probable reasoning respecting the course of nature is founded upon this pre- H] Order of Nature 3i sumption of likeness, and therefore cannot be the founda tion of it. No reason can be given for this behef. It is without a reason. It rests upon no rational ground and can be traced to no rational principle. Everything con nected with human life depends upon this belief, every practical plan or purpose that we form implies it ; every provision we make for the future, every safeguard and cau tion we employ against it, all calculation, all adjustment of means to ends, supposes this belief; 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 con cerned, 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 reason, but I perceive that I see none, though I can no more help the expectation than I can stop tho 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 intelli gence, 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 tho beliof in tho order of nature rested. " When it is asked," says Ilumo, " what is the foundation of nil our reasonings and conclusions concerning tho relation of cause and effect, it may bo replied in one word — Experience. But if wo ask, What is. tho foundation of nil conclusions from experience ? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution. . . . Experience can bo allowed to give direct and certain information of those pro- 32 Order of Nature [Lect. cise 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 drawn by the mind, that there is a certain stop taken, a process of thought and an inference which wants to be explained. These two propositions aro far from the same. I have found that such and such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee that other objects which are in appearance similar will be attended with similar effects. I shall allow, if you please, that the. ono proposition may justly be inferred from the other; 1 know in fact that it always is inferred : but if you insist that the inference 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 in ference, if, indeed, it can be drawn by reasoning and argu ment. 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 infer ence from the other ; but you must confess that the infer ence is not intuitive, neither is it demonstrative. Of what nature is it then ? To say it is experimental is begging the question. For all inferences from experience suppose as their foundation that the future will resemble the past : it is impossible therefore that any arguments from experi ence can prove this resemblance. Let the course of things bo allowed hitherto over so regular, that alone, without some now argument or inference, proves not that for the future it will continuo so. As an agent I am quite satis- tied on the point, but as a philosopher I want to learn the foundation of this inference. No reading nor inquiry has yet been able to remove my difficulty. Can I do more than propose it to the public, even though perhaps I have II] Order of Nature 33 small hopes of obtaining a solution ? We shall at all events by this means bo sensible of our ignorance, if we do not augment our knowledge." l Such is the nature of this remarkable and momentous inference and belief — necessary, all important for the purposes of life, but solely practical and possessing no intellectual character. Will it be said that this uninfcl- lectual and unreasoning character belongs to it in common with all the original perceptions of our nature, which cannot, as being original, rest upon any argumentative foundation ? This would not bo a true or correct account of the character of this particular inference, and the absence of tho rational qualify in it. For there is this important difference between the rational or intellectual perceptions which cannot be traced further back than themselves, and this inference we are speaking of, viz. that those perceptions cannot be contradicted without an absolute absurdity, whereas an event in contradiction to this inference is no absurdity at all. The truth of a mathematical axiom can not bo traced further back than itself; but then an axiom is self-evidently true, and a contradiction to it is as sclf- cvidcntly falso. And, to go out of tho sphere of strict demonstration, tho 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 cannot bo contradicted without a shock to reason. The supposition that this whole world came together by chance is an absurdity. But tho inference from tho past to the future wants this intrinsic note and test of an inference of reason, that, tho contradictory fo it is in no collision with reason. There is no violence to reason in the supposition that the world will come to an end, and the sun M-ill one day not rise, notwithstanding the increasing presumption 1 Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sect. iv. 34 Order of Nature [Lect. from repetition up to that very day that it will rise. Indeed, it is not wholly unmeaning to observe that the great meta physician himself, who analyzed the argument from experi ence, has unconsciously tested that argument by this very case. Two famous atheistical philosophers have predicted the end of the world and the dissolution of all things. The grand and striking prophecy of Lucretius is given with an almost oracular solemnity ; but the vaticination of our own philosopher, based upon hints and analogies in nature, is also delivered with a grave and serious voice, which arrests attention. " Suppose," says Hume, " all authors in all languages agree that from the 1st of January, 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days : suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people: that all travellers 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 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."1 The end of the world, then, so far from being impossible, is here contem plated 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, will be in full forco, — nay, in tho vory greatest forco that it has ever been in since tho beginning of things. The argument from 1 mere experience, then, intrinsically diffors in the quality of reasoning, not only from mathematical reasoning, but even, ns has been noticed, from the other great department of probable reasoning. 1 Essny on Miracles. H] Order of N attire 35 Indeed, that this belief in the uniformity of nature is not a part of reason is shewn by the circumstance that even the brute animals are possessed with it, apparently quite as much as man is. This is indeed the very first and most obvious trait of their instinct ; for it must strike the most ordinary observers that all animals show 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 slightest difference in the nature of this par ticular instinct in 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 extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of the human understanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish, when we con sider 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 unknown to ourselves."1 I would add to this statement one remark. Some faint elements of reason being discernible in the brute, it is not enough to prove that a process is not a process of reason, that something approaching to it is seen in the brute. But aUowing this, still a mental act which an animal performs iu a mode which we cannot see to differ from the human mode of it, however valuable an act, is not what wo popularly call and mean by an act of reason. Under what head, then, shall wo bring this mysterious and incomprehensible inference from the known to tho unknown, from the objects and timo of which we have bad experience to other objects and other times of which we 1 Enquiry, &c, sect. ix. 36 Order of Nature [Lect. 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 ? It 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 constitutionally large irrational depart- " ments, and includes within it, as a true and genuine part .of itself, nay, and a most valuable part, many processes which are entirely spontaneous, irresistible, and, so to call it, of the automaton kind. Such, e.g. is tho impression which time makes upon us, by which it relieves our sorrows and moderates our joys. The loss of a relative or friend is in point 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 \pf association is an irresistible principle. The ties of place and of country are in ono respect irresistible ; men may act against them, but can never cancel or annihilate 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 formation of a habit is as spontaneous and irresistible a process as the growth of a vegetable. Under which head the belief now spoken of would appear to come. " Whenever," says tlie philosopher I have quoted, "tho repetition of any particular act or operation produces a propensity to renew tho same act or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning or process of the understanding, wc always say that this propensity is the effect of custom. By employing that word wc do not pretend to have given the ultimate reason of such a propensity. We only point out a principle Avhich II Order of Nahtre 37 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 Ave can assign to all 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 wo are not able to draw from one instance."1 1 Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sect. v. It vill lie observed that this argument from experience of which wc arc speaking, in different from, and must not be confounded with, what we call the argu ment of analogy. Tlie term analogy itself may indeed lie applied to any case of likeness : on which account the inference from like past to like future, or the argument of experience, 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 tho probability of a like act in another of vulgar sensible experience. Let us now regard the same inference and principle in connexion with science- in albd nT-Tl* reCelVeS U m°r0 im»0S'mS ™™- ««d is ca led the inductive principle. The inductive inference or illo o 1 "I ' ^ °f the mind * wLich> ^» the lnlo opher has ascertained by discovery a particular fact n nature and its recurrence in the same connexion within his own observation, he forthwith infers that this fact will universally tako place, or converts it into a law. Does tins inference from past experience, then, in connexion Vith science pass into a new phase and become luminous and intellectual, or does it remain the same blind and un reasoning instinct as before ? tlJ™ ™ iXTine> th6n' What {t is which comP°ses tha process which is called inductive reasoning, we find that it consists of two parts, and that the first of these two Z J,l tl,°1Simpl0 dfC0VeiT of a f«»t There is wanted the physical cause of some known fact, and this cause is another fact not known as yet in this relation, for which accordingly the philosopher institutes a search. It mus bo a fact which fulfils certain conditions, must always pre code tho known fact Mdren the latter takes place and always omit this precedence when it does not take place lie test of invariable antecedence puts aside as causes on the one hand all the facts which the event tote place with- ou, and on the other hand all which the even does not take place wrth, till it gets at the residuum which is he Phys.cal cause. The sagacity ofthe man of science, then s shewn m hitting upon and singling out the fact which fulfils these conditions from the midst of tho whole mo nnscuous crowd of facts which surround the phenomenon before him-a process which severely tries his powers of "] Order of Nature 4r observation, force and steadiness of attention, quickness of apprehension, watchfulness, accuracy ; his powers of com parison, 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 dif ferent 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 cany in his mind a large body of old observations, in onler to provide connexion 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 fulfils 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 systematic docs not alter the particularity of the fact, or make it at all the more a universal or a law. To tako the familiar instance of the discovery of vaccination. In this instance it was discovered that in all the observed cases of freedom from a particular complaint, a certain fact preceded that fact; but that was only a particular observa tion : 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 observation into law, which wo call the inductive principle, and is the second part of tho inductive process, is exactly tlie 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. Tlie in ductive principle is only this unreasoning impulse applied to a scientifically ascertained far.!, instead nl to a vul;;arh 42 Order of Nature [Lect. ascertained fact. Science is only a method of ascertaining 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 selected 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 own sagacity, but the generalization 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 all the difference in the philosophical rank of the two ob servations, 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 sup plies the physical prospect of the peasant. (2.) And here it may be remarked by the way, that what is called inductive reasoning is not, strictly speaking, reason ing. It is called so because an inference is made in it, a general conclusion is drawn from particulars. But the first part of the inductive process is not reasoning but ob servation ; the second pari is not reasoning but instinct : the scientific part is not inductive, the inductive part is not scientific. (3.) Ilonce wo cannot attribute to scientific men, by however penetrating and lofty faculties they may havo discovered facts, any peculiar perception of recurrence or law. Language has been used as if scionco generated a perception of mathematical or necessary sequence in the order of nature. (4.) But science has herself proclaimed tho truth that there is no necessary connexion in nature; "] Order of Nature 43 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 all her utility upon it, still 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 unscientific, upon which the order of nature is founded, is totally different from the perception of harmony and relation in nature. We use the phrase 'order of' nature' in two senses; that of arrangement, 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 everything in a lump, and expect its uniform continuance ; and both of these I call the order of nature. But in one of these senses order is a scientific 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 multiplicity of relations in her, and so to see a more wonderful and nicer agreement or system in her ; but gives them no greater light whereby to prophesy her continuance or repetition. While we also remark that it is not in the sense of harmony and system that the order of nature is opposed to tho miraculous at all. Tho action of some intricate engine is interrupted designedly for some purpose; is tho admirable perfection of the machinery at all interfered with by that fact? I>o I sec its order and arrangement tho less? .Docs even an injurious interrup tion of tho relations of the infernal organs of the body, as disease ia, make our bodily structure at all less wonderful a contrivance ? The order of nature, then, in tho senso of 44 Order of Nature Lect. H] Order of Nature 45 its harmony, is not disturbed by a miracle; the interruption of a tram of relations in one instance leaves them standing 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 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 scientific part of induction being only the pursuit of a particular fact, miracles cannot in the nature of tho case receive any blow from the scientific part of induction ; be cause the existence of one fact does not interfere with the existence of another dissimilar fact. That which docs resist the miraculous is the imscientific part of induction, or the instinctive generalization upon this fact. The inductive principle being that which assimilates the unknown to the known, or establishes the order of nature, is opposed to any dissimilar fact or interruption 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 re ported case in which the order of nature did not for that instance continue, but was interrupted. The inductive 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 question ? Tiie in ductive principle is simply tho mechanical expectation of the likeness of the unknown to the known, not become any more luminous than it was before because its subject-mat ter is higher; but being in the most vulgar and the most scientific material alike unreasoning, i.e. no part of the dis tinctive reason of man. When, then, there is nothing on the side of reason opposed to it, as is the case commonly we follow it absolutely. But supposing there should arise a call of reason to us to believe what is opposite- to it ; sup posing there is the evidence of testimony, which is an ap peal to our proper reason, that an event has taken place which is opposed to this impression — it is evident then that our reason must prevail in the encounter, i.e., that if there is on one side positive evidence, the antecedent counter-expectation of instinct must give way. And thus we come round to Butler's statement of the ground of ex perience, that " there is a probability that all things will continue as we experience they are, except in those re spects in which we have some reason to think they will 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 belief is self-limited, and intrinsically admits of events contrary to it ; within its very body and substance is contained the confession of its own possible error, the anticipation of rea sonable contradiction to it. The proper function of the inductive principle, the argu ment 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 im possible for tlie world to go on, because without it we should have no future before us to calculate upon; we should not feel any assurance of tlie continuance of the world itself from moment to moment. This principle it is, then, which makes human life practicable ; which utilizes all our knowlcdgo; which makes the past anything mure than an irrelevant picture to us ; for of what use is the ex perience of the past to us unless we believe the future will be like it ? But it is also evident what is not the proper function of this principle. It does net belong to this priu- 46 Order of Nature [LecV. eiple to lay down 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 revelation of His will to man, reported to have taken place, have not taken place. Such decisions are totally out of its sphere ; it can assert the universal as a law ; but the universal as a law and the universal as a proposition are wholly distinct. The proposition is the universal as a fact, the law is the universal as a presump tion ; the one is an absolute certainty, the other is a prac tical certainty, when there is no reason to expect the con trary. The one contains and includes the particular, the other does not : from the one we argue mathematically to the falsehood of any opposite particular ; from the other we do not. Yet there has existed virtually in the speculations of some philosophers an identification of a universal as a law, with a universal proposition ; by which summary ex pedient they enclosed the world in iron, and bound the Deity in adamantine fetters ; for such a law forestaUs all exception to it. An apparently counter-process has indeed accompanied this elevation of induction to mathematics, viz., the lowering of mathematics to induction. But either form of identification has the same result, for if demon strable and experimental reasoning stand on the same ground, an alchemical process is obtained for transmuting the blind inference from experience ' into demonstration, and thus endowing the order of nature which rests upon that experience with the character of immutable and neces sary law. (5.) For example, ono signal miracle, pro-ominont for its grandeur, crowned the ovidenco of tho supernatural char acter and ollico of our Lord — our Lord's ascension — His going up with His body of fie.sh and bones into tho sky, in tho presence of Ills disciples. " He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And while He blessed them, He was II] Order of Nature 47 parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they looked steadfastly 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 believer, coming across it in the sacred page suddenly or by chance, amid the routine of life, with a fresh surprise. Did, then, this event really take place ? Or is the evidence of it forestalled by the inductive principle compelling us to remove the scene as such out of the category of matters of fact ? The answer is, that the inductive principle is in its own nature only an expectation ; and that the expectation, that what is unlike our experience will not happen, is quite consistent with its occurrence in fact. This principle does not pretend to decide the question of fact ; which is wholly out of its province and beyond its function. It can only decide the fact by the medium of a universal ; the universal proposition 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 smell is to decide on matters of sight; its function is practical, not logical. No antecedent statement, then, which touches my belief in this scene, is allowed by the laws of thought. Converted indeed into a universal proposition, the induc tive principle is omnipotent, and totally annihilates every particular which does not come within its range. The uni versal statement that no man has ascended into heaven, absolutely falsifies the fact that One Man has. But thus transmuted, the inductive principle issues out of this meta morphose, a fiction not a truth; a weapon of air, which even iu tho hand of a giant can indict no blow because it is itself a shadow. Tho object of assault receives the un substantial thrust without a shock, only exposing the want of solidity in tho implement of war. Tho bailie against 1 Luke xxiv. 50, 51 ; Acta i. 9, 10. 48 Order of Nature T 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 unbelief wants a universal. But no real universal is forthcoming, and it only wastes its strength in wielding a fictitious one. i« LECTURE III INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION ON BELIEF Psalm cxxxix. 14 Marvellous arc Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. IT is evident 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 impossibility. So long as they only believe 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 alter ation of the face of the world, and the whole growth of in tervening history, throw the miracles of the Gospel into a remote perspective in which they arc rather seen as a pic ture than as real occurrences. 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 impossi bility. It is not a question of evidence with them : when they realize, e.g., that our Lord's resurrection, 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 tlie type of experience, and join myself to another. I cannot quit order and law for what is eccentric. There is a repul sion between such facts and my belief as strong as that between physical substances. In the mere effort to con- n 5o Influence of the [Lkct. ceive these amazing scenes as real ones, I fall back upon myself and upon that typo of reality 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 reflectin„ per. son, lie cannot but be struck of his own 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 will first put his reason to himself will perhaps be that miracles are inconceivable to him. But what is meant by this assertion ? That the causes are inconceivable ? But the causes of the commonest physical facts are the same. That the facts are inconceiv able ? But the facts are not inconceivable, but conceiv able. I can conceive the change of water into wine just as easily as I can conceive any chemical conversion- ie I can first conceive water, and then I can conceive wine in the place of water; and that is all I can do in the case ot 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, while the causes are alike inconceivable of both Wo cannot rest, then, at the reason of inconceivablcness but must, go on to somo further ono. Is it that miracles' aro physical results produced without moans, without a physical medium intervening botwoon tho Divino will and tho result ? But wo cannot pronounco upon tho 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 III] Imagination 011 Belief 5i in the natural action of will or spirit upon matter, there must be a point at which the one acts on the other without a medium, however inconceivable that may be ; otherwise if tho media never end, the ono never getjb at tho other at all The reason then against miracles that we come to at last, and in which all these vaguer reasons end, is simply their unlikeness to tho 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 (1) ; but whether or not we call unlikeness by this term, the fact itself is the ulti mate objection to a miracle. It was shewn, however, in my last lecture, what the expectation of likeness was, and that no reason against an unhke event as such was pro ducible or even imaginable. The rejecter of miracles has indeed, in the overpowering force of an impression upon Ms mind, something to which argument is hardly adapted. Every time he recalls a miracle to his imagination, he recalls a felt something 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 resis tance in his mind is not its own vindication. And yet the question of the possibility of anything — 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 arc cited and ovidonco is heard. Tho witnesses cited into this court, are all tho 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 im possible? If thoy know of none, the caso is over. The 52 Influence of the [Lect. co°urt offl0?^? decid^^^ are adm ££, T f f ^ ^ ^ wUc^11 ****** are admitted, for indeed the witness in that court is the ountYoefritS0lf 17 f^' WWch ^ there t0 Sive an account of itself, to declare to its own known contents and possikhty of a miracle. Science has its summary evidence ^^:t:i cIiallenges foregone — -; •** WoShatl!r ^-^^ P^sent instance the cause at Zt s7 ft f^ made ' reaS°n' When there was "one, against the miraculous as such ? I cannot but think that under an intellectual disguise it is the imagination tL to be ml f r 6 v? P1'aCtiCal °ne-t0 enabIe P^km done 2 if ^ and WeKare -> Which could not be to til ft W6 ^°UM leck0n Up°n the likeiless of ^ past o the future. For without this expectation, what would » our prospect? Every moment of nature might be its ^:d7;llf.li™ ^n the constant brink of utter change and dissolution, which would paralyze all action in us But the impression as it exists in us by nature bein" 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 unreasoning instinct what it cannot by its very nature contain-a universal intellectual proposi tion, that the order of nature is immutable. We apply the term imagination to denote that faculty by winch he m.nd adds anything out of 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 ima gination has a very different moral aspect according as it acts m one or other of two ways ; that is to say, actively III] Imagination on Belief 53 by energy and self-exertion from within, or passively, by yielding to an impulse or impression from without. 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 ad mire nature, to sympathize with man ; or when it aids in the work of combination, construction, invention ; in thus actively imparting meaning and life to facts, imagination is a noble and effective instrument, if indeed we may not call 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 attrac tion, and instead of grasping something else, is itself grasped and mastered by some dominant idea — it is then not a power, but a failing and a weakness of nature. We may call these respectively active and passive imagination. When imagination is spoken of iu books of morals as a common sourco of delusion and unhappincss in men, who are carried away by 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 exag gerates a practical expectation of the uniformity of nature, implanted in us for practical ends, into a scientific or uni versal proposition ; and it docs 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 till it reaches the point of actually restricting his sense of possibility to the mould of physical order. It is a 54 Influence of the [Lect. 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 impression produces belief independentiy of reason. The order of nature thus stamps upon some minds the idea of its immutability simply by its repetition. The imagination we usually indeed associate with the ac ceptance 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. Materialism itself is the result of imagina tion, which is so impressed by matter that it cannot realize the existence of spirit. 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 tho 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 resis tance in our minds is inevitable ; because we possess the instinctive expectation of uniformity, unlikeness disagrees with that expectation, tins disagreement creates surprise, and surprise is provisionary resistance. But what is it that makes this provisionary resistance final ? Is it reason ? No. ^ Beason imposes no veto upon unlikonoss. Thon it, is tho imagination. Bcason may reject that unlike ovont for want of evidence, imagination alono can reject it as such. Is it not true, indeed, that the intellect, like tho feelings and affections, is capable of contracting bad habits, which need not at all interfere with the soundness and acuteness 0/ III] Imagination on Belief 55 it in general, but may only corrupt and disable the judg ment upon particular subjects ? .If. then, when there is no , producible ¦ reason why a miracle should be impossible, a person appears to himself to perceive that it is ; if the in tellect 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 the intellect has contracted an unsound habit upon that subject-matter. It will be replied, 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 ima gination starting back from an eccentric type." But I answer, that the acceptance 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. Tliey are admitted and receive assent only upon the idea that their eccentricity is a temporary mask, underneath which really lie facts which come under the head of existing classes and known laws. They are accepted as hypothetically like facts to known ones, not as unlike ones. Notwithstand ing all the admission which is extended to such pheno mena, 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 inconceivable things, because it is dragged by tho reason to do it. Two great counteracting inlluencos appeal to it to preserve its balance against tho impression from tho uniformity of nature, and to rouso it from its lothargio submission to custom and recur rence. Ono is tho wondera of tho visible world, tho other is_for in this discussion I assume the doctrines of natural religion — the wonders of tho invisible world. First the wonders of nature appeal to the imagination, in counteraction to tho yoke of physical law. If we 56 Influence of the [Lect. 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 resistance,— but still a' resistance to the facts which excite it. There is an ele ment of doubt in wonder, a hesitation, a difficulty in taking in the new material and incorporating it in the existing body of belief. There is a sense of strangeness in wonder, of something to overcome in the character of the fact presented to it. All wonder therefore, where the facts are, as they are iu the case of natural marvels, admitted, is a precedent for facts resisted and yet believed, resisted 'on ono side of our nature, believed on another; all wonder therefore tends to dispose us to the supernatural. We see that in nature God acts in modes which astonish us, which startle us. On every side are seeming incredibilities'. Why should this be so ? Why is nature such a dispensation of surprises ? Why is it that no processes, no methods, no means to ends go on in her which do not contain this element ? Is it the unavoidable condition of existence at all that it should bo wonderful, and that all its mechanism should bo wonderful ? 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 aro im mediately met by the fact that many men who have had tho deepest sense of the wonderful in nature have been disbelievers in tho supernatural : and the names of some great poets, and men of powerful imagination in the realm of science, will occur as familiar instances of this. What then, is the difference in the sense of wonder in these two spheres such as would account for this fact ; and what is tho relation in which tlie wonderful in nature stands to tlie supernatural ? Tho old saying then, that nature is as wonderful really as any miracle, were wc not so accustomed to her, omits the task of comparison, and does not bring out an im- III] Imagination on Belief 57 portant distinction which exists between these two kinds of the wonderful. A wonder of natural science is wonder ful on its own account, and by reason of what is actually seen in it. In some vast disposition of nature for supply ing the eye with, light, or the vegetable with proper nutri ment, or the limbs with active power, or for providing the' breath of life itself, or for communicating heat, or distribut ing 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 comes out and exhibits and ex presses itself in the arrangement which constitutes the subject of wonder. The effect is like 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 addresses itself to our perceptions, as power in execu tion. This is the case especially in the impression made upon us by those extraordinary revelations of science which divulge as it were tho miracles of nature, — the dis closures, e.g. of tho velocity of somo of the motions of nature, or tho magic of her metamorphoses and conver sions. Even in the region of rude nature tbe 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 manifested and expressed; which thus strikes us with astonishment on its own account. Such is the impression produced by tho speed of lightning, the rage of winds, the weight of waters, even tho great sounds of nature And the same remark applies to tlie perception of the obvious and palpable features of order, beauty, and grandeur in nature ; viz. that the effect which they pro duce upon our minds is an effect arising from something which is expressed -and which comes out before our eyes. But while the marvel of nature surprises on account of 5§ Influence of the [Lect. 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 shows design and inten tion, i.c. is" the act of a Personal Being. Some one, there fore, 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 will; of another world of moral being besides this visible one ; and this is the overawing and impressing con sideration in 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 call the lovo of the supernatural. It is impossible to question the existence and universality of this affection, and that it is an affection which is productive of a characteristic sensa tion of pleasure. And when we examine and analyze this sensation, and investigate the source of this gratification- one instance 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 evidence resting, which we have all heard in conversation— when wc trace, I say, this emotion to its source, wo find it deeply and intimately connected with tho sense of eternity in our minds, the desire for our own future existence. Any communication from the un seen world— supposing it for an instant to bo true— is a token of personal cxistonco going on in that world, and so a pledge, as it were, of the continuation of our own per- III] Imagination on Belief 59 sonal life when we depart hence. We are interested parties therefore. How indeed do we see people super- stitiously, 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 shows that the love 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 will, 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 own, and is in marked contrast with physical wonder ; because it is a sign of an invisible world. It speaks to us in a manner ind to a purpose, which all the astonishing forces of nature collected together cannot reach to: because it is addressed immediately to the soul, to the sense of immor tality. The marvels of nature do not address themselves immediately to this part of us. Physical wonder is simply an 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 all who has no wonder. And therefore all the marvels and all 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 eternity ; they do not tell us that wo aro not liko themselves— passing waves of tho vast tide of physical life. And hero I will just remark upon tho perverse deter mination of Spinoza to look at miracles in that aspeet which does not belong to them, and not to look at them in that aspect which does. lie compares miracles with nature, and then says how wise is tho order of nature, how 6o Influence of the [Lect. meaningless the violation of it; how expressive of the' Almighty Mind the one, what a concealment of it the other 1 But no one pretends to say that a miracle com petes 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 philanthropical type is not necessary, however befitting such miracles as, are intended to bo emblems of Divino lovo : it is enough for this function of a miracle that poiver is shown : nor do we on that account bow down to the 'mere power in a miracle, but only to that power as the sign and evidence of a truth beyond it. Wonder in the natural world, then, differs from that wonder which has for its object the supernatural; and this accounts for tho fact, referred to above, of some men of groat genius not having been boliovcrs in the supernatural, though they had tho deepest senso of tho wonderful. But, although the two wonders are not the same, it hi not the less true that one of them points to the othei, that physical wonder is an introduction to the belief iD the supernatural. It is an introduction to it in this way, that it tends to raise in the mind a larger idea of possi bility — that idea which is expressed in the old quota tion, that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy;" the notion of the potential as distinguished from what is actual; the sense of the unknown. The same faculty of imagination which causes wonder also naturally produces this larger sense of possibility; for indeed this latter is a kind of negative imagination; which without framing positivo III] Imagination on Belief 61 images or figures of things, or putting contingencies into shape, distinctly contemplates the idea of what is out of sight, and raises up a vivid sense of the unknown region of what may be. This negative imagination is in the affairs of this world the groundwork of a worldly sagacity ; for those who are conscious of surrounding darkness, though they do not shape to themselves the contents of it, catch the more readily at such facts as emerge to light, and are more cautious under their concealment ; and in spiritual things partakes of the nature of faith; for a sense of the possible unknown enters largely into our notion of faith. Nor is this connection ofthe sense of wonder with tin's penso of possibility shown by a common source only iu the imagination ; it is also proved by a common foe, which acts us the stupifier and suppressor of them both — viz. custom. Custom proverbially diminishes wonder. It is commonly noticed as a deteriorating effect of custom, that it benumbs the faculty of admiration. Tiie case has been often put, that could wo imagino ourselves with our mature faculties seeing nature for tho first time, tho sight of her glory would act irresistibly upon us liko a splendid vision, and raise the most powerful emotions; but that we are accustomed to her and therefore our perception of her sublimity is dead ened.1 We would fain release ourselves from the thraldom of this stupor, unwind to its very last link the chain of 1 " Nil aileo magnum nee tam mirabile quicquani Principio, quod non minuant mirarier omnes Paulatim ; ut coeli clanim purumque colorem Qucmque in sc cohibent paluntia sidera passim Lunreqiie ct solis prncclava luce nitorem : Omnia quae si nunc primum mortalibus ailsint Ex iniproviso ecu sint objecta repente ; Quid magis Ms rebus poterat mirabile dici, Aut minus ante quod audcrent fore credere gentes ! Nil ut opinor, ita ha;c species miranda fuiuset ; Quom tibi jam nemo fessus satiate videndi Suspiccroin ccoli dignntur lucida lempln." — Lucretius, ii. 1027. 62 Influence of the [Lect. custom by which we are bound, and win back the original perception ; but wo 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 de fect of it is a confession that wo are so far inadequato 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 counter acting force is found in our own minds. And thus the same person may exemplify tho simultaneous growth of the strengthening and weakening effect of custom; deriving from this power an extraordinary facility and readiness in the use of particular faculties, while the same power has deadened in him the impression of every high truth. But if custom proverbially diminishes wonder, its effect in limiting the idea of possibility is equaUy proverbial : for it is the most familiar observation, that when we are accus tomed 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 impossibility : because the mind has surrendered itself captive to one form and mould, and cannot conceive anything different from what it is. And hero I observe the questionable company in which the impression of immutability in the order of nature, i.e. of tho possibility of nothing out of it, comes ; for tho same principle that limits tho 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 olfeets of custom ; its effect upon sensibility, and its effect upon belief For I havo shown that the immutability of tho order III] Imagination on Belief 63 of nature is the decision of custom, only custom operating on the area of all nature instead of a small and local scale.1 A common source and a common foe then alike shew the connection of the sense of wonder with the larger sense of possibility; while tho connection of this latter with the belief in the supernatural is obvious. The sense of physical wonder therefore is through this medium intrinsically allied to and introductory to the belief in the supernatural. It is an attitude of mind which favours the latter belief. Wc may observe that some old religions, e.g. the Scandinavian, and the still earlier Aryan, seem to have been almost founded upon the sense of physical wonder. At tho 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 dark ness, there the imagination of the poet rested ; and it was the more likely to do so if his mind was under the in fluence of sensual passion or — what is a better though still 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 still stronger support and a more direct paraUel in the wonderful truths ofthe 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 invisible world totally differ ent from this visible 0110; wo do not object to anything inconceivable in that world ; to tho most mysterious and 1 " Quelle i-iiIhoh onL-iU do dlro qu'on no pout ivsmisciliT J Quel ohI, pins dillicilo do naitro ou de rcssuscitcr, quo cc qui n'a jamais iii soil, ou que co qui a eld soit encore ? Est il plus difllcilo do venir ru flic que d'y revenir? La coutuino nous rend I'un facilu ; la manque do continue lend l'nutre impossible. Populaire facon de juger." — Pascal, ed. Faugcrc, vol. ii. p. 3*3- 64 Influence of the [Lect. "^ \ incomprehensible doctrines relating to it ; we leave un touched the whole domain of the spiritual and invisible. But the existence 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." (2.) 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 docs it stand as a simple comparison of the belief in the miraculous with the belief in an invisible world ? It is quite true, then, that if there is any intrinsic absur dity 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 extenua tion 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 exis tence of an invisible world, we have already got over the resistance of our minds in one most singular and remarkable instance ; which is a precedent for our getting over it in another instance. The natural effect of the mind taking in one strange and surprising truth, is that it entertains less opposition to another truth, on account of its being strange and surprising. The parallel holds in this impor tant respect, even if the two instances are distinguished from each other in some points. For what image can be presented to the mind which more confounds the imagination than personal existence after the body's dissolution ? What can go more counter to the impress of experience ? What, if we did not believe it to be the most serious of all facts, would be a more wild and eccentric conception, more like a dream of imagination III] Imagination on Belief 65 and a visionary creation of the poet, than the existence of another invisible world of created beings ? 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 believe in, his answer is equally short, — Everything else. The real behef 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 imagination an invisible world is a contradiction in terms — another world besides the whole world. Nor is there much difference upon this head between the unseen 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 population of the universe, and distributes into its infinite realms of endless hfe the countless millions of personal beings who pass into it out of this state of mortality— this or the Christian doctrine of another world is a far sublimer conception than any pagan one ; but another world at all is a marveUous, astonishing, and supernatural conception. And if we go into particulars, we know that there must be forms of life in that world, conditions of intelligence, sights and objects in it which follow inconceivable types. And we allow all this to be a reality, and innumerable hosts to lie hving now in that unseen sphere which is only divided from us by the veil of the flesh. Now a person may say that a marvellous condition of things in another world is not the samo with tho miraculous in this, but can lie embrace tlie former conception as an actual truth, without a general effect on his standard of credibility? Could he avoid, while this idea was vividly upon him, feeling less resistance in the mind to the miraculous ? Could a mir acle look otherwise than less strange to him with tho E 66 Influetice of the [Lect. strong impression of an existing different world at the moment upon his mind ? Has not .the obstacle of unlike ness to the known had to give way, and has there not been already introduced into his mind something wholly alien to tho experimental contents of it ? That which is rcpul- sivo in a miracle is tho ¦ eccentricity of typo in the fact; this provokes tho rejecting instinct, tho antagonism of custom or experience; but in tho admission of another world he has already passed through the shock of this col lision. If an eternal invisible world indeed is admitted at all, it is so vast a conception, that this 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 drawn between the exist ence of another world and the violation of order in this world; between the invisible and inconceivable, and the miraculous; it must be remembered that in both cases alike there is a difficulty of behef, 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 be come an unreal conception to me ? An historical imagina tion 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 believe that this stupendous miracle was a real occurrence ? But exactly the same ordeal will disturb tho belief in the invisible world. Let a person try to think it real ; lot him say to himself — ' Is tho whole multitude that has passed away from this earthly scene since tho raco of man existed, in cxistonco now, every one of thorn a living person in tho rcalim of spirit; is this person, is that person at this moment living, this great monarch, that sagacious statesman, that sublime philosopher or poet, that HI] Imagination on Belief 67 heroic soldier of antiquity ? Are the men of all ages, from the earliest pastoral tribe to tho generation that has only just departed from us, enjoying a simultaneous existence in that world? Are such things conceivable?' As such thoughts crowd upon his mind will ho not find it as diffi cult to think all this a reality, as ho does tho miraculous to bo such ? And yet if ho docs 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 tho miraculous is either no test of its truth, or a test which endangers the existence of the invisible world as well. When we reduce the broad . distinction drawn between the invisible world and the miraculous as objects of belief to its first principle, that principle would seem to be the principle of unity, or, if we may so express it, one world at a time — that the two worlds admitted to exist, must, exist in absolute disconnexion. 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 intrinsically separate ; that it is an interpolation from one order of things into another, an in jection 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 invisible world declare itself by the insertion of an anomalous fact in nature ? It is boldly answered, No. With respect, then, to this objection to a miracle, that it is a transgression against the unify of nature, I observe that nature, so far from boing constructed upon any prin ciple of unity or simplicity in its contents, is itself tho first, great transgressor of that principle, being as mixed and heterogeneous a composition as can be imagined; and that therefore tho introduction of a miracle into this .sreno is not a sudden incongruity, but that we aro prepared for it by the miscellaneous and dissimilar physical and 68 Itifluence of the [Lect. 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.1 But though the contents 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 supernatural. A miracle is therefore no discordant isolation 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 supernatural ; 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 evidence of a God is. But what does evidence imply ? It implies 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 Will. And what, again, is the very infinity of the material world? Do we not think of it as a kind of impossibility, so extravagant and eccentric a fact it is, and replete with extravagant results ? (3.) Space itself, divested 1 We mean by tbe supernatural that which is out of the order of nature. God, angels, departed spirits, heaven and hell, aro out of the order of nature because they are not in nature at all ; a miracle is in nature in the sense of visibility, 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. Ill] Imagination on Belief 69 of the limit of sense, seems incredible. Yet this space is not a mere idea but afact of this world; for not anywhere out of nature, but in whatever 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 man in nature. Tlie record which this earth gives of itself shows 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 bodily frame of man to a common animal source, still 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 con ceived as a leap from a lower to a higher level in the same species, such a leap is only another word for an inexplic able mystery. But such a change cuts asunder the identity of the being which precedes it and the being which succeeds it. (4.) 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? Mere consciousness — was not that of itself a now world within the old one ? Mere knowledge — that nature her self became known to a being within herself, was not that the same ? Certainly man was not all at once the skilled interpreter of nature, and yet there is some interpretation of nature to which man as such is equal in some degree. He derives an impression from the sight of nature which 70 Influence of the [Lect. an animal does riot derive ; for though the material spec tacle is imprinted on its retina, as it is on man's, the brute ,does not see what man sees. The sun rose then, and the sun descended, the stars looked down 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 Icnown, — an image in the mind of a conscious being. But even consciousness and knowledge were a less strange and miraculous introduction into the world than conscience. Thus whoUy mysterious in his entrance into this scene, man is now an insulation in it : he came in hy no physical law, and his freewiU is in utter contrast to that law. What can be more incomprehensible, more heterogeneous, a more ghostly resident in nature, than the sense of right and wrong ? What is it ? Whence is it? 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. (5.) Such is the juxtaposition of mysterious and physical contents in the same system. Man is alone, then, in nature ; he alone of all the creatures com munes with a Being out of nature ; and he divides himself from all other physical life by prophesying, in the face of uni versal visible decay, his own immortality. But man's situation in nature being such, his original entrance a miraclo, his sojourn an interpolation in the phy sical system, a world within a world — a life of conscious ness, freowill, conscience, reason, communion with God, sense of immortality insulated as an anomaly in tho midst of matter and material law; is it otherwiso than in accor dance with this fact that the Divine method of training and educating this creature should be marked by distinctive and HI] Imagination on Belief 71 anomalous features ? If man himself is an exception to nature, why should not his providential treatment be the same ? Why should not that economy be divided occa- sionaUy from the order of nature by 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 concerned with the education of man, his instruc tion, the revelation of important truths to him, and his whole preparation and training for another world ; but this being the case, what does such a dispensation of miracles amount to but this, that man has been educated in connec tion with his own mysterious origin and fountain-head, and that the same extraordinary agency which produced his first entrance into the world directed his course in it. An anomalous situation bears corresponding fruits. " The soul of man," says .Lord Bacon, "was not produced by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God : so that the 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." 1 It is indeed avowed by those who reduce man in common with matter to law, and abolish his insulation in nature, that upon the admission of freewiU, the objection to the miraculous is over ; and that it is absurd to aUow exception to law in man, and reject it in nature. (6.) What has been said may be collected and abridged in one pregnant position — that man while in this world is pla ml in relations to another ; which is a supernatural relation ship within nature, Could wo imagine a person, who hud 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 1 A Confession of Faith, vol. ii. p. 4R.!. 72 Influence of the [Lect. 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 naturalizes 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 havo any relations to another world at all; by the maxim, "Act for tho world in which you live ; whilo you arc in this world you havo nothing to do with another." (7.) To conclude, then, let us suppose an intelligent Christian of the present day asked, not what evidence he has of miracles, but how he can antecedently to all evidence think such amazing occurrences possible ; he would reply, ' You refer me to a certain sense of impossibUity which you sup pose me to possess, applying not to mathematics but to facts. Now on this head I am conscious of a certain natu ral resistance in my mind to events unlike the order of nature. But I resist many things which I know to be cer tain ; infinity of space, infinity of time, eternity past, eternity future, the very idea of a God and another world.' If I take mere resistance therefore 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 obviously false. I conclude, therefore, that I may resist and believe at the same time. If Providence has implanted in me a certain expectation of uniformity or likeness in nature, there is implied in that very expectation resistance to an iralike 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. Eesistance therefore is not disbelief, unless by an act III] Imagination on Belief of my own 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 fall into, that of confounding the resistance of im pression to a miracle with the veto of reason. Upon the facts of the Gospel history being first realized, they neces sarily excite this resistance to a greater extent than they did when they were mainly accepted by habit ; but this resistance is in itself no disbelief, 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 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 im pression against the miraculous . which has illegally tight ened itself into a law to the understanding, Bcason does not always prevail spontaneously 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 question of reason against imagination. It does not seldom require faith to believe reason, isolated as she may be amid vast irrational influences, the weight of custom, the power of association, the strength of passion, the vis inertia: of sense, the mere force of the uniformity of nature as a spectacle— those influences which make up that power of the world which Scripture always speaks of as the anta gonist of faith. Belief in a God 75 LECTURE IV BELIEF IN A GOD Hebrews xi. 3 Through faith wc understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. mHE peculiarity of the argument of miracles is that it -A- begins and ends with an assumption; I mean an assumption relatively to that argument. We assume the existence of a Personal Deity prior to the proof of miracles in the religious sense; but with 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 Himself enacted. For, the Divine power assumed, vain would it be to throw the impossibility of such an interruption on the Divine will— as if the act were contrary to the Divine perfections; and as if it argued inconsistency and unsteadiness in the Deity that, having estabhshed the order of nature, He should disturb it by exceptional acts. For it can argue no inconsistency in the Divine will to institute an order of nature for one purpose and suspend it for (mother. The essential uniformity and regularity of Divino action is a purely arbitrary conception, and certainly ono 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 course of action is His purpose. The order of nature is not founded upon a theatrical principle, as if it were a grand procession, any interruption of which was in itself desecration : its merit lies in its utility ; it is necessary for human life, and animal life too, which otherwise could not be sustained, because there would be no knowing what to expect or what to provide 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 collect from the order and harmony of the physical universe the exist ence of a God, but in acknowledging a God, we do not there by acknowledge this peculiar or doctrinal conception of a God. We see in the structure of nature a Mind, a universal Mind, but stiU a Mind 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 existence of a God in this 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 Supremo Being. Of a universal IWiud out of nature nature says nothing, and of an Omnipotence which docs not possess an inherent limit in nature, she says nothing either. And therefore that conception of a Supremo Being which represents Him as a Spirit inde pendent of tbe physical universe, and able from a 6tanding-place external to nature to interrupt its order, is 76 Belief in a God [Lect. 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 doctrine of Theism.* (i.) If the premiss then of this argument is correct, and this doctrine of Theism is from its standing-ground in nature thrown back upon the ground of revelation, this conse quence follows ; and more, for miracles being thrown back upon the same ground on which Theism is, the whole ovidenco of revelation becomes 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 ? It is then to he admitted that historically, and looking to the general actual reception of it, this conception of God was obtained from revelation. Not from the first dawn of history to the spread of Christianity 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 philosopher only regarded the Universal Cause as the spring of the Universal machine, which was necessary to tho working of all the parts, but was not thereby raised to a separate order of being from them. Theism was dis cussed as a philosophical not as a religious question, as one rationale among others of the origin of the material uni verse, 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 hetero dox, which distinguished belief from disbelief; it estab lished no breach between the two opposing theorists; it was discussed amicably as an open question ; and well it might be, for of all questions there was not one IV] Belief in a God 77 which could make less practical difference to the philoso pher, 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? worship how ?' Would you picture him indignant at the polytheistic superstition of the crowd and manifest ing somo spark of the fire of St. Paul, " when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry," you could not be more mis taken. Ho would have said that you did not see a plain distinction; that the crowd was right on the religious question, and tho philosopher right on tho 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 imper sonal essence, the mere residuum of intellectual analysis, pure unity, pure simplicity. No temple is raised to him, no knee is bended to him. Without action, without will, without affection, without thought, bo is the substratum of everything, himself a nothing. The Universal Soul is the unconscious Omnipresent Looker-on; the complement,, as co-extensive spectator, of the universal drama of nature ; the motionless mirror upon which her boundless play and sport, her versatile postures, her multitudinous evolutions are reflected, as the image of tho rich and changing sky is received into tho passivo 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 becauso Ho was. One small nation alone out 73 Belief in a God [Lect. of all antiquity worshipped God, believed the universal Being to be a personal Being. That nation was looked upon as a most eccentric and unintelligible specimen of humanity for doing so; but this whimsical fancy, as it appeared in 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 re ceived through the channel of the Bible, what communi cates 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 imaginable world, but does not account for this world. For we naturally attribute to the design of a per sonal Being, a contrivance which is directed to the exist ence of a personal Being ; if an elaborate bodily organiza tion issues in the Ufe 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 personality 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 formally com municates it ; tho first chapter of Genesis proceeds upon it as proved ; and tho prophot though he speaks as a prophet, still also speaks as a man on this subject. Ho proclaims this idea of God as a plain truth of human reason, which tho world did not see only because it was blinded by folly ; ho ridicules polytheism with indignation and sarcasm ; ho foretells tho ultimate universal worship of the One God. He sees with the eye of prophecy, and of reason too, that IV] Belief in a God 79 the true idea of God cannot remain for ever in a corner, but must some day find access to the whole mind of the human race, which is made for its reception ; to the expul sion 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 (2) ; not from any want of cogency in the reasons, but from the amazing nature of the conclusion— that it is so unparalleled, tran scendent, and inconceivable a truth to believe. It requires trust to commit one's self to the conclusion of any reason ing, however strong, when such as this is the conclusion ; to put enough dependence and reliance upon any premisses 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 prac tical 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 in a witness of good character who in forms 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. 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 wo are conversant with in tho order ol nature and in common life, then reason is called reason : when reason draws conclusions which aro not barked by experience, and which arc not paralleled by similar facts within our ordinary cognizance, then reason is called faith. Faith, when for convenience' sake wo do distinguish it, from reason, is not distinguished from reason by tho want of premisses, hut by tho nature of tho conclusions. Are our So Belief in a God [Lect. conclusions of the customary type ? Then custom imparts the full sense of security. Are they not of the customary but of a strange and unknown type ? Then the mechani cal sense of security is wanting, and a certain trust is re quired for reposing in them, which we call faith. But that which draws these conclusions is in either case reason. We infer, we go upon reasons, we use premisses in cither case. The premisses of faith are not so palpable as those of ordinary reason, but they are as real and solid 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 belief in the commonest kind of facts. The reasons are in themselves as strong, but because the conclusions are mar vellous and are not seconded and backed by known paraUels or by experience, we do not so passively 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 own in sight into certain grounds, premisses, and evidences, and follows it, though it leads to transcendent, unparalleled, and supernatural conclusions. We may remark that when reason even in ordinary life or in physical inquiry is jnaced under circumstances at aU analogous to those of religion, reason becomes, as a conse quence of that situation, a kind of faith. We have a very different way of yielding to reasons in common life, accord ing 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 requires an effort to accept them and place dependence upon them in the latter; which dependence upon them in the latter ease » V-v IV] Belief in a God 81 therefore is a kind of faith. Indeed, the remark may be made that a kind of faith appears to be essential for prac tical confidence in any reasoning whatever and any pre misses, when we are thrown back upon ourselves and do not act mechanically in concert with others. And we fre quently see persons who, when they are in possession of the best arguments, and, what is more, understand those arguments, are still shaken by almost any opposition, be cause they want the faculty to trust an argument, when they have got one ; which is not the case with others who can both understand and trust too; wherein we see the link which connects faith with self-confidence and strength of will. In religion, then, where conclusions arc so totally 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, whatever stroncr ar not whether upon any ground but whether upon a religious ground and by ButTtha6 T"' theraculous as -ch could be rejected" But to that there is but ono answer, that it is impossible reon a rel ° T* "*&* fr°m th° ^™A and upon a religious basis to overthrow miracles. '> LECTURE V TESTIMONY Actu i. S Ye shall be vjilnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaja, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts ofthe earth. THE force of testimony rests upon a ground of reason : because our reason enables us to discern men's char acters and understandings — that they are honest men and men of sufficient understanding; which being assumed, the truth of their reports is implied and included iu 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 believe many things which are told us without previous knowledge of the persons who are our informants, but ordinarily 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 know ledge, truths upon which our eternal interests depend ? In other words, can we suppose that these truths would be embodied in visible occurrences, which can only reach us through testimony ? Can we think that our own 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 ourselves and God, and that His communications to us travel by this circuitous route, 94 Testimony [Lect. going back to a distant point in history, and returning thence to us by a train of historical evidence?' 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 intervening chain of testimony is long. In the matter of evidence, however, the question is not what satisfies, but what is suf ficient; and therefore if God has adopted any medium or channel of evidence by which to convey His communica tions to us, all that we are practicaUy concerned to ask is — is it a reasonable one ? 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, how ever secondary a channel, it does convey them to us. It is to be admitted, however, that the force of testimony has certain inherent hmits 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 more arbitrary conception could raise the idea in the mind — would you believe them?' But the test of mere conception is not in its own nature a legitimate teat of the force of testimony ; because conception or fancy is a simply wild and unlimited *.: "V] Testimony 95 r 4 \ power of imagining anything whatever, and putting to gether any forms we please in our minds ; but such a power is in no sort of correspondence with actual possi bility in nature. In the , universe, under the Divine government, there can be nothing absolutely wild or out landish : if physical law does not constitute the bound of possibility, some measure of possibihty there must be, and our veiy 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 extravagances and excesses of deviation from order a lawful one, because it is practically impossible that there should be a body of men of good repute for understanding and honesty to witness to what is intrinsically incredible. 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 called " 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 prehminary Umit to the force of testi mony, 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 tho existence of a God. (I.) It may bo urged that, according to the argument of design (which docs not apply to tlie coincidences in nature only, but to any caso of coincidence whatever), a miracle, supposing it \,xvja,provcs and need not assume a supernatural agent, But were thin grunted, the evidence of a Universal Being must stiU rest on a universal basis ; a miracle being Only a particular local occurrence ; 96 Testimony [Lect. and therefore for the proof of a God we should stiU have to fall back upon the evidence 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 legitimately prove it, it must stiU assume the behef in it to begin with ; because it could not prove it to an atheist who had already with stood the proof of it in nature. A mind that had not been convinced by the primary evidence of a Deity, must con sistently reject such a second evidence, and therefore unless a man brings the belief in a God to a miracle, ho does not got it from tho miracle. But the admission of divines that the evidence of miracles assumes the heUef in a God -was not made with a view to an imaginary instance, but with reference to the actual situation of mankind at large upon this subject, and the medium through which in the nature of the case the evidence 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 invaUdating such testimony, and depriving it of all cogency. For consider the light in which an atheist must regard the whole body and system of religious belief in tho world, and the wholo mass of religious believers, so far as thoy are affected by their belief. What other view can he take of religion but that it is simple fanaticism, or of religious men but that they are well meaning but unreasonable and mistaken enthu siasts ? Let a man decide, not that there is not a God, but only that there is no evidence that there is one, and what Yl Testimony 97 is the immediate result ? 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 evidence from himself, provided they only maintained their own 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 rational 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 downright fanaticism. But this being the case, he must necessarily estimate the testimony of such persons in matters specially connected with this credulous belief of theirs, at a very light rate : upon his own ground it is only reasonable that he should treat with the greatest suspicion all reports of miraculous occurrences from re ligious believers; whose evidence upon ordinary subjects he wiU admit to be as sound as his own, inasmuch as in the common affairs of life they show discretion enough ; but whom he must, upon his own hypothesis, 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 beheve a man upon the verytheme upon which he is deluded ? 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 own ground a correct judgment, upon the testimony of religious and devout men to miraculous interpositions of tlie Deity. Suppose one of these to come to him and say, ' I have seen a miracle;' he would reply, 'I will believe you or not according to what you mean by a miracle : if this miracle a 08 Testimony [Lect. VI Testimony 99 which you come to teU me of is only an extraordinary natural fact, and has nothing to do with religion, I will believe you as readily as I would anybody else ; but if it is a miracle in a religious sense, I do not consider you a trust worthy 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 evidence of miracles thus assumes the belief in a God, because in the absence of that belief aU the testimony upon which miracles are received labours under an incur able 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 a formula; and as the inductive formula places a miracle outside of possibility, Hume's evidential formula secures a balance of evidence against it. It does this by establishing a common measure and criterion of proba- bUity, by which both the miracle and the testimony to it are to be tried, viz. experience.1 ' The source of our behef in the uniformity of nature is experience, and this experi ence is constant ; the source of our behef in testimony is also experience, but this experience is variable, because testimony has sometimes deceived us : we follow the con stant experience- which is against the miracle in preference to tho variablo which is in favour of it.' Testimony is thus reduced to a more derivative of cxpericueo; and then the > licciiii.se, although this philosopher has expunged the argument of cxpericueo out of tin; tablet of liumun rciwon, lie prol'i-Bses Unit lie lias no other test of truth lo fall back upon but that, and that he must take either that or none. I I formula, that the falsehood of the testimony is less contra dictory to experience than the truth of the miracle settles the question. But in the first place belief in testimony is not a mere derivative from experience, but is an original principle in our nature and has an antecedent ground of reason ; inasmuch as prior to aU observation of the residts of testimony, or the combinations of testimony with truth viewed as a series of conjunctions, we believe an apparently honest man because he is such. And in the next place a rule which would oblige everybody to disbelieve fresh intel ligence, whenever the facts were unprecedented, is an im possible one ; it could not work in human affairs ; and it in fact breaks down in the writer's own hands ; who gives in an hypothetical instance 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 infallible recipes and solutions, every reflecting reader must see the force and the truth, upon the writer's own ground, of his assertion of the obliquity, the exaggeration, and the passion of religious testimony ; and must admit that a phUosopher who thinks that 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 divines that the evidence of miracles assumes the belief in Supernatural Power, I next observe that this condition of miraculous evidence gives us the distinction between miracles and ordinary facts as matters- of credit, A miracle d if fors from an ordinary fact in tho first placo as a subject of credit, simply as being an extraordinary fact, and wo naturally re quire a greater amount of evidence for it on that account. There is, indeed, the greatest unlikeliness that any occur rence whatever, which comes into our head by chance or IOO Testimony [Lect. intentional conception, though it is of the commonest kind, will 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 be tween the improbability of ordinary facts and the impro* bability of miracles ; or therefore in the amount of evidence 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 Ukelihood 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 evidence, is immediately neutralized by the appearance of evidence, to which it offers no resistance : while that improbability which arises from the marveUous character of an event naturaUy offers a resistance to evidence, which must therefore be the stronger in order to overcome such resistance. (2.) But if we take in the whole notion of a miracle not as a marveUous 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 of faith for the reception of it. It is true that all belief in testimony implies 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 own 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 belief in it is so necessary and so matter-of-course an act in us, that we cannot regard the mere belief in testimony as faith in the received sense of that word. We may never have Been a well-known place in our own country or V] Testimony 101 A C* abroad, but if the place is universally 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 misapplication of language to caU 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 experience. But when the facts which are the subject of testimony are in full accordance with our experi ence, then, the testimony being competent and sufficient, belief is unavoidable, it is as natural to an atheist or a materialist as it is to a believer ; and therefore in such cases belief in testimony does not involve the principle of faith. But a miracle in assuming the existence of super natural power, assumes a basis of faith. A miracle has a foot, so to speak, in each world ; one part of it resting upon earth, whUe. the other goes down beyond our intellectual reach into the depths of the invisible world. The sensible fact is subject to the natural law of testimony, the Divine intervention Tests upon another ground. A miracle is both an outward fact, and also an invisible 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 tho just weight of testimony, they have not sufficiently attended to this distinction, and have over looked the deep gulf which divides 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 tho reception of them only drew upon that usual and acknowledged belief in testi mony by which we accept the facts of ordinary history. But this is to forget the important point that a miracle is on one side of it not a fact of this world, but of the in- 102 Testimony [Lect 1 visible world ; the Divine interposition in it being a super natural 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 ordinary qualities of candour and fairness used in estimating historical evidence generally, having, in the previous admission of a Super natural Power, first tried our faith, This admission of divines, again, that tho cvidonco of miracles assumes the belief in a Personal Deity, supplies us with the proper ground on which to judge of some posi tions which haye been recently promulgated on the subject of miracles and their evidence. " No testimony," it has been said, " can reach to the supernatural : testimony can only apply to an apparent sensible fact ; that it is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the previous belief and assumption of the parties." (3.) Does then this statement only mean to distinguish iii the case of a miracle between tho fact and the cause, that the fact alone can be a subject of testimony, not a super natural 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 evi dence or attestation. Testimony docs not pretend to in- cludo in its report of an extraordinary fact the rationale of that fact; it does not profess to penetrate beyond the phenomenon, and put itself in contact with the source and original of it, and thence bring back the intelligence that that source lies outsido of physical law in a special act of the Divine will. This species of evidence has its own office, which is to attest visible and sensible occurrences ; •i. t» V] Testimony to; 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 occur rences are interpositions of the Deity depends upon the existence of a Deity to begin with, and next upon the argument of design or final causes ; because the extra ordinary coincidence of miraculous occurrences with a pro fessed Divine commission on the part of the person who announces or commands them, proves a Divine 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 immediately by our reason from the data which testimony supplies. Thus understood, the position to which I have referred amounts to the statement that testimony is testimony, and not another kind of evidence ; it does not deny the supernatural cause of the 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 Avitness. 2. The position, therefore, that " no testimony can reach to the supernatural," if it accepts recorded miracles as facts, and only excludes from the department of testimony their cause, is a true though an unpractical distinction. Nor can this position bo objected to again if it is only to bo understood as meaning that testimony is not, sufficient to prove tho facts, without the previous assumption of Supernatural Power or the existence of God in the mind of the receiver of such testimony. For in that ease it only amounts to the admission which divines have always made upon the very threshold of the supject of miracles. The 104 Testimony [Lect. great truth upon which the evidence of all lesser instances of supernatural power depends is the truth of the super natural origin of this world — that this world is caused by the wUl of a Personal Being ; that it is sustained by that wiU, and that therefore there is a God who is the object of prayer and worship. A man who does not hold the exist ence of this Supernatural Being cannot reasonably be ex pected 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 atheism thus invalidates the testimony to miracles, the be lief in a God is wanted as a condition of its validity. 3. But is the statement that no " testimony can reach to the supernatural" made upon the ground that the mira culous fact is intrinsicaUy incredible and impossible, and that a violation of physical law is no more capable of being proved by testimony than a mathematical absurdity ? In that case the position is both religiously and philosophically untenable ; because a fact which is contrary to the order of nature is not thereby contradictory to reason ; and what is not contradictory to reason is a subject of testimony. But it is repUed that the rule that " no testimony can reach to the supernatural" does not exclude the miraculous fact from the province of testimony, but only the interpretation of that fact as a violation of law ; that the extraordinary occurrence need not be in reality a physical anomaly, in which case this rule still leaves it a subject of testimony; " that it is not tho more fact but the cause or explanation of it which is tho point at issue." (4.) If this however is to bo taken as tho intondod scope and forco of this rule, it escapes tho charge of violating common seuso only to incur that of being futile, unmeaning, and nugatory. Tostiuiony cannot as has been said, reach to more than tho occurrence VI Testimony 105 itself; the explanation of this occurrence, whether it is or is not anomalous, and whether it does or does not proceed from a supernatural cause, depends on other considerations which are not included in the report of a witness. If this rule then means no more than this, its meaning is a great faUing short of its pretension. It certainly appears at first sight to deny that miraculous facts are subjects of testi mony, and with this meaning it is a distinct and intelli gible position, though a false one. If it only signifies that testimony cannot reach to more than its very nature admits of its reaching to, the rule is in that case chargeable with the great fault of appearing to mean a great deal, and reaUy meaning nothing. It may however be suggested that in many cases cer tainly this distinction between miraculous facts and viola tions of law is practically untenable, because whatever 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 anoma lous facts, which admit of no sort of physical explanation. Admit the real external occurrence of our Lord's Eesurrec- tion and Ascension, and the interpretation of it as a miracle or contradiction to the laws of nature is inevitable. Lan guage has been used indeed as if aU the facts of the Gos pel 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 inexplicable erroneous impression on tho minds of tho witnesses. For, indeed, this distinction is no sooner made than abandoned; it is assorted that somo kind of miraculous facts aro intrinsically as facts incredible ; and in the place ofthe distinction between tho miraculous fact and the vio lation of lasv, is substituted tho distinction between tho fact, and the impression of the fact upon tho minds of the io6 Testimotiy [Lect. witnesses. (5.) Testimony, it is said, can prove the im pression upon the minds of the witnesses, but cannot " from the nature of our antecedent convictions" prove the real occurrence of the fact, that " the event really happened in the way assigned." This indeed, upon the supposition oi the intrinsic incredibility of the facts, is the only hypo thesis left to account for honest testimony to them. We have no alternative then but to fall back upon something unknown, obscure, and exceptional in tho action of human nature, in the case of the witnesses ; somo hidden root of delusion, some secret disorganization in tho structure of reason itself, or interference with tho medium and 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 intrinsic incredibility of the facts, and is illegitimate without it ; because if they are not in their own nature incredible, no occasion has come for re sorting to such an explanation; there is no reason why I should resist the natural effect of testimony, and institute this unnatural divorce between the impression 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 impossibility of the supernatural, or the inadequacy of mere testimony — its inherent defectiveness upon such 3ubject-matter, unless supplemented 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 validity and tho force of testimony, upon that previous assumption being made. Upon the supposition of the existence of a God and of Supernatural 1'ower in the first instance, com petent testimony to miraculous facts possesses an obliga tory force; it becomes by virtue of that supposition the .1 ¦is- V] Testimony 107 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 wor ship. Untrustworthy and passionate informants upon the atheistic theory, 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 religion they become sound informants ; the change of the hypothesis is a change in the character of the testi mony; the stigma which attached to it upon the one basis is reversed upon the other, and what was bad evidence upon tho irreligious is good upon the religious rationale of tho 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 important thing, upon the truth of which the conclusion that it is a miracle follows by the natural laws of reasoning. For I have shewn it to be a practically 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 evidence of miracles demands in the first instance, as the condition of its validity and force, the belief in tbe existence of a God ; if it begs the question at the very outset of Infinite and Supernatural 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 lie said, to prove the credibility of the supernatural, and you do so by assuming in limine the actual existence of it — the exist ence of supernatural power. Let this only be understood, then, and there need be no further controversy on this sub ject, " A miracle ceases to be capable of investigation by 1 08 Testimony [Lect. reason or to own its dominion : it is accepted on religious grounds, and can appeal only to the principle and influ ence of faith." (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 whoUy 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 ? Is faith, in short, only another word for arbitrary supposition ? In that case to relegate miracles to a ground of faith is simply to deprive them of aU character of matters of fact. A matter of faith is then speciaUy not a matter of fact, and miracles could only take place in the region and sphere of faith by not taking place at all. The individual uses the totally dis tinct principles of faith and reason according to the sub ject-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 believes. Faith in this case is no basis for a matter of fact ; a miracle of this sphere is not an occur rence of time and place, within the pale of history and geo graphy, but an airy vision which evaporates as the eye of reason rests upon 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 ? Is it as much reason as tho mo3t praotical common sense is, though its grounds are loss sensible and more connected with our moral nature ? In this sense faith can support matter of fact, and a miraclo in resting upon it, is not thereby not an event of history. If a God who mado the world is not a mere supposition, a notion of the mind, but a really existing Being, this Being can act upon matter *> t V] Testimony 109 either in an ordinary way or in an extraordinary way ; and His extraordinary action on matter is a visible and his torical miracle. " For evidence," it has been said, " of a Deity working miracles, we must go out of nature and be yond reason." (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 evidence of a l-evelation is itself the subject of evidence, and that not certain but only probable evidence; that it is received through a chain of human testimony ; that the belief in it is against aU our experience, and . demands in the first instance the assumption of tho existence of supernatural power ; in a word, that a miracle must be proved in spite of difficulties itself, before it can prove anything else. But how can a species of evidence which is thus encum bered itself, be effective as the support of something else ? So far from miracles being the evidence of revelation, arc they not themselves difficulties attaching to revelation ?" (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 evidence; for behef in testimony agamst experience being faith, a miracle which reaches us through testimony is necessarily an object of faith ; while the very purpose of the miracle being to prove a revelation, the same miraclo again is evidence of faith. But the objection to this double attitude of a miraclo admits of a natural answer. My own reflection indeed upon my own act of belief here, my own consciousness of tho kind of act which it, is in mo, i3 witness enough that belief in a miracle is an exercise and a trial of faith. But if faith is not more supposition, but reasonable belief upon premisses, there is no reason why a conclusion of faith should not be itself the evidence of no Testimony [Lect, something else. It is sufficient that I am rationally con vinced that such an event happened ; that whatever diffi culties I have had in arriving at it that is my conclusion. 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 in its own nature to be proof. A probable fact is probable evidence. I may therefore use a miracle as evidence of a revelation, though I have only probable evidence for the miracle. The same fact may try faith in one stage and ground faith in another, be the conclusion of certain premisses and the premiss for a farther 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 con duce 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 call tho founder of the philosophy 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 reflection 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 producing belief in connection with, and as the token of, a certain moral disposition ; that that moral temper imparted a real insight into the reasons for and the marks of truth in tbe Christian scheme, and brought out proof which was hidden without it : which proof, therefore, though it did not answer every purpose which evidence can answer, answered its designed purpose : in other words that the purpose of evidence was qualified by the purpose of trial; it being the Divine intention that the human heart V] Testimony 1 1 1 itself should be tlie illuminating principle, throwing light upon that evidence, and presenting it in its real strength.1 This position then requires the caution to go along with it, that we have no general liberty in individual cases of unbelief to attribute 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 full and complete evidence than we possess, and a reason which is in consistency with the Divine attributes. (9 ) It pre sents the Christian evidence as under Providence limited and measured for our use. One school of writers on Christian evidence has assumed too confidently that any average man, taken out of the crowd, who has sufficient common sense to conduct his own affairs, is a fit judge of that evi dence — such a judge as was contemplated in the original design of it. One great writer especially, of matchless argu mentative powers, betrays this defect in his point of view : and in bringing out the common-sense side of the Christian evidence — the value of human testimony — with irresist ible 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 evidence is designed for the few, and not for the many. Because Christianity is the religion 1 " II n'etait done pas juste qu'il p.irfit d'une nianiere inanifestoinciifc divine ct absolument capable de convaincre tous les honimes ; mais il u'ctait pna juste anssi qu'il vint d'uno mauiero si cacluSc, qu'il ne pfit cti-o reconnu de cenx qui lc chercheraient sincercment. 11 a voulu se romlie paiTaitcment connaissable ii ecux-lo, ; ct ainsi, voulnnt pnmitrc \ decouvcrt ,'i eeux qui le olierehent lie tout leur caw, et cache a, cenx qui lo fuicnt de tout leur cicur, it tempore sa coniiaissaneo en sorte qu'il a domic ilrs marques de soi visibks il ccux qui le chcrchcnt, ct obscures iV cenx qui nc lo chorchcp.t pas. Ilyn asscz dc lnniic.re pour eeux qui ue ilcsircnt quo de voir, et asse/, d'obseuritc- pour eeux qui out une disposition contraiie." — Pascal, ed. Faurjcre, vol. ii. p. 151. (9.) 112 Testimony [Lect. of a large part of the world, and prophesies its own posses sion of the whole world, it does not follow that the evidence of it must be adapted to convince 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 becomes a permanent and hereditary belief by a natural law of transmission. The Christian body is enlarged by growth and stationariness combined ; each successive age contributing its quota, and the acquisi tion once made remaining. This is the way in which, as a matter of fact, Christianity became the religion of the Boman empire. In no age, from the apostolic downwards, did the evidence of the Gospel profess to be adapted to convince the mass ; it addressed itself to the few, and the hereditary belief of the mass followed. Christianity has indeed at times spread by other means than its evidences, by the sword, and by the rude impulse of un civilized people to follow 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 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 own, have by a Christian education grown to a real inward perception of it; and hereditary belief has thus, by providing a more indul- gont trial, sheltered individual faith. And tho same prin ciple of growth can at last convort tho world ; however slow tho process tho result will como, if Christianity always keeps tho ground it gets ; for that which always gains and never loses must ultimately win tho whole. LECTURE VI UNKNOWN LAW St. John v. 17 My Fatlier worketh hitherto, and I work. MIBACLES are summarily characterized as violations of the laws of nature. But may not the Scripture mir acles, however apparently at variance with the laws of nature, be instances of unknown law ? This question is proposed in a different spirit by different persons ; by some as a question upon which their belief in these miracles depends ; by others only as a speculative question, though one answer to it would be more in accordance with their inteUectual predilections 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 distinction proposed in our question is a distinction between those miracles as facts, and those miracles as miraeles, in the popular sense ; but if we only regard the miracles as facts at first, we must still know what those facts are rospoofing which the question, whothor thoy are properly miraculous, i.e. violations of law or not, is raised. Are wo to tako those facts as they stand in Scripture, or as seen to begin witli through an interpre tative medium of our own, reduced to certain supposed true and original events, of which the Scripture narrative is a transcondental representation ? As a previous condi- 11 H4 Unknown Law [Lect. tion of the consistency of those facts with law, are the facts themselves to undergo an alteration ? I reply, that in an inquiry into the particular question whether the Scripture miracles may or may not be instances of unknown 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 evidence, and one which must be met in its own 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 ? 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 inquirer at first is very apt to confuse them, and to suppose that the speculation upon the question of unknown law gives him a right in the first instance par tially to reduce the facts of Scripture, in order to accommo date 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 tho unknown law affects the facts themselves, as, upon the theory that they are only impressions upon the mind of the witnesses, it does, BtUl the facts which are supposed to be accounted for by impression are tho facts stated in Scripture, and not other facts. Upon tho question then of the roferriblcness of miracles to unknown law, wo must first observe that the expression 'unknown law,' pas "used here, has two meanings, be tween which it is important to distinguish ; i.e. that it means either unknown law-, or unknown connexion with J VI] Unknown law H5 known law. I wiU take the latter of these two meanings first. « 1. With respect then to unknown connexion with known law, the test of the claim of any extraordinary isolated and anomalous fact to this connexion is, whether it admits of any hypothesis being made respecting it, any possible physical explanation, which would firing it under the head of any known law. A law of nature in the scientific sense, which is the sense in which we understand the term in this inquiry, 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 impUes and is a class of facts. It foUows that no single or exceptional event can come ly direct observation under a law of nature; but that if it comes under it at all it can only do so by the medium of some explanation by which it is brought out of its apparent isolation and singularity into the same situation with a class of facts, i.e. some explanation which shows that the exceptional character of the fact is owing to a peculiarity in the situation of its subject-matter, and not in the iaws which act upon it. It may be that there is something ex traordinary in the position of a natural substance, upon which, however, tho known laws of nature are operating all tho time, producing their proper effects only under un wonted 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 tho only thing singular is the situation of the stone. There is thus an important distinction between insulated and anomalous facts, and tlie common current facts of nature, with respect to their reduction to law. The common current facts of nature, where not yet reduced to law, aro brought under law, if they are brought under it, by direct observation ; by fixing upon the invariable conjunctions of antecedent and u6 Unknown Law [Lect. VI] Unknown Law 117 consequent, which are reaUy 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 unknown 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 invariable conjunctions being of real occurrence, and only requiring to be seen. By tracing those conjunctions back we should have the law of weather from that point ; and could we trace them back up to the point at which they Unk on to the ascer tained series of natural causes, then we should have the full law of weather. But single or exceptional facts only come under a law of nature by tho medium of an explana tion or hypothesis, which connects the deviation with the main Une, and engrafts the anomaly upon a known stock. There is, indeed, besides a.regular hypothetical explana tion of an anomalous fact in the physical world, another and more obscure condition in which a fact may lie without 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 whoUy dark and wanting in aU trace and vestige of physical type, but is said to await solution. It wiU be enough, however, if without express mention we understand this modification as in cluded under the head of an explanation or hypothesis. So long then as an eccentric fact admits of an explana tion in keeping with known law, we are not justified in pronouncing it to bo contradictory to known law; for though the explanation is hypothetical, so long as it is admissible, wo arc prohibited from asserting tho contrary to it, or tho absolute lawlessness of tho fact. But, on the other hand, take a supposed or imaginary anomalous occurrence— and many such are conceivable — to which this I v» 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 contradiction to known law, and must be set down as such. Thus, according as there is room or no room for scientific explanation, one kind of physical miracle ranks as iii latent connexion with the system, another as outside of it. 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 down as an ultimately natural fact ; because there the system of nature is elastic, and is enabled by its elasticity to accom modate and afford a place for it; while no such prospect is held out to an imagined instance of irregularity in inani mate nature, because the system there is rigid and inflex ible, and refuses to accommodate the ahen. The most ex traordinary 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. (1.) 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 ex planation being given of them, upon which this connexion would foUow. Upon this question then I observe, to begin with, that a whole class of Gospel miracles meets us in which tho material result taken by itself, and apart from tho manner and circumstances of its production, cannot bo pronounced absolutely to bo incapabla of taking place by the laws of nature. Indeed, this observation may be said to embrace tho largest class of miracles; I refer to tho bodily cures and restorations of the functions of bodily organs, by which the blind received their sight, tho lamo n8 Unknown Law [Lect. 4*: i VI] Unknown Law 119 walked, the lepers were cleansed, and the deaf heard. Suppose 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 nothing in the nature of the fact itself to exclude the supposition that it was owing to some unknown natural cause. A blind man, even one born blind, suddenly recovers his sight. Were such an occurrence to be reported upon good evidence at the pre sent day, it would not be received as anything physically incredible, but would be set down, however extraordinary, even if quite unique, as referrible to some natural cause : and scientific men might proceed to suggest hypothetical explanations of it. The same may be said of a sudden re storation 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 announce ment or with express supernatural pretensions in the agent. It is this correspondence of two facts which constitutes a miracle. If a person says to a blind man, ' See,' and he sees, it is not the sudden return of 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 extraordi nary coincidence, especiaUy if it is repeated in other cases. The' chief characteristic, indeed, of miracles and that which distinguishes them from mere marvels, is this cor respondence of the fact with a notification ; — what wc may call the prophetical principle. For indeed, if a prophecy is a miracle, a miracle too is in essence a prophecy ; it con- * v» lm tains a correspondence between an event and an announce ment ; and the essence of prophecy is the correspondence, not the futurity, of the event predicted. Consequently, a miracle can afford to dispense with the full supernatural character of it's physical result, in consideration of this other source of the miraculous character, i.e. the propheti cal element. 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 announce ment of it, even if the former be in itself reducible to law, are, taken together, proof of the same. (2.) Can any physical hypothesis be framed then accounting for the apparently superhuman knowledge and power in volved in this class of miracles, — in these instances, i.e. of fulfilled prophecy where an event takes place in correspond ence with an announcement ; in these immediate cures of diseases by personal agency ? (3.) It must be evident that none can be, supposing the miraculous facts of Scripture to stand as they are recorded. While it must also be remem bered that no hypothesis which ever accounted for a certain portion of the Scripture .miracles, if one such could be ima gined, would be of any service on this side, unless it also accounted for the whole. But could any scientific hypothesis be constructed, which would account for the conversion of water into wine, the multiplication of the loaves, and the resurrection of dead men to life? Undoubtedly if the supposition could be entertained that these miracles as recorded in the Cospels 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 120 Unknown Law [Lect. VI] Unknown Law 121 physical law would have been indebted for its success, not to any hypothesis of phUosophy, but simply to an altera tion 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 reconcileable with known law ; and that is the theory that they were not facts, 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 its liability to eccentric and abnormal conditions, and with them to delusions, 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 really ever arisen from such processes — with professedly artificial conditions of the man, produced by premeditated effort and skill ; of which even the asserted effects 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 particular that they should think that for a certain period they had been frequently seeing and conversing with a Person, whose disciples they had been, who had returned to life again after ft public death ; when they never saw Ilim at that time, or spoke to Him, — this is absolutely incrodiblo. And therefore tho theory of impression is untenable upon tho facts of Scripture as they stand, and supposes different facts. I speak of tho theory of impression as a physical theory: some speculative divines have proposed the hypothesis of a miraculous im- 1 4 pression 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 whatever criticism it may be open, has nothing in common with the physical explanation here noticed. (4.) 2. But now let us shift the inquiry from the ground which it has taken hitherto, to the other and different ques tion, whether miracles may not be instances of laws which are as yet wholly unknown ; — 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 con nected has to be discovered too. This question, then, is commonly caUed a question of " higher lav/." " AU analogy," we are told, " leads us to infer, and new discoveries direct our expectation 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.'' x A " higher law," then, is a law which com prehends under itself two or more lower or less wide laws : and the way in which such a rationale of higher law would be applicable to a miracle would be this ; — that U any as yet unknown law came to light to which upon its appear ance this or that miracle or class of miracles could be re ferred as instances; in that case we could entertain the question whether the newly discovered law under which the miracles came, and the old or known law under which the common kind of facts como, were not both reducible to a still more general law, which comprehended them both. But boforo wo can entertain the question of " higher law" as applicable to miraculous and to common facts, we must first have this lower law of tho miraculous ones. Could we suppose, e.g., the possibility of some higher law 1 Dabbagc's Ninth Itriilgwntcr Treatise p. 82, 122 Unknown Law [Lect. into which both electricity and gravitation might merge ; yet the laws of electricity and the law of gravitation 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 e-.er to be compre hended 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 possibility of any unknown laws coming to Ught which would embrace and account for miracles, one concomitant of this discovery is inevit able, viz., that those fresh laws wiU involve fresh facts. A law of nature, in the scientific sense, cannot exist without a class of facts which comes under it ; because it is these facts 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 suspensions of gravitation without such suspensions of gravitation, a law of miraculous productions of material substances without such productions, a law of resurrections from the dead without resurrections from the dead, — these laws are absurdities. To make an imaginative supposition — Could we conceive that in a future age of the world it were observed, that persons who had passed through cer tain extraordinary diseases which had then shewed them selves in the human framo, returned to lifo 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., recurring resurrections. No new class of facts, indeed, is required when an ex ceptional phenomenon is explained by a knoivn law; for a VI] Unknown Law 12' known 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 pro vided 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 exceptional and its law new, that new law implies 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.1 But such being the case, what does this whole supposi tion 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 bo difficult to say what was a new order of nature, if recurrent miracles with invariable antecedents did not constitute one. But a new order of nature being involved in this supposition, it immediately follows that this whole supposition is an irrelevant, a futile, and nugatory one as regards the present question. A law of nature in the scientific sense has reference to our expe rience alone : when I speak of a law of nature, I mean a 1 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 history, and has been a running accompaniment of human nature. And it is true also that a vague attempt has always been going on to con nect this supernaturalism with law. The science of magic in its way madu 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 somo degrco to have penetrated into this secret. Again, tho more exalted kind of heathen thaumaturgy coiinec.ied miraculous powers with the development of human nature, and deduced them from a higher humanity, as a specimen of which the celebrated Apol- lonius Tyanrcus had them assigned to him. And the belief of mde tribes has snhnrdinaled mystical gifts of prophecy and second sight to the law of family descent. But, making allowance for exceptional cases in which it may havo pleased tho Divine power to interposic, the mature judgment of mankind has set aside tho facts of current siipcriinluralisin, except so fai ns they are capable of being naturally accounted for; and has, with the facts, set aside all pretension to acquaintance with the law of them. 124 Unknown Law [Lect. law of nature with this reference. A miracle therefore as a violation of the laws of nature assumes the same condi tion, and is relative to our knowledge. A miracle is thus not affected by any imaginary supposition of a future diffe rent 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 lies beyond the course of nature as it comes under our cognizance, but simply by this matter-of-fact test. It is opposed to custom, — to that universal custom which we call experience. But experience is the experience which we have. A miracle, could we suppose it. becoming the ordinary fact of another different order of nature, would not be the less a violation of the present one ; or therefore the less a violation of the laws of nature in the scientific 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 dealings with other parts of His creation, as natural as the visible known course of things appears to us."1 And with respect to the beings who are here supposed, who have the knowledge of other parts of the universe, and of God's dispensations there, this sugges tion holds good ; for the occurrence of the same dispensa tions, with the same antecedents in the different parts of tho univorso, would constitute an ordor of nature in tho universe to thoso who wcro acquainted with it. But wo 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.2 Tho relation of a miracle to the laws of nature also fixes 1 Analogy, Part i. ch. i. « Vid. Preface to Second Edition. ¦*f VI] Unknown Law 125 Y t its relations to general laws. The only intelligible meaning which we can assign to general laws is, that they are the laws of nature with the 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 aU affects the laws of nature in the scientific sense. Those laws being simply recurrent facts, are exactly the same, whatever be the Divine method em ployed in producing those facts. But divines take up the subject at tho 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 divine action is inconceivable, an insoluble one. The uniformity 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 acts ; 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 inter positions. (J .) General laws, then, being only tho laws of nature with a particular conception appended to thein ; if miracles are not reducible to the laws of nature, they arc not reducible to generul laws. Nor, indeed, considering what has been said, would such a reduction be very consistent with the reason upon which general laws stand. For if general 126 Unknown Law [Lect. 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 reduce these special interpositions back again from direct action to general law, would be to undo the object of this distinction, and after drawing a line of demarcation to efface it again. The notion of general laws naturaUy fits on indeed to God's uniform operations, but is a forced addition to irregular and extraordinary acts. The subordination of miracles indeed to " general laws of wisdom,"1 if we under stand by that phrase a plan or scheme in the Divine Mind which controls tho production of miracles, thoso considera tions of utility whioh regulato their frequency, as well as limit and check their type, may well be allowed ; but this is a different use of the term. The inquiry has, indeed, been raised whether in the original design and mechanism of creation, the law or prin ciple of the system may not have been so contrived that miracles, when they occur, are as much the inevitable con sequences of that law as its regular and ordinary effects ; tho same cause or original plan which produces the order of nature, producing also the exceptions to it. It is ob served, in tho first place, that tho history of our planet, being composed of successive stages or periods of animal and vegetable life, widely different from each other, these several orders of nature may have been but the gradual evolution of one primary law, impressed upon nature on its first construction ; tho highest law of the system being such that it includes all these changes under it, and that no one formation singly, but tho whole series, constitutes the full 1 Bishop Bailor observes that " God's miraculous interpositions may have been all along by general laws of wisdom. Tims, that miraculous powers should bo exerted at snch times, upon such occasion;;, in such degrees, and manners, and with regard to such persons, rather than lo others, &e., all this may have been by general laws." — Analogy, Part ii. ch. iv. Vid. Preface to Second Edition. VI] Unknown Law 127 and adequate expression of it. And from this application to successive orders of nature, the same rationale is then applied to the order of nature and the deviation 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 numbers, when the law which governed the series fails, and another law comes in, pro ducing another succession of numbers, or operating only in a single instance; after which it gives way again to tho first law. Ncithor of tho two successions alone, nor the succession or the insulation alone, expresses the highest law of the machine, which includes them both. So, it is said, the order of nature and the exception to it, or miracle, may both be included under the original law which was impressed upon the structure of nature. "That one or more men at given times shah be restored to life, may be as much a consequence of the law of existence appointed for man at his creation, as the appearance and reappearance of the isolated cases of apparent exception in the arithmeti cal machine."1 (6.) If this hypothesis, then, of tho origin of miracles is entertained as a truth of natural science, an intcrmiltinn- law of nature as much implies recurrent facts, with the same invariable antecedents, as any other law of nature does; for if the exception is not as regular as the rule, tho exception is not known as a rule or law at all. A clock is so constructed as to strike every hour but ono, when it omits tho stroko; but it always omits the same hour. A calculating engine injects into a lengthened series of regu larly succeeding numbers an insulated deviation; but upon 1 Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, p. 390. Vid. Preface to Second Edition, 128 Unknown Law [Lect. \ the same adjustment 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 junc tures, and therefore do not come under an intermitting law of nature. This hypothesis, then, of the origin of miracles cannot be maintained as a truth of natural science, and can only be entertained as a speculation respecting the action of the Deity, the mode of operation attributable to the Universal Cause in the production of a miracle — that His action hi 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. But aU this is a distinct question for that of a miracle's referribleness to a law of nature, which law is concerned, not with causation, but with facts. As a speculation respecting the Divine action, and the mode of the causation of a miracle, this hypothesis would not, if adopted, make the sUghtest difference in the nature and character of a miracle. The date of its causa tion would be put back, but the miracle itself Avould remain exactly what it was before upon the ordinary hypothesis : it would be as much an exception to the order of nature as before ; an exception as much the result of the Divine intention and design as before; and to answer the same specific object which it answered before. Indeed, it is not tho dosign of this hypothesis to make any diffcrenco in the miraclo itself, or oxplain it away, but only, loaving it as miraculous as ovor, to suggost a more philosophical rationale of its origin. Nor must such an hypothesis bo confounded with attempts at physical explanations of miracles. I have throughout this inquiry taken the torm ' law of VI] Unknown Law 129 nature ' in the scientific sense, as referring 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 arrive at a totally different conclusion upon the question of the contrariety of miracles to the law3 of nature. In that case, " Nothing," 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 accord ing to its own nature ; and the second force cannot sus pend 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 Divine 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 ? 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 hy 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 own weight, is lifted up by this spiritual being— myself. lt is true my spirit is connected with tho matter which it moves in a modo in which tho Croat Spirit who acts upon matter in a miraclo is not; but to what purpose is tin's diffcrenco so long as any action of spirit upon matter is incomprehensible. Tho action of God's Spirit in the miracle of walking on the water is no more inconceivable 1 than the action of my own spirit in holding up my own I 13° Unknown Law [Lect. VI] Unknown Lazv 13* hand. Antecedently one step on the ground and an ascent to heaven are alike incredible. But this appearance of incredibility is answered in one case literaUy ambulando. How can I place any reliance upon it in the other ? The constitution of nature, then, disproves the incredi bility 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 ascend ing scale. First come the laws which regulate unorganized matter; next the laws of vegetation; then, by an enormous leap, the laws of animal life, with its voluntary motion, desire, expectation, fear ; and above these, again, the laws of moral being which regulate a totally different order of creatures. Now suppose an intelligent being whose ex perience was limited to one or more lower classes in this ascending scale of laws, he would be totally incapable of conceiving the action of the higher classes A thinking piece of granite would be totally incapable of conceiving the action of chemical laws, which produce explosions, contacts, repulsions. A thinking mineral would be totally incapable of conceiving the laws of vegetable growth; a thinking vegetable could not form an idea of the laws of animal life ; a thinking animal could not form an idea of moral and iuteUectual truth. All this progressive succes sion of laws is perfectly conceivable backward and an absolute mystery forward; and therefore when in the ascending 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 belief. And so Ave arrive again by another route at tlie 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 .- y up stage, or is there a sphere of free-will above the human, in which, as in the human, not physical law but spirit moves matter ? And does that free-will penetrate the universal frame invisibly to us, an omnipresent 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 supre macy he falls, for under fate he is not free himself; all nature either ascends to God, or descends to law. Is there above the level of material causes a region of Providence ? If there is, nature there is moved by the Supreme Free Agent; and of such a realm a miracle ia the natural production. (7.) 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 cus tom, common conceptions, and ordinary history, and re quiring 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 wc dare not trust our reason, but mistake its inconceivable truths for sublime but unsubstantial visions ; the other is that to which we rise when wc dare trust our reason, and the evidences which it lays before us of the existence of a Personal Supreme Being. Miracles in their Practical Result 133 LECTURE VII MIRACLES REGARDED IN THEIR PRACTICAL RESULT Romans vi. 17 But God be thanked, tluU ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart thatfrmn of doctrine which was delivered you. IN judging of the truth of miracles the revelation of which they were designed to be the proof necessarily comes into consideration ; and specially the practical result of that revelation. Without assuming the truth of revela tion, we can consider this result. It is a reasonable in quiry 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 result — such a result that no other change in the world is to be compared with it — that is a very serious thing to take into account. Wo cannot avoid attaching woight to it, giv ing it a placo in tho proof, and feeling improssod by tho im portance of such a circumstance in relation to the question, Without using — which we have no right to do — this result as direct, evidence of tho facts in dispute ; if tho miraculous system has been a practical one, with immense practical effects upon mankind, it plainly ought to have the benefit t,» *- V of this consideration in the estimate of its claims to be re ceived as true. It is admitted, then, that Christianity has produced the greatest change that has been ever known 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 without the evidence of miracles. And, first, a religion founded on miracles as compared with a religion founded upon the evidences of a God in nature, has a much superior motive power in the very fact of its supernatural origin. Undoubtedly the love of the supernatural may become 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 religious, and a powerful instru ment of religion. A supernatural fact, a communication from the other world, is a potent influence ; it rouses, it solemnizes ; it is a strong motive to serious action. The other world stands before us in a more real aspect im mediately. The notion of God as a Personal Being must be beyond aU comparison greater in a religion founded upon miracles, than in one founded upon nature : because a miracle is itself a token of personal agency, of a Will and Spirit moving behind tho veil of matter, in n way which tho works of nature do not present. Tho tendency of a religion founded on nature, or Deism, is to establish ns the world of God and man nature alone, tho religious principle being adopted, but made to coincido with tho sphere ot" this world, Such a religion is weak in inlhieneo. Tin- voice of God must come out of another world to command with authority; such a voice spake to Abraham, Isaac, and 134 Miracles regarded [Lect. VII] in their Practical Result 135 Jacob ; their religion 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 nature have been broken through but once, we are divided by a whole world from a mere physical basis of religion. Do we in imagination assign a certain extraordinary depth and seriousness to those who have seen supernatural facts ? 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 miracles were, besides being proofs of doctrine, also acts of mercy, sympathy, and beneficence; and attention has been pro perly directed to the philanthropical character of them that they were not mere acts of power but acts of love. Indeed, the philanthropical purpose was the primary and principal 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 naturally achieved by the medium ofthe philanthropical object ; the general purpose was fulfilled by the very same acts which also served the special, particular, and occa sional purposes. The one object adapted itself to the times and opportunities of the other, followed, waited upon, and linked itself on to them ; the proof of a dispensation was communicated in the form of miracles for the temporary relief and benefit of individuals. 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, challenging 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 which love pointed out, were elicited naturaUy 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. Still, however naturaUy and in whatever connexion with other objects the evidential function of miracles was introduced, that function was not the less the principal object of miracles ; that on which they depended for any advantage ensuing from them extending beyond the original and local occasions, any permanent advantage to the world at large, any result affecting the interests of mankind. Will it be said that these philan thropical miraculous acts were a revelation of the character of God to man as a God of mercy and love ? They could not be that, however, except by the medium ofthe eviden tial function. For they could only be a revelation in act of the Divine character, on the supposition that the Person who wrought them was " God manifested in the flesh " — a truth for which the doctrine of the Incarnation, which is the result of evidence, 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 writers 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 (a^op/iij) of moral practice, whence we date, not cer tainly the complete regeneration of the world, but such an alteration in it as divides the world after the Christian era from the world before it. The Epistle to the Romans is in substance a declaration of this power and effect of Christian doctrine, a prophecy, if we may call it so, of the actual result which has folloAved 136 Miracles regarded [Lect. VII] in their Practical Result W it. ^ This Epistle is distinguished as the great doctrinal Epistle, and truly; but this is not an adequate description of it ; because 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 Romans 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, morally speaking, a failure, and had utterly disappointed the design for which it was made; not because man was without the knoAvledge of his duty,' but because, the knowledge existing, there was between knowledge and action a total chasm, which nothing yet had been able to fiU up. The Apostle looks upon that as yet unbridged gulf, this incredible inabUity of man to do what was right, with profound wonder; yet such was the fact. The- subUme moral maxims of Oriental nations strike us noAv; 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? Has it even a practical intention that deserves to be caUed so ? No ; it is a beautiful erec tion of moral sentiment, but there it ends. Man possesses a moral nature, and, if he has intellect 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 thick of his ordinary life, and ask him to state in words what is his moral creed ? Has ho any doubt about it ? None: ho immediately puts down a list of the most sublime moral truths and principles. But as regards thoir being a law to himself, ho feels that ho has more to do Avith that than with anything elso which is impossible. Between them and action there exists in his eyes an impassable interval ; and so far as relates to himself, as soon as ever these truths are I formally and properly enunciated, their whole design and purpose is fulfiUed. Such was the contrast Avhich met St. Paul in the condi tion of the whole Avorld Jew and Gentile — knowledge with out action. What was there to fill up this void, and effect a junction between these two ? Now Avhen a man feels something to be wholly out of his reach, and that he has nothing to do with it, because he cannot do it; the first notion of a remedy for this sense of utter impotence is an appeal to his will — Believe that you can do it, and you can do it. But how can a man beheve simply because he is told to do so ? Believe upon no foundation ? On the other hand, if you can tell him anything new about him self, any actual fresh source of strength from Avhich he has not draAvn but now may draAV, this is a ground for a neAv behef about himself and what he can do. And this ground for a neAv belief about himself is Avhat St. Paul proceeds to lay before impotent and despairing man, whose cry was, "To will is present with me, but Iioav to perform that which is good I find not. For the good Avhich I would I do not, but the evU which I would not that I do. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " Nothing but some wholly new agency, some effective and powerful .motive not yet known to the world, could set this sluggish nature in action ; but that motive St. Paul could supply. The force, then, Avhich Christianity applied to human nature, according to St. Paul, and by which it Avas to pro duce this change in the moral state of man, avus a new doc trine. This new impulse and inspiration to goodness, able to lift him abovo tho power of sin, the lovo of tho world, and tho lusts of tho lle3h, Avas contained in tho great truth of tho Incarnation and Death of the Son of God. God was by this transcendent act of mediation reconciled to man, pardoned him, and sent him forth aneAv on his course, Avith the gift of the Holy Spirit in his heart. This new founda- i38 Miracles regarded [Lect. tion, then, upon Avhich human hfe is raised is an actual event which has taken place in the invisible world ; but inasmuch as God communicates the advantage of that event to man by the medium of man's OAvn knoAvledge of and belief in it, this event necessarily becomes a doctrine ; and that doctrine is the neAv impulse to human nature. " The righteousness of God is manifested unto all and upon all them that believe." The knoAvledge of and faith in the neAv supernatural relation in which he stands to God, is henceforth the moral strength of man, that which enables him to obey the Divine laiv. That new relation does not produce its effect without his own convictions, but knowing it and believing it, he experiences a movomont from it so forcible, so elevating, and so kindling, 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 Avhat the laAV could not do, in that it Avas weak through the flesh, God sending 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 shall quicken our mortal bodies, by His Spirit that dwelleth in us." " He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shaU He not Avith Him also freely give us aU things ? " x He appeals to men's be lief in the great facts and doctrines of the Gospel, as that which is henceforth to constitute the motive power to urge them to and fix them in moral practice. The prefaces, " How shall we," " Khoav ye not," " Reckon yourselves," " Ye aro debtors to," " Ye are servants to," express the sense of an impossibility of acting against such a belief if it is genuine. If we examine the mode in Avhich the doctrine of the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God is adapted to act 1 Rom. viii. 2, ;,', it, 32. VII] in their Practical Result 139 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 Atone ment stamps upon the mind with a power, Avith Avhich no other fact could, the righteousness of God. To trifle with a Being who-has demanded this Sacrifice is madness ; and hence arises awe : but from the acceptance of the Atone ment 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 his very strictness, because it is tlie greater prize. Thus tho belief in the Atonement becomes that inspiring motive to action which St. Paul represents it as being. Man appears in his Epistles as a pardoned being, — pardoned by that very God of Avhom he thus stands in awe, — and as a par doned being a rejoicing being; rejoicing, not because 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 Avhen we Avere enemies Ave Avere reconciled to God bythe death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life." x From that event man dates his adop tion, his glorious liberty, the law of the Spirit of life, the witness of that Spirit in his own heart, the expectation of that glory which shah be revealed in him, and the gift of eternal life. Wo thus observe it as a remarkable characteristic of Scripture, and especially of St. Paul's language, that it takes what may be called the high vieAv of human nature ; i.e., of Avhat human nature is capable of Avhen tho proper motive and impulse is applied to it. In this sense St. Paul, if I may use the expression, believes in human nature ; he thinks it capable of rising to great heights even in this life, he sees that in man which really can triumph over the 1 Rom. v. 10. i4o Miracles regarded [Lect. Avorld, the flesh, and the devU ; which can struggle, and which can conquer in the struggle. His is what may be called the enthusiastic view of human nature, though tem pered by the wisdom of inspiration. He sees in Christian doctrine that strong force which is to break down the vis inertice of man, to kindle into life 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 Avith vehemence and with rapture, as the visions of hope rise up before him, and man is seen in the prospect over all the face of the earth, as cending in mind to heaven. Hence it is that the flood of thought becoming too rapid for the medium which conveys it, struggles with and interrupts itself; though at the same time he is equaUy arrested by the mystery of hmitation which 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 capabUities of human nature which a doctrinal foundation imparts, Ave turn to the idea of man presented to us in a religion of pure Deism. The religion of Mahomet is not a doctrinal religion ; it is Avith- out an Incarnation, without an Atonement ; no sacrifice for sin reveals the awful justice of God, no pardon upon a sacrifice His awful mercy ; in the high court of heaven the Deity sits enthroned in the majesty of omnipotence and omniscience, but without the great symbol of His Infinite Righteousness by His side — the Lamb that Avas slain. And now observe tho effect of this doctrinal void upon tho idoa of God aud the idea of man in that religion. If one had to oxpressin a short compass tho character of its remarkable founder as a teacher, it Avould bo that that great man had no faith in human nature There were two things Avhich he thought man could do and would do for the glory of God — transact religious forms, and fight ; and upon those *!¦ VII] iu their Practical Result 14; A. two points he Avas severe ; but within the sphere of com mon practical life, where man's great trial lies, his code exhibits the disdainful laxity of a legislator, who accom modates his rule to the recipient, and shews his estimate of the recipient bythe accommodation Avhichhe adopts. Did we search history for a contrast, Ave could hardly dis cover a deeper one than that between St. Paul's overflow ing standard of the capabilities of human nature and the oracular cynicism of the great false Prophet. The writer of the Koran does indeed, if any discerner of hearts ever did, take tho measure of mankind ; and his measure is the same that Satire has taken, only expressed with the majes tic brevity of one who had once Uved in the realm of Silence. " Man is weak," says Mahomet. And upon that maxim he legislates. " God is minded to make his reli gion light unto you, for man Avas created Aveak"— " God would make his religion an ease unto you" — a suitable foundation of the code which foUowed, and fit parent of that numerous offspring of accommodations, neutralizing qualifications, and thinly-disguised loopholes to the fraud and rapacity of the Oriental, which appear in the Koran, and shew, where they do appear, the author's deep ac quaintance with the besetting sins of his devoted foUowers. The keenness of Mahomet's insight into human nature ; a Avide knowledge of its temptations, persuasives, influences under which it acts ; a vast immense capacity of forbear ance for it, half grave half genial, half sympathy half scorn, issue iu a somewhat Horatian model, tho character of the man of oxperionco who despairs of any chango in man, and lays down tho maxim that wo must tako him as wo 'find him. It was indeed his supremacy in both faculties, tiie largeness of the passivo meditative nature,1 and tho sp'len- 1 Shakespeare represents the largeness of the passive nature in Hamlet but a disproportionate largeness which issues in feebleness, because ho is always thuking of tho whole of things. "A mind may easily he too large 142 Miracles regarded [Lect. dour of action, that constituted the secret of his success. The breadth and flexibility of mind that could negotiate with every motive of interest, passion, and pride in man is surprising ; there is boundless sagacity ; what is Avanting is hope, a belief in the capabUities of human nature. There is no upward flight in the teacher's idea of man. Instead of Avhich, the notion of the poAver of earth, and the impos sibility of resisting it, depresses his whole aim, and the shadow of the tomb falls upon the work of the great false Prophet, (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 tho Divino Being, His infinite acquaintance with man's frailties and temptations, is appealed to as the ground of confidence. " He is the Wise, the Knowing One," " He is the Knowing, the Wise," " He is easy to be reconciled." Thus is raised a notion of the Supreme Being which is rather an extension of the character of the large- minded and sagacious man of the Avorld, than an extension of man's virtue and holiness. He forgives because He knows too much to be rigid, because sin universal ceases to be sin, and must be given Avay to. Take a man Avho has had large opportunity of studying mankind, and has come into contact with every form of human weakness and corruption ; such a man is indulgent as a simple conse quence of his knowledge, because nothing surprises him. So the God of Mahomet forgives by reason of His vast knoAvledge. The absence of the doctrine of the Atonement makes itself felt in the character of that Being Avho forgives without a Sacrifice for sin ; sheAving that Avithout that doc- VII] in their Practical Resitlt H3 for effectiveness, and energy suffer from an expansion of the field of view. The mind of Hamlet lies all abroad like the sea — an universal reflector — ¦ but wanting tho self-moving principle. Musing, reflection, and irony upon all the world supersede action, and a task evaporates in philosophy." — Christian Remembrancer, No. 63, p. 17S. r trine there cannot even be high Deism. So knit together is the whole fabric of truth ; without a sacrifice, a pardon ing God becomes an easy God : and an easy God makes a low human nature. No longer aivful in His justice, the Wise, " the Knowing One," degrades His own act of for giveness by converting it into connivance ; and man takes fuU advantage of so tolerant and convenient a master. " Man is weak," and " God knows him," — these tAvo 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 punctilious love of our neighbour; He is considerate, He is Aviso, He knows Avhat Ave can do, and what we cannot do ; He does not condemn us, He makes alloAvance for us, " He knows us." So true is the saying of Pascal that " without the knoAvledge of Jesus Christ Ave see nothing but confusion in the nature of God and in our oavii nature." x The force which Christianity has applied to the world, and by Avhich it has produced that change in the world Avhich it has, is, in a Avord, the doctrine of grace. There has been a new poAver actually working in the system, and that poAver has Avorked by other means besides doctrine : but still it is the law of God's dealings with us to apply His power to us by means of our faith and belief in that power ; i.e. by doctrine. Faith in his oavii position, the be lief 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 Ave go into particulars, the force of the great Example 1 Pcnsdes, vol. ii. p. 317. 144 Miracles regarded [Lect. VII] in their Practical Result H5 of the Incarnation, Avhich we include in the effect of the doctrine of the Incarnation, has founded the great order of Christian, as distinguished from heathen virtues. It is evident Avhat power the great act of forgiveness in the Atonement has had in stamping the great law of forgive ness upon human hearts ; what power the Incarnation, as a great act of humiliation, has had in creating another esti mate of human rank and glory ; Avhat effect again the same great doctrine has had in producing that interest in the poor and Avhole 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 brotherhood to man Avhich the Incarnation has founded, and the recommendation of a Ioav estate contained in the Humiliation of the Incarnation. There has been deep in men's minds the notion that they were uniting themselves to that Act, and attaching to themselves the benefit of it, by copying it ; by transferring it to Christian life, and reproducing it, so to speak, in an act of their own, — the descent from their own position to that of a loAver feUow-creature. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, again, has enlightened man with respect to his body, and the re spect due to it as the temple of that Divine Spirit ; and has thus produced that different estimate of sins of the body which so distinguishes the Christian from the heathen world. The doctrine of a future life, as attested by the miracle of the Resurrection, was practically a new doctrine in the world : it has inspired a belief and a conviction of a world to come, altogether distinct from any notion enter- tainod by the hoathon ; aud it has acted as tho most power ful motive to moral practice. It must be observed that tho great public causes, which havo produced tho moral movements of communities aud of society in the modern world, have leaned upon doctrine ; and relied upon that power for the propagating energy fif <•" necessary for them. Hence has arisen the inoculation of hearts, the excitement of genuine interest. The cause of tbe poorer classes, as just stated, has had a doctrinal foun dation. 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. Chris tianity tolerated slavery in the days of the Apostles, and it does so now, because it tolerates all conditions of hfe which admit of Christian de\rotion and practice being conducted in them. But Christianity has always opposed this abuse: the Church Avas the great manumitter and improver of the condition of the serf in the middle ages ; and in the present age religious feeling has been at the bottom of the great movement against slavery. For was that being to be bought and sold whose nature Christ assumed, and for whom Christ died ? Thus the pubhc effort which ended in relieving this country from the stigma of the capture and ownership of slaves, received its impulse from doc trine ; and the great leader of it was himself the leader of a doctrinal revival. Public 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 minds of the poor, it has been indebted principally and primarily to a religious motive ; for George III. caught the animus of society and represented it correctly in his Avcll-known pro phecy of tlie day " when every man in England Avould ho able to read his Bible." And Avhenco has the relief of sickness obtained its dignity and loftiness as a duty under Christianity? Whence but from tho same great doctrine Avhich makes mankind ono body, as members of " Kim who filleth all in all?" Hence every individual member par takes of tho dignify of the whole ; and the net of niiiii.-.fer- ing to him becomes a noble service, paid to tlie whole body, and to its Head. " I Avas sick and yo visited Me, I was in K Miracles regarded [Lect. 146 prison and ye came unto Me." The idea of the dignity of man as such, tho equality of man with man in the sight ot God the nobility of ministry and service to him, for the relief of his wants and diseases, did not exist in the world before the Gospel; the heathens had no value for man as such, but only for man under certain flattering circum stances, as developed by knowledge or greatness. Reduced to his own nature, he was nothing in their eyes : the slave was another being from his master. The light of truth first broke through this blindness and stupor m the doc trine of tho Incarnation, and that doctrine is the historical date of tho modern idea of man. To say that the inspira tion of the missionary cause has been tho belief ll1 ™- tian doctrine is almost superfluous; because we can hardly in imagination conceive missionary enterprise without it. Zeal in this cause is essentially the child of faith; and without the conviction in the Church of a supernatural truth to communicate, and a supernatural dispensation to spread, Christianity must give up the very pretension ot propagating itself in the world. The great public causes which are part of modern history and distinguish modern society from ancient, thus witness to the power of doc trine • but public causes aro but ono channel m which Christian action has flowed; they do but exhibit m aggre gate forms that Christian disposition and practice which goes on principally in private. Christianity simply regarded as a code of morals will not account for this moral change in the world ; for men do not do ri-ht things 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 he, lesson itself. Nor is this change in 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 remark able leader, set up a high model, Avhich model spread on- VII] in their Practical Result 147 1 5> ginally and transmitted itself age after age by its own 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 goinfj; by earnest men, Avho infused at first their own spirit and put men of their own type into them; but the force of example became gradually Aveaker in the process of transmission ; at every stage of .the succession something of it Avas lost, till at last the body wholly degenerated. So a great example set by founders and their associates has imparted a mould and character to political communities, which has lasted somo time; but this mould has altered as tho original influence by little and little died away ; and the state has become corrupt. Thus the pattern of public spirit and devotion to the public good which was originally stamped upon Sparta, Rome, and Venice, gradually lost its hold, and those states degenerated. The force of example, then, is not self-sustaining; and therefore Avhen a moral change in society is made for a perpetuity, and is a permanent characteristic, lasting through and surviving all other changes and transitions, this effect must be owing to some other principle than that of example, some permanent force from another root, by Avhich example itself is kept up. I may add that the source of Christian practice in Christian truth does not agree with any settled principle of decay in Christian prac tice, and with extreme statements of the inferiority of modern Christians to ancient. For though doubtless, with the samo truth to movo the human heart, its energies mn,y bc brought out in one age more than in another ; still the idea of a regular tendency of Christian practice to degene rate Avith time, combines Avith the explanation 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 148 Miracles regarded [Lect. to the Romans has been fulfilled, 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. Paul assigns a certain property and effect to doctrine, viz. that of eliciting the good element in man, setting man's moral nature in action ; and that this property has been realized. The Avorld, he says, has been hitherto a failure, everything has gone wrong, because man has not been able to act ; he could not do the thing that he would ; he has laboured under an insurmountable Aveakness, and defect of somo 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 his heart, tho truth Avhich is noiv revealed from heaven the doctrine of the Incarnation and Death of Christ. This doctrine will rouse and awaken human nature, and o-ive it what it now wants — the great practical impulse. This account, I say, of the power of doctrine in St. Paul has been fulfilled by the fact. The history of man coin cides with this assertion of St. Paul's of the property of doctrine. Not that the result has been by any means a complete one, or that St. Paul expected it to be ; far other wise. 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 small number in comparison with the great mass of mankind ; and a dark shadow rests upon one portion of the field of prophecy, contrasting remarkably Avith the light and glory of the other. But the issue of the Gospel, though not a comploto result, has still been a grout result ; such a result as divides the world after tho Chris tian era morally from tho Avorld hoforo it. A stimulus has been given to human nature, which has extracted an amount of action from it whioh no Greek or Boman could havo believed possible, but which, had it been placed in VII] in their Practical Result 149 idea before him, he Avould have set aside as the dream of an enthusiast. Undoubtedly, the doctrines of false religions have ex tracted remarkable action out of human nature ; especially the doctrines of Oriental religions. The Hindoo doctrine of Absorption, e.g. has produced a great deal of extraordi nary action. But what sort of action is it ? Is it action upon the scale of our whole moral nature, worthy of that nature, or the fulfilment of the law as the Scripture calls it ? No, it is such Avild, eccentric, one-sided energy of the erratic Avill as is more allied to phrenzy than morals. The fruits of the doctrine of Absorption are gigantic feats of self-torture and self-stupefaction, ending in themselves, and unconnected with charity to man: a fruit worthy of its source. For the doctrine of Absorption is itself a false hood : no man can wish for the loss of his OAvn personality, i.e. his own annihilation : no man ever did wish for it, what ever length of torture he may have undergone to obtain it. The conception is a counterfeit ; it Avants truth, and " the tree is known by its fruits." Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? So neither can moral practice issue out of the doctrine of Absorption ; but a fiction pro duces the AvUd and poor fruit of extravagance. (2.) In attributing this effect to Christian doctrine, Ave must at the same time remember that the old Law foreshadoived that doctrine. The religion of the Jew Avas not Deism. In the first place it was founded on miracles, and on that higher revelation of the- personality of the Deity which miracles are. In tho next place it avos accompanied by the institution of sacrifico, Avhich Avas a peculiar revelation of the righteous character of God, as a rite; and an intimation of tho real Atonement as a type. From these sources was derived tho deep doctrine of repentance and forgiveness, which penetrates the Psalms and Prophecy ; the sense of is© Miracles regarded [Lect. the necessity of an act of pardon on God's part, in order to aUay the trouble in man's heart, and reinstate him in peace of mind ; the intimate communion with God upon this sense of the necessity of His favour and acceptance; the language of tender complaint and remonstrance ivith Him founded upon what Ave may call the devotional fiction of His hardness and inflexibility — the affectionate irony of prayer. In this Avhole relation to God lay the motive power of the old LaAV, the stimulus to goodness in it ; to the force of which the Jew ivas indebted for raising him above the pagan in morals ; and which actually issued in producing a body or class of holy men in every generation of the people. Whereas paganism had high individual ex amples, but not a class. But this relation under the old Law Avas an anticipation of Christian light. The Law as such could not " give life," nor " could righteousness come by the Law," as a law ; but so far as the old law contained the germ of Gospel truth, so far it gave life ; so far it sup phed an effective motive to rouse the heart of man to ex ertion. (3.) The relation of religion to morals has indeed been exem plified most conspicuously under Christianity. Morality may in the abstract exist Avithout religion, and is not iden tical Avith it ; but religion has been the practical producer of it; the practical motive to morals in the world. Our moral nature is not its own moving principle ; it is so at least very inadequately ; and so Ave find that in point of fact doctrine has been the impulse which has set it in action, lt is not in human nature to set about its Avork wholly in the dark ; it Avants a vision of the invisible Avorld, a revelation of God and of its own prospects and destiny, to set it to Avork. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and of life eternal in the same Jesus Christ, is this vision or supernatural truth which has produced action. The stroii" need of the sense of favour with God, Avhich the VII] in their Practical Result 151 Gospel manifestation of Him has created ; the overpower ing disclosure of man's destiny, 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 doc trine has been a part of human progress, a fresh ground work, a higher level gained ; analogous in morals to civili zation in 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 earlier stage of humanity ; the abandonment of a superior motive poivcr which commands the spring of action in the human heart, for an inferior one Avhich did not touch it.1 But still it Avill bo asked — Would not all this result of Christianity have been just the same without the peculiar doctrines ? are not these merely the accidental appendages of a spirit which rose up in man, Avhich has been the ener gizing poAver throughout ? But though it is always open to men, Avhen great results have taken place in connexion with certain apparent causes, to say that they would have taken place all the same witlwut those causes, this cannot in the nature of the case be more than a conjecture. We havo an obvious and matter-of fact coincidence of a higher state of mankind Avith doctrine ; Avhich coincidence is of itself a strong argument. And avo have, moreoArer, man's OAvn Avitncss to doctrine, as being the cause Avhich has pro duced this effect. If Ave are to take men's own account of their OAvn action, and their own power of action, this has been the impulse to them : the call Avhich has awakened them to moral life has been a doctrinal one; what has 'Scott in his "Force of Truth" mentions, what is remaikablc, that while he held Socinian principles himself, ho still purposely discarded them as his basis of preaching, because he saw they were not enou"h for moral purposes, i.e. for making him a successful preacher of morality, which ho was very desirous of being. " I concealed them in a great mea sure both for my credit's sake and from a sort of desire I entertained of successfully inculcating the moral duties upon those to whom 1 preached." 152 Miracles regarded [Lect. enabled them to maintain this action has been the support of certain truths, in the absence of which they would not have been able to do Avhat they did. In this state of the case, to say that all this change would have gone on with out doctrine, is unsatisfactory, and suppositional only. Let us conceive for a moment Christian doctrine obliter ated, and mankind starting afresh without it, with only the behef in a Benevolent Deity, and a high moral code. With the fact before us of Avhat has been the Avorking power of doctrine upon man's heart, and what has been the weak ness of our moral nature Avithout doctrine, could Ave com mit mankind to a moral Deism without trembling for the result ? Could Ave deprive human nature of this powerful aid and inspiring motive, and expect it to act as if it had it ? Could we look forward without dismay to the loss of this practical force which has been acting upon human nature for eighteen centuries ? Would any one in his heart expect that Christianity deprived of its revealed truths Avould retain its old strength, would produce equal fruits, the same self-sacrificing spirit, zeal, warmth, earnest ness ? that it would give the same power of Uving above the world ? that its effects on the heart, its spiritualizing influence, would be the same without its doctrines ? No ! When men speculate they want to get rid of doctrine ; but when they want practical results to be produced, then they faU back upon doctrine, as that alone which can produce them, Avhich can awaken* man from his lethargy, and sup ply a constraining motive to him. I do not mean to say that many havo not taken an active part in tho groat ob jects and movoments of Christian socioty who havo not aecoptod Christian doctrine ; hut such' men havo acted upon an idea obtained from revelation, although they havo ceased to believe tho revelation from Avhich it came. Examplo is not the full account of the origin of Christian practice, but still that practice existing, its example tells, and inoculates VII] in their Practical Result 153 many Avho reject the creed. A moral standard is imbibed with the atmosphere of Ufe. 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 doctrine of the Incarnation, to set man's moral nature in action, is the en thusiastic phUosophical sentiment of the divinity of human nature. But though I would not say that this, like other ideas Avhich have an element of truth in them, has not given a high impulse to some minds ; that it has been a forcible engine for impelling mankind to the practice of duty Avould be plainly overrating its results. And there is a reason for its weakness and Avant of power, viz. that the idea does not stand the test of observation. For let us suppose a sagacious man of great experience and know ledge of the Avorld, who had had opportunity of observing human nature upon a large scale — its expressions and its disguises, the corruption of men's motives, and all those weU-known traits and characteristics of mankind Avhich acute men have embodied in various sayings — let us sup pose such a person having laid before him for his accept ance the abpve idea of the divinity of human nature. He would treat it with derision and ridicule ; representing that though men of the profoundest sagacity have in aU ageS believed in mysteries, it is another thing to ask them to beheve that facts themselves are different from Avhat they are seen to be. But let us suppose again, the same pene trating observer not wholly satisfied Avith tho low estimate of man as tho full account of him, but catching also obscure signs of a different clement in tho being, Avorking its Avay under great disadvantages, and not to bo left out of tho cal culation, though ho cannot tell what it may turn out to be, and what it may shadow and prognosticate in tlie destiny of this creature. Were then, at this stage, the idea of a Divino scheme for the elevation of this creature to a parti- i54 Miracles regarded [Lect. .ft, cipation of the Divine nature to be offered to him, what ever astonishment the thought might excite, conscious that he had no solution of his own of the enigma before him, he Avould not Avholly reject it; but one condition he would think indispensable — he Avould not listen to the notion of this creature's exaltation except through the passage of some deep confession first, by Avhich he would condemn himself utterly, and in condemning cast off his old vileness. Without this tribute, this sacrifice to truth, such an idea Avould appear a mockery. Such a distinction as this divides one doctrine of ex alted humanity from another. A deification of humanity upon its own grounds, an oxaltation ivhich is all height and no depth, wants power because it Avants truth. It is not founded upon the facts of human nature, and therefore issues in vain and vapid aspiration, Avhich injures the solidity of man's character. That serious doctrine of man's greatness, which lays hold on man's moral nature, and brings it out, is one Avhich lays its foundation first in his guilt and misery ; his exaltation is remedial, a restoration from a falL Thus the school of experience accepts man's vileness in the Gospel portrait, the sanguine school his loftiness; the one depresses man, the other inflates him; the Gospel doctrine of the Incarnation and its effects alone unites the sagacious vieAv of human nature with the enthu siastic. It is the only doctrine of man's exaltation Avhich the observer of mankind can accept; whUe also it is only as a mystery transacted in the highest heaven that man's exaltation has ever been cared for by himself, ever com manded his serious energies. (4.) But if, as the source and inspiration of practice, doctrine has been the foundation of a new state of the Avorld, and of that change Avhich distinguishes the Avorld under Chris tianity from the world before it ; miracles, as the proof of that doctrine, stand before us in a very remarkable and VII] in their Practical Result 155 I peculiar light. Far from being mere idle feats of power to gratify the love of the marvellous; far even from being mere particular and occasional rescues from the operation of general laws ; they come before us as means for accom plishing the largest and most important practical object that has ever been accomplished in the history of mankind. They lie at the bottom of the difference of the modern from the ancient Avorld ; so far, i.c. as that difference is moral. We see as a fact a change in the moral condition of man kind, Avhich marks ancient and modern society as tAvo different states of mankind. What has produced this change, and elicited this new power of action ? Doctrine. And what ivas 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 fitting object which Avas presented for the intro duction of such means; the fitting occasion which had arisen for the use of them ; for indeed no more weighty, grand, or solemn occasion can be conceived, than the foun dation of such a new order of things in the Avorld. Extra ordinary action of Divine power for such an end has the benefit of a justifying object of incalculable weight; Avhich though not' of itself indeed proof of the fact, comes Avith striking force upon the mind in connexion Avith the proper proof. It is reasonable, it is inevitable that Ave should be impressed by such a result; for it shews that the miracu lous system has been a practical one; that it has been a step in the ladder of man's ascent, the means of introduc ing those powerful truths whi-rh have set his moral nature in action. Nov, must it be observed, can professed subsequent miracles for tbe conversion of particular populations, after the original miraculous proof and propagatiom of tlie Gospel, avail themselves of the argument Avhich applies to those original miracles themselves. Because tho argument 156 Miracles regarded "¦f [Lect. for these miracles, which is thus extracted from the great result of them, is based upon the necessity of those miracles for this result. But though the original miracles are necessary for the proof of doctrine, subsequent miracles cannot plead the same necessity; because when that doc trine has been once attested, those original credentials, transmitted by the natural channels of evidence, are the permanent and perpetual proof of that doctrine, not want ing reinforcements from additional and posterior miracles ; which are therefore without the particular recommendation to our belief, of being necessary for the great result before us. The Anglo-Saxon nation was doubtless as important a nation to convert as the Jewish or Greek; hut the miracles of our Lord and His Apostles Avere necessary to convert the Jews and the Greeks; St. Augustine's reputed 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 this respect ; the latter are without that par ticular note of truth which 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 facUitating and expediting conr version; but we are no judges of the Divine intentions with reference to the speed or gradualness of the conver sion of mankind to the Gospel; which considerations therefore stand on a different ground from the fundamental needs of a dispensation. The saying of our Lord, " Blessed aro they that havo not seen and yet havo believed," evi dently contemplates tho future growth of tho Christian faith by means of testimony to, as distinguished from tho actual sight of, tho miraculous evidences of the Gospel. This view of miracles, as tho indispensable means re producing that great result which we have before us, and that neiv moral era of the world under which wo are VII] in their Practical Result 157 living, meets again another objection Avhich is sometimes raised against the truth of miracles. ' The general sense of society,' it is stated, ' rejects the notion of miracles taking place now-a-days; these extraordinary actions of Omnipotence are conveniently located in the past. But why tins sort of general consent that a supernatural event is impossible now, if it Avas really possible then? It is evident that the imagination is only less scandalized hy 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 convicted of being unreal. and therefore Avhatever speculative arguments may be urged for the possibility of such events, the matter-of-fact test of human educated behef rejects them.' (5.) It is, then, to be admitted that the mind of society noAv is adverse to the notion of an hodiernal supernatural event. But I remark in the first place that this position is taken Avith a reserve. For, not to mention the undoubting belief in special Providences now, let a reported instance of a communication in later times between the Avorld of de parted spirits and the visible Avorld be discussed; a fair representative of the established standard of belief does not commit himself to any absolute position against the possibihty of such an occurrence. The relations between the seen and the unseen Avorlds, the state of the dead, and what channels are capable of being opened between un clothed spirit and the mind which still tenants the frame of the flesh — all this lies so completely out of our knoAv- lcdgc, that to decline to lay down tho principle of nn im- passablo boundary between ono portion of the Divine dominion and another, is folt to bo not superstition, but caution. Of the Avoight, importance, and significance of a reserve, indeed, different estimates will be formed. To some a reserved ground appears but a light appendage to a 158 Miracles regarded [Lect. dominant decision, a formality, a piece of argumentative etiquette, not to be taken into account in the general cal culation; but to others, a icserved ground is a Avcighty thing : it represents some claim Avhich is only Aveak in the scale at present because it happens to be distant, but Avhich is strong in its oivn place, and -which Ave may have some day to meet iu that place. An argumentative reserve speaks to them with the force of silent prophecy ; it points to some truth ivhose turn will come some day, perhaps •when Ave least expect it, and remind us of our proviso. All minds that require 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 equally beneath our focus ; but if in this state of the case a mind ignores whatever hovers about the dim region of the circumference and meets the vision imperfectly, it con demns itself to that barrenness which results from seeing a very little clearly, and seeing nothing else at all. A thoughtful mind sees in these distant reserves of the reason the skirts of great arguments, the borders of large regions of truth ; and the shadoAvy and imperfect vision supports the clear, enriching it with additional significance and important bearings. Thus in the Avider circuit of religious doctrine Ave may see enough in one or other particular matter of belief to think that there may be more Avhich Ave do not see ; and a theological mind Avill make allowance for its oavii defect of scope, admit such matter partially into its system, and give tbe benefit of a reserve to truths Avhich lie in the distance and in the shadoiv. When, then, it is said that society neutralizes its belief in past miracles by a practical disbelief in the possibility of present, avo reply that society does not reject the idea of the hodiernal supernatural, but expresses its judgment on that subject with a reserve. But avo next observe, that if the mind of Christian society at the present day is VII] in their Practical Result 159 adverse to the notion of hodiernal miracles, and scrutinizes with great rigour aU pretensions of that kind, there is a sound and sufficient reason which may be assigned for this fact; viz. that the great end for which miracles were designed is noAv accomplished ; and that we are now living under that later providential era, and amidot those results, to which miracles Avere the first step and introduction. If Ave do not expect miracles hoav, 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 belief in the miraculous does not stand the touchstone of the actual present; but there is another explanation of it which is just as obvious, and which a believer can give, viz. that any set of means what ever unavoidably becomes retrospective and a thing of the past Avhen the end is achieved. So far as miraculous agency is regarded as upast agency by us, there is a reason to give for this view of it, arising from the facts of the case. We are living amid mighty and deep influences, Avhich Avere originally set agoing by that agency; but which having been set going, no longer ivant it ; and at such a stage it is natural to us to look upon the irregular and extraordinary expedients employed in laying the founda tion as superseded; just as Ave remove the scaffolding when the edifice is raised, and take away the support of the arch Avhen the keystone has been inserted. The preparatory and introductory period to a final dis pensation is a natural period of miracles, such as the period which succeeds is not. In the antecedent state there \va., a great Avant felt, a void Avhich the existing dispensation did not satisfy ; and the religious thought of the day Avas cast forward into a mysterious future, not, as Christian thought is iioav, heavenwards, but towards a consummation of revelation here below. The ancient Jew saw in his oivn dispensation an imperfect structure, the head of ivhich Avas i6o Miracles Regarded still wanting — the Messiah : aU pointed to Him ; its cere monial Avas typical; and the Avhole system Avas an' adum bration of a great approaching Divine kingdom, and a great croAvning Divine act. The very heart of the nation Avas thus the seat of a great standing prophecy ; all Avas anticipation and expectation; prophets kept alive the sacred longing ; miracles confirmed the prophetical office ; and in prospect Avas the miraculous outbreak of Divine poAver in the great closing dispensation itself. But this whole expectant attitude is in our case reversed. Ours is not a state of expectancy, and a day of forccastings and forcshadowings : Ave feel no void, throwing us on the future. On the contrary, Ave repose in Christian doctrine as tho final stay of the human soul, and Ave are conscious that in this doctrine is contained aU that can develop man; Ave know that it has developed man, and that Christianity has made a moral change in the state of the world. With us, then, miracles are passed, so far as they are connected Avith the principal object with which miracles are concerned — revelation. It would be wholly unnatural, it Avould be contrary to tho very account Avhich wo give of our OAvn position, for us at this day to simulate tho expectant stato of the old LaAV, and throw ourselves back into the pro spective stage. This would be doing violence to our Avhole knowledge and sense of reality. Though Ave cannot restrict the scope of miracles to one object, still, to cease to expect them Avhen their chief end is gained, is only 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. LECTURE VIII FALSE MIBACLES Maix vii. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils ; and in Thy name done many wonderful works 1 ALABGE class of miraculous pretensions is not con fined 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 Avant. Does he desire one merely to gratify his curiosity and love of the marvellous, for excitement and not for use ? That is a morbid Avant. For though the innate love of the supernatural in man's heart is legitimately gratified by a miracle, man has no right to ask for miracles in order to gratify this affection, any more than he has to ask for them even as evidence, idly and treacherously, Avhen he does not intend to accept them as such even Avhen done. On both accounts " an adulterous generation" av"; ch " sought after signs" Avas once rebuked. This morbid Avant, however, joined to the eager expectation that God Avould constantly interpose to prevent tho injurious effects of His general laws, has produced a constant stream of miraculous preten sion in the world, which accompanies man Avherever he is found, and is a part of his mental and physical liistory. Curiosity, imagination, misery, helplessness, and indolence, have all conspired to throw him upon this support, Avhich l62 False Miracles [Lect. VIII] False Miracles 163 he has sought in order to penetrate into the secrets of the future, to lift up the veU of the invisible world, and to ob tain under calamity and disease that relief Avhich God either did not design to give at aU, or only to give through the instrumentality of human skill and industry. This perpetual phenomenon of miraculous pretension, this running accompaniment of human nature, takes indeed different forms, according to the religious beUef, or the pre vailing notions and movements of different ages ; to which it joins itself on, and which supply it with a handle. The affection for the marvellous has been successively heathen, Christian, and phUosophical or scientific. Heathenism had its running 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 inherited the common fea tures and characteristic impulses of human nature, for Christians 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 of human nature, without inquiring at present which of them have evidence of a peculiar and distinguishable kind The doctrine of the Incarnation was the instrument of this human affection under Christianity ; it joined itself on to that doctrine, and used the virtues of the saints, or the fruits of man's participation through the Incarnation of the Divine nature, for its own purpose. The same affec tion in our own day, abandoning its connexion with doc trine and even with religion, adopts philosophical ground, and avaUs itself of a scientific handle; and, the trace of an occult law of our sentient being having been discovered which resulted in some extraordinary bodfiy conditions and alTections, has raised upon this basis a wild superstructure of Supernaturalism, extending at last to a systematic inter course with tho invisible world. This strong human affeo- J. #*- 4 tion has thus flourished successii'ely upon heathen, upon Christian, and upon scientific material ; because in truth it is neither heathen, nor Christian, nor scientific, but human. Springing out of tho common stock of humanity, which is the same in aU ages, it adapts itself to the belief, the specu lations, and the knowledge of its oivn day. It avails itself of every opening which religious truth or obscure laws of nature may afford, and every fresh growth of supernatural ism borroivs the type of the age. And thus is produced that constant succession of miraculous pretensions, which, varying in shade and form, and taking its colour from hea then mythology, or Christian truth, or Gothic or Celtic fancy, or scientific mystery, is a perpetual and standing phenomenon of human nature ; its evidences being of one homogeneous type and one uniform level, which lies beloAV a rational standard of proof. The criterion, therefore, which evidential miracles, or miracles which serve as evidence of a revelation, must come up to, if they are to accompUsh the object for which they are designed, involves at the very outset this condi tion, — that the evidence of such miracles must be distin guishable from the evidences of this permanent stream of miraculous 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 miraculous, which is the simple offshoot of human nature. Can e-vidential miracles be inserted in this promiscuous mass, so as not to be confounded with it, but to assert their own truth and distinctive source ? If thoy cannot, there is an end to the proof of a revelation by miracles : if thoy can, it remains to see whether tho Christian miracles are thus distinguishable, and whether their nature, their object, and thoir evidence vindicate their claim to this dis tinctive truth and Divine source. 1 . The first groat point, then, in tho comparison of one 164 False Miracles [Lect. set of miracles with the other, is the nature and character of the facts themselves. Supposing both sets of facts to be true, are we equaUy certain that both of them are miracles ? NoAv-on this head we have to notice first a spontaneous ad mission and confession on the part of the running miracu lous, viz., that the believers in it appear, in the caso of a clear and undoubted miracle, ie. a fact which if it is a true occurrence is such, to see almost as strong a distinction be tween such a miracle and their own supernaturalism as they do between that miracle and the order of nature. When the heathens of the patristic age were confronted by the assertion of Christ's Eesurrection, they answered at once that it was impossible that a dead man should come to life again, although they had their own current super- naturaUsm going on. But this was to admit a broad in terval between the latter and the genuine miraculous. Jewish supernaturaUsm was indeed going on side by side with our Lord's miracles; and thence the inference has been drawn that His miracles could not in the very nature of the case be evidences of His distinctive teaching 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 distinction which those who practised. or believed that thaumaturgy themselves made between it and our Lord's miracles. The restoration of sight to the man born blind was obviously regarded as a miracle in a sense quite distinguished from that in Avhich they would have applied tho term to a Jew ish exorcism : it excited much the same resistance m their minds as if they had not had their own standing superna turalism as a rival at all. And when our Lord's prophecy of His own resurrection was reported to the Eoman gover nor the statement was—" Sir, this deceiver said. Why "deceiver?" Why Avas this reported as a pretended miracle and an imposture, if the real miracle, would have VIII] False Miracles 1 6 5 made no difference to them, being neutralized and reduced to the measure of an ordinary current instance of superna turaUsm by their own thaumaturgy ? Why instead of in volving themselves in difficulties by resisting testimony to the facts of our Lord's miracles, did the Jeivs not accept the facts, and only deny the argument from them ? What reason could there be but one, viz, that they recognized a true miraculous character in our Lord's miracles which was wanting in their own ? And so Avhen we come to the cur rent miracles of the early Church, Ave meet Avith the same admission and confession of the broad distinction bctAveen them and the Gospel miracles, only not extracted umvit- tiugly from Christian ivriters, but volunteered Avith full knowledge. The Fathers, AvhUe they refer to extraordi nary Divine agency going on in their oavu day, also with one consent represent miracles as having ceased since the Apostolic era. But what Avas this but to confess that though events which pointed to the special hand of God, and so approximated to the nature of the miraculous, ivere still of frequent occurrence in the Church ; miracles of that decisive and positive character that they declared them selves certainly to be miracles no longer took place, (i.) But this spontaneous admission on the part of the run ning miraculous having been noticed, Ave next see that the very nature and type of the facts themselves account for and explain the admission. A deep latent scepticism ac companies the current supernaturalism of mankind, which betrays itself in the Arery quality and rank of tho reputed marvels' themselves, — that they never rise above a low level, and repeat again and again tbe same ambiguous types. There is a confinement to certain classes of occur rences, Avhich, even if true, are very ambiguous miracles. Tho adhesion to .this neutral, doubtful, and indecisive type, evinces a Avant of belief at the bottom in the existence of a real ri^ht in the system to assert a true dominion over 166 False Miracles [Lect. vi in False Miracles 167 nature The system knows what it can do, and keeps within a safe line. 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 interpretation, and most apt to OAve its supernatural character to the imaginations of the reporters. Hence the confession of inferiority, when this running supernaturalism was confronted by real miracles ; the admission of the distinction which existed between itself aud the latter. The heathen saiv that a resurrection from the dead was a fact about which, if it was true, there could be no mistake that it was a miracle ; Avhereas that some out of the croivds of sick that were carried to the temple of Esculapius afterwards recovered, was, notwith standing the insertion of their cures in the register of the temple, no proof of miraculous agency to any reasonable man. Exorcism, which is the contemporary Jewish miracle referred to 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 doubtful and ambiguous character. However Ave may explain demoniacal posses sion, whether we stop at the natural disorder itself, or carry it on to a supernatural cause, in either case a sudden strong impression made upon the patient's mind, such as would awaken his dormant energy and enable him to re collect the scattered powers of his reason, would tend to cast off the disorder. The disease being an obstruction of the rational faculties, whatever resuscitated the faculties thoroughly would expel the disease; and an agency which was not miraculous but only moral, might be equal in cer tain cases to thus reawakening tho faculties : a moral power might dismiss the domon that brooded upon tho under standing, as it does tho domon that tompts to sin. Exor cism therefore, even the legitimate practice, did not neces- <•« sarUy involve miraculous 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 still open to us to consider the rank and pretension of these miracles,— Avhether the very type and character of them does not, upon the very point of the claim to be miraculous, radically distinguish them from the Gospel miracles ; as the very confession of the Fathers, just noticed, implies. The current miracles of the patristic age are cures of diseases, visions, exorcisms : the higher sort of miracle being alluded to only in isolated cases, and then ivith such vagueness that it leaves a doubt as to the fact itself intended. But these are of the ambi guous type which has been noticed. Take one large class — cures of diseases in answer to prayer. A miracle and a special providence, as I remarked in a previous Lecture,1 differ not in kind but in degree ; tho one being an inter ference of the Deity with natural causes at a point removed from our observation; the other being the same brought directly home to the senses. When, then, the. Fathers speak of sudden recoveries, in answer to prayers of the Church or of eminent saints, as miracles, they appear to mean by that term special providences rather than clear and sensible miracles. And remarkable visions would come under the same head. The very type, then, of the facts themselves which com pose the current miracles of human history, the uniform low lovel which thoy maintain, stamps tho impress of un certainty upon thorn, in striking contrast with the freedom and range of the Gospel miracles. About tho latter, sup posing them to be true, there can bo no doubt,— that they 1 1'ngu 7. 1 68 False Miracles [Lect. VIII] False Miracles 169 are a clear outbreak of miraculous energy, of a mastery over nature ; but we cannot be equally assured upon this point in the case of the current miracles of the first ages of the Church, even supposing the truth of the facts. It Avill be urged perhaps that a large portion even of tho Gospel miracles are of the class here mentioned as ambi guous : cures, visions, expulsions of evU spirits : but this observation does not affect the character of the Gospel miracles as a body, because we judge of the body or whole from its highest specimens, not from its lowest. The ques tion is, Avhat poiver is it Avhich is at Avork in this Avhole field of extraordinary action ? Avhat is its nature, what is its extent ? But the nature and mognitudo of this power is obviously decided by its greatest achievements, not by its least. The greater miracles are not cancelled by the lesser ones ; more than this, they interpret the lesser ones. It is evident that this whole miraculous structure hangs together, and that the same power which produces the highest, produces also the lowest type of miracle. The lower, therefore, receives an interpretation from its con nexion Avith the higher which it would not receive by it self. If we admit, e.g. our Lord's Besurrection and Ascen sion., what could be gained by struggling in detail for the interpretation of minor miracles ; as if these could be judged of apart from that great one ? The difference, again, in the very form of the wonder- Avorking poAver in the case of the Gospel miracles, as com pared with later ones, makes a difference in tho character of tho miracles themselves. A standing miraculous power lodged in a Person, and throngh Him in other persons ex pressly admitted to the possession of it ; not making trials, in some of Avhich it succeeds, in others not, but always accomplishing a miracle upon tbe wiU to do so, — this, which is the Gospel fact or phenomenon asserted, is un doubtedly, if true, miraculous. But Avhen the wonder- k working power comes before us as a gift residing in the whole Christian multitude and sown broad-cast over the Church at large, the miracles which issue out of this popu lar mass are only a certain number of attempts which have succeeded out of a vastly greater number which have faUed. But such tentative miracles are defective in the miraculous character from the very nature of the facts ; because chance accounts for a certain proportion of coincidences happening out of a whole field of events. When the running miraculous is raised above the low lei^el, Avhich betrays its own Avant of confidence in itself and its professed command over nature, it is by a pecu liarity Avhich convicts it upon another count. There is a wildness, a puerile extravagance, a grotesqueness, and ab surdity in the type of it such as to disqualify it for being a subject of evidence. The sense of what is absurd, ridi culous, and therefore impossible as an act of God, is part of our moral nature : and if a miracle even seen Avith our own eyes, cannot force us to accept anything contrary to mora lity or a fundamental truth of religion, still less can pro fessed evidence force us to believe in Divine acts, Avhich are upon the face of them unAvorthy of the Divine author ship.1 It is true that of this discrediting feature there is 1 AVo observe indeed in the region of God's animate creation, various animal natures produced of a grotesque and wild typo ; but to argue from this that we aro to expect the same typo in bodies and classes of miracles, is to apply tho argument of analogy without possessing that condition which is necessary for it— a parallel case (sec p. 37). AVe can argue from ono Divino act to tho probability or not improbability of another like it, provided tho cn.st'H with which tho two aro concerned nro parallel eases ; but the creation of an animal ia no parallel case to tlie Divine act in a miraclo ; nor therefore can wildness, enormity, and absurdity in a miracle plead the precedent of the singular types which occur in the animal king dom. The latter has been diversified for reasons nnd for ends included within tho design of creation : but a miracle is not an act done by God uj Creator : it is a communication to man, it is addressed to him, and there fore 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 170 False Miracles [Lect. no definite standard or criterion, and that when we refuse to believe in a miracle on account of the absurdity and puerility in the type of it, Ave do so upon the responsibility of our own sense and perceptions ; but many important . questions are determined in no other way than this ; in deed aU morality is ultimately determined by an inward sense. A fact, however, is not in itself ridiculous, because a ridiculous aspect can be put upon it. The dumb brute speaking with man's voice to forbid the madness of the pro phet, the dismissal of a legion of foul spirits out of their usurped abode in man into a herd of swine, — Avhatcvcr bo the peculiarity in these two miracles Avhich distinguishes them from the usual scriptural model, it is no mean, trivial, or vulgar character. Did we meet with these two simply as poetical facts or images in the great religious poem of the middle ages, they would strike us as full 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 tho hands of the poet. Looking then simply to their type, these miracles stand their ground. While it must also be ob served that in the case of miracles of an eccentric type, the quantity of them and the proportion which they bear to the rest is an important consideration. The same type which in unlimited profusion and exuberance marks a source in human fancy and delusion is not extravagant as a rare and exceptional feature of a dispensation of miracles just emerging and then disappearing again, as a fragmentary deviation from a usual limit and pattern, to which it is in complete subordination. One or two miracles of a certain form in Scripture havo indeed been taken full advantage of, Divine Vicing. Upon thin Rronml ft Roletim, n high stmnp must always recommend a miracle, while a ridiculous typo is inconsistent with the in trinsic dignity of n Divine interposition. VIII] False Miracles 171 as if they supplied an ample justification of any number and quantity of the most extravagant later miracles ; but, supposing in our estimate Ave even reduced the eccentricity of the latter to this exceptional Scripture type, quantity and ¦ degree make all the difference between what is im pressive and Avhat is puerile, Avhat is weighty and what is absurd. The miraculous providence of Scripture, it must be remembered, covers the ivhole period from the creation of the Avorld 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 prevailing feature of ivhole bodies and classes of miracles. 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 necessarily come into con sideration. I have, hoivever, in a previous Lecture con sidered the great moral result of the Gospel miracles, exhibited in that new era of the Avorld and condition of human society which they were the means of founding. Any comparison of this great result with the objects of current supernaturahsm can only reveal the immense in feriority of the latter; — even ivhen these objects are not volatile, morbid, or mean. But in how large a proportion do motives of the latter kind prevail 1 Motives of mere curiosity and idle amusement ! Motives even worse than these — impatience and rebellion against the boundaries which scpamto tho visible and invisiblo worlds ! What is tho chief avowed object, e.g. of tho supernatural ism of this day? To open a regular systematic intercourse belween tho living and the dead 1 But how does such a fantastic and extravagant object, as that of breaking down the barriers of our present state of existence, at once convict and con demn such pretensions themselves as fallacious ! As much 172 False Miracles [Lect. so as, on the other hand, their grand and serious moral result recommends and is an argument for the Gospel miracles. 3. When from the type and character of the professed miracles of subsequent ages, and their objects, as compared with the miracles of Scripture, we turn to the evidence on Avhich they respectively rest, we meet with various dis tinctions which have been very ably brought out and com mented on by writers on evidence. And in the first place, a very large proportion of the miracles of subsequent ages stop short of the very first introduction to valid evidence, that preliminary condition which is necessary to quahfy them even to be examined ; — viz. contemporary testimony. That certain great and cardinal Gospel miracles— which if granted clear away aU antecedent objection to the reception of the rest — possess contemporary testimony, must be admitted by everybody, at the peril of invalidating all historical evidence, and involving our ivhole knowledge of the events of the past in doubt. That the first promulgators of Christianity asserted as a fact which had come under the cognizance of their senses the Eesurrection of our Lord from the dead, is as certain as anything in" history. But the great mass of later miracles do not fulfil even this preliminary condition, or reach even this previous stage of evidence. But, the level of contemporary testimony gained, the character of the witnesses, and the extent to which then veracity is tested by paiuv and suffering, make an immense difference in the value of that testimony. 1. In estimating the strength of a witness Ave must begin by putting aside as irrelevant all those features of his char acter, hoAvever admirable, striking, and impressive, which do not bear upon the particular question Avhether his report of a fact is likely to be correct. We have only to do Avith character in one point of vioAV, viz. as a guarantee to the truth of testimony ; but a reference to this simple object at VIII] False Miracles 17: once puts on one side various traits and quahties in men Avhich in themselves are of great interest, and excite our ad miration. We value an ardent zeal in itself, but not as a security for this further object, because men under the influence of enthusiasm are apt to misstate and exaggerate facts which favour their own side. So, again, an affectionate disposition is beautiful and admirable in itself, but it does not add weight to testimony ; and the same may be said of other highandnoble moral gifts and dispositions — generosity, courage, enterprising spirit, perseverance, loyalty to a cause and to persons. Even faith, only regarded as one specific gift and power, in which light it is sometimes spoken of in Scripture, the power, viz. of vividly embracing and realizing the idea of an unseen world, does not add to the strength of a ivitness, though in itself, even as thus Umited, a high and exceUent gift. And thus might be constructed a char acter Avhich would be a striking and interesting form of the religious mind, would lead the Avay in high undertakings, would command the obedience of devoted folloAvers, and would be in itself an object of singular admiration; but ivhich avouM not be valuable as adding solid weight to testimony. Perfect goodness is undoubtedly goodness in all capacities and functions, and stands the test of relation to all purposes ; but, taking human nature as Ave find it, a good man and a good witness are not quite identical. For all this assemblage of high qualities may exist, and that particular characteristic may be absent upon ivhich avc de pend when Ave rely upon testimonj' in extreme and crucial cases. That characteristic is a strong perception of and regard to tho claims of truth. Truth is ayoko. If wo would wish facts to be so and so, and they arc not, that is a trial ; there is a disposition to rebel against this trial ; and this disposi tion has always a ready instrument in the faculty of speech, to ivhose peculiar nature it belongs to state facts either as 174 False Miracles [Lect. they are or as they are not, with equal facUity. To submit then to the yoke of truth under tho temptation of this singularly simple and ready agency for rejecting it, requires a stern and rigorous fidelity to fact in the mind, as part of our obedience to God. But ivhere there are many excellent affections and powers.sometimes this solid and fixed estimate of truth is wanting; while, on the other hand, there are characters not deficient in these affectious and poivers, into Avhose composition it deeply enters, and whose general moral conformation is a kind of guarantee that they possess it. Such a character is that Avhich lives in the pages of the New Testament as the Apostolic character. If we com pare that model with the model set up in later times, the popular pattern of Christian perfection which ruled in the middle ages, we find a great difference. There is undoubtedly deep enthusiasm, if Ave may caU it so, in the character of the Apostles, an absorption in one great cause, a depth of wonder and emotion, high impulse, ardent long ing and expectation ; and yet with all this what striking balance and moderation, which they are able too — a A'ery strong test of their type — to maintain amid circumstances just the most calculated to upset these virtues ! At war Avith the whole world, lifted up above it, and trampling its affections beneath their feet ; Uving upon heavenly hopes, and caring for one thing alone, the spread of the Gospel, — theirs was indeed a grand and elevating situation ; but at the same time it was just one adapted to throiv them off thoir balance, and narrow thoir standard. Mere enthusi astic men Avould have boon earned aAvay by thoir an tagonism to tho wholo existing stato of society to set up somo visionary model of a Christian life, wholly separated from all connoxion with the cares and business of earth. But although the Apostles certainly gave scope to and assert the duty of an extraordinary and isolated course of VIII] False Miracles 175 ii life, under certain circumstances and with reference to particular ends, their standard is wholly free from contrac tion; their vieiv of life and its duties is as sensible and as judicious as the ivisest and most prudent man's ; nor do they say — ' You may be an inferior Christian if you live in the Avorld, but if you Avant to be a higher Christian you must quit it;' but they recognize the highest Christian perfection as consistent Avith the most common and ordin ary form of life. Their great lessons are, that goodness lies in the heart, and that the greatest sacrifices ivhich a man makes in life are his internal conquests over vain desires, aspirations, and dreams of this ivorld; Avhich deepest mortifications consist Avith the most common out- Avard circumstances. This plain, soUd, unpretending view of human life in conjunction with the pursuit of an ideal, the aim at perfection, is indeed most remarkable, — if it w*as not a new combination in the Avorld. What I would observe; however, now is that such men are weighty witnesses ; that their testimony has the force of statements of fact from men of grave and solid temperament, ivho could stand firm, and maintain a moderate and adjusted ground against the strong tendencies to extravagance inherent in their whole situation and aim. On the other hand, when I come to a later type of char acter Avhich rose up in the Christian Church, I see in it much which is splendid and striking — high aim and enter prise, courageous self-denial, aspiring faith, but not the same guarantee to the truth of testimony. Ambition or exaggeration in character is in its oavii nature a divergence from strict moral truth; Avhich, though it is more oiled ivo in challenging tho eye, and strikes more instantaneously as an imago, detracts from the authority of tho character, and tho depondouco avo place upon it for tho purpose now mentioned. The remark may bo made, again, that tho original pro- 176 False Miracles [Lect. mulgation of Christianity was one of those great under takings which react upon the minds of those eSaJ I U i and tend to raise them above insincerity and delusion S'STwiTf so fa7s any cause caQ be> a?u=: tee for the truthfulness of its champions; its aim was to renovate the human race sunk in corruption; it proclaimed a revelation indeed from heaven, but that reveLionTas stUl m connexion with the most practical of all aims. But his cannot be said of most of the later causes in behalf of vhrch the professed evidence of miracles ivas enlisted spurious and corrupt developments of Christian doctrine do not give the same security for the truthfulness of their 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 bo^l /w ^ °f itS6lf g06S far t0 disP°se <>f whole bodies of later miracles; for if we hold certain later doc- nnes, the deification of the Virgin Mother, Transubstantia tion, and others, to be corruptions of Christianity, we are Cr!ael m ?f«*f DS the testimony of the teachers and spreaders of these doctrines to the alleged miracles in sup- of I , ? 6 "ff6 °f the CaUSe affects our estimate of the propagators. Indeed, let the human intellect once begin to busy itself not only about false deductions from Christian doctrine, but even about doubtful ones, nay even about true but minute and remote ones, and the spirit and temper of the first promulgators of Christianity is soon exchanged for another. Propagandism has not a reputa tion for truthfulness. As doctrine diverges from the largeness of the Scripture type into narro^ points, the active dissemination of it interests, excites, and elates as a speculative triumph. When from the character of the witnesses to the Gospel miracles we turn to the ordeal which they underwent, we find another remarkable peculiarity attaching to their VIII] False Miracles 177 testimony, viz. that it was tested in a manner and to an extent Avhich is without parallel: because, in truth, the ivhole life of sacrifice and suffering which the Apostles led was from beginning to end the consequence of their belief in certain miraculous facts which they asserted themselves to have witnessed ; upon which facts their whole preaching and testimony was based, and without which they would have had no Gospel to preach. In all ages, indeed, dif ferent sects have been persecuted for their opinions, and given the testimony of their suffering to the sincerity of those opinions ; but here are whole lives and long lives of suffering in testimony to the truth of particular facts ; the Besurrection and Ascension being the warrant to Avhich the Apostles appeal for the authority and proof of their ivhole ministry and doctrine. On the other hand, those mere current assertions of supernatural effects produced, which prevail in all days, and in our own not least, but which are made irresponsibly by any persons ivho choose to make them, ivithout any penalty or risk to the assertors to act as a test of their truthfulness, have hardly, in strict right, a claim oven upon our grave consideration ; because in truth upon such subjects untested evidence is Avorthless evidence. We can conceive a certain height of character Avhich Avould of itself command the assent of individuals, but the world at large cannot reasonably be satisfied Avithout some ordeal of the witnesses. We apply an ordeal to testimony even to ordinary facts, Avhen the life or liberty of another depends upon it, and in this case cross-examination in a court is the form of ordeal ; but pain and sacrifice on the part of the Avitnesses is also intrinsically an ordeal and probation of testimony; Avhich condition current supernaturalism does not fulfil, but Avhich the Gospel miracles do. The testimony to the latter is tested evidence of a very strong kind; because the trials Avhicli the Apostles endured were M 1 78 False Miracles [Lect. both lasting, and also owing directly to their behef in certain facts, to Avhich they bore Avitness ; thus going straight to the point as guarantees for the truth of that attestation. But it would be difficult to discover any set of later miracles which stand upon evidence thus tested ; which can appeal to lives of trial and suffering undergone by the witnesses as the direct result of their belief in and witness to such miracles. (2.) One consideration, however, of some force remains to be added. It is confessed that the mediaeval record contains a vast mass of false and spurious 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, stiU virtually abandon the great body as indefensible. The mediasval record therefore comes before us at the very outset as a maimed and discredited authority — discredited because it has adopted and thrown its shield over an immense quantity of material admitted to be untrue and Counterfeit, and so identified itself with falsehood. So far as any informant takes up and commits himself to false intelligence, so far he destroys his own credit. An immense mass of admitted spurious miracles therefore adopted by the mediaeval record throivs doubt upon all the accounts of such facts transmitted to us through the same channel; because to that extent it affects the general character of the record as an informant, and invalidates its authority. The Scripture record, on the other hand, does not at any rate come before us with this admitted blot upon its credit in the first instance The information it contains has doubtless to bo examined Avith reference to tbe evidence upon Avhich it rests; that is to say, the authority of tho record has to bo investigated ; but it does not present itself with any admitted discrediting stain in tho first instance; whereas such an admitted stain does 4» 4 VIII] False Miracles 179 wi limine attach to the mediaeval record. But this con sideration receives additional force when we take into account two great causes of miraculous pretensions which ivere deeply rooted in the character of the middle ages, but from which Christianity at its original promulgation was free. 1. It is but too plain that in later ages, as the Church advanced in worldly poiver and position, besides the mis takes of imagination and impression, a temper of dehberate and audacious fraud rose up Avithin the Christian body, and set itself in action for the spread of certain doctrines, as iveU as for the great object of the concentration of Church poAver in one absolute monarchy. Christianity started Avith the sad and ominous prophecy that out of the very bosom of the religion of humility should arise the greatest form of pride that tlie world should ever know— one, "as God sitting in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God;"1 the complete fulfilment of winch, if yet in store, has certainly not been without its broad foreshadowings ; for indeed Christian pride has transcended heathen by Iioav much Christianity is a more powerful stimulus; to man than heathenism ; giving a depth to his whole nature, which imparts itself even to his passions, to his ambition and love of dominion, and to his propagation of opinion. But this formidable spirit once arisen in the Church, falsehood, winch is the tool of the strong even more than of the Aveak, is its natural instrument. Hence the bold forgeries of the middle ages, which were the acts of a proud will, determined that nothing should stand in tho way bctAVCon it and certain objects, und that if facts did not exist on its side, they should bo made. And honco also counterfeit miracles. But mere historical criticism must admit that this spirit of daring, determined, and presumptuous fraud, which com piled false authorities, and constructed false marvels simply 1 2 Tliess. ii. 4. i8o False Miracles [Lect VIII] False Miracles because they were wanted, ivas the manifestation of a later age; and that the temper of the first promulgators of the Gospel was AvhoUy free from such a stain. (3.) 2. Another great cause of miraculous pretensions in later ages ivas the adoption of miracles as the criterion and test of high goodness; as if extraordinary sanctity naturaUy issued in a kind of dominion over nature. This popular idea dictated that rule of canonization which required that, before a saint was inserted in the Calendar, proof should be given of miracles either performed by him in his lifetime or produced by the virtue of his remains. Such a criterion of sanctity is intrinsically irrelevant ; for in forming a judgment of a man's character, motives, and dispositions, the extent of his charity and seU- denial and the like, Avhat can be more beside the question than to inquire whether or not these moral manifestations of him Avere accompanied by suspensions of the laivs of nature. The natural test of character is conduct ; or, Avhich is the same thing, moral goodness is its own proof and evidence. The man is before us ; he reveals himself to us not only by his formal outward acts, but by that ivhole manifold expression of himself, conscious and unconscious, in act, ivord and look, which is synonymous with life. The very highest form of goodness is thus a disclosure to us which attests itself, and to ivhich miracles are AvhoUy extrinsic. But Avhat 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 having been adopted must bo fulfilled; providcnco docs not fulfil it becauso providence is not responsible for it, and therefore man must ; he Avho instituted tho test must look to its verification. But this Avholo notion of miracles as a test of sanctity Avas a complete innovation upon the Scripture idea. The Bible never re presents miracles as a tribute to character, but as folloiving a principle of use, as means to certain ends. One saint k possesses the gift because it is Avanted for an object; as great a saint does not because it is not vvanted. The fruits of the Spirit always figure as their own witnesses in Scrip ture, superior to all extraordinary gifts, and not requiring their attestation. The Christian is described as gifted with discernment. There needs no miracle to tell him who is 0 good man and who is not; he knows him by sure signs, knows him from the hypocrite and pretender; " he that is spiritual judgeth all things," is a scrutinizer of hearts, and is not deceived by appearances. (4.) Between the evidence, then, upon ivhich the Gospel miracles stand and that for later miracles we see a broad distinction, arising — not to mention again the nature and type of the Gospel miracles themselves — from the contem poraneous date of the testimony to them, the character of the ivitnesses, the probation of the testimony ; especiaUy Avhen we contrast Avith these points the false doctrine and audacious fraud which rose up in later ages, and in con nexion with ivhich so large a portion of the later miracles of Christianity made their appearance. But now to carry the argument into another stage. What if — to make the supposition — it was discovered, when we came to a close examination of particulars, that for several of the later miracles of Christianity there was evidence forthcoming approximating in strength to the evidence for the Gospel miracles — what would be the result ? Would any dis advantage ensue to the Gospel miracles, any doubtfulness accrue to their position as a consequence of this discovery, aud additional to auy previous intrinsic ground of difficulty \ None : all tho result ivould be that avo should admit these miracles over and abovo tho Gospel ones : but the position of the latter Avould not be at, all affected by this conclusion : they Avould remain, and their evidence ivould remain just Avhat they were before. We reject the mass of later miracles because they Avant evidence ; not because our argu- 182 False Miracles [Lect. I ment obliges us to reject aU later miracles whether they have evidence or not. The acceptance of the Gospel miracles does not commit us to the denial of all other ; nor therefore would the discovery of strong evidence for some other miracles at aU imperil the ground and the use of the Gospel ones. Many of our own divines have admitted the truth of later miracles, only raising the question of the date up to which the continuance of miraculous powers in the Church lasted, some fixing this earlier, and some later. . But were our divines therefore precluded from using the Gospel miracles as evidences of Christianity? Do our brethren even of the Boman communion, because they accept a much larger number of later miracles than our divines do, thereby cut themselves off from the appeal to the miraculous evidences of Christianity ? Pascal accepted a miracle of his oivn day, of which he wrote a defence ; and yet he prepared the foundation of a treatise on the Evidences of Christianity, and the evidences of miracles with the rest : nor was he guUty of any error of logic in so doing. It is true our divines may have been under a mistake in accept ing some miracles which they did; and certainly our Boman CathoUc brethren are in our judgment very much mistaken in a great number of miracles which they accept : but that was only a mistake as to the particular later miracles accepted ; they were neither of them mistaken in the general notion, which was plainly reasonable, that they could accept both later miracles and Gospel miracles too. (5 .) The application of the fact of the crowd of later and mediaival miracles to neutralize the evidences of the Gos pel miracles proceods upon the assumption that the crowd of later miracles docs in reality rest upon as strong ovi- denco as tho Gospel ones : and this assumption has been mot in tho body of this Lecture by distinguishing between their respective evidences. But if we leave the crowd and 6ingle out particular later miracles, then there is no k 4 VIII] False Miracles 183 obligation upon us to distinguish at aU between the evi dences of the two. Such later miracles may be admitted to have evidence of a substantial character and approximating to the evidences of the Gospel miracles, without at all im perilling the credit of the latter; because one set of miracles is not false because others are true. We assert indeed that no later miracles have equal evidence to that of the great miracles of the Gospel : but could even an equal amount of evidence in some cases be shewn, no con sequence would ensue unfavourable to the latter. We should simply have to accept the later over and above the earher. The assumption ivhich appears to exist in some quarters that we are obliged to disown and reject all later miracles, as being a degrading connexion for and a source of discredit to the Gospel miracles, is ivholly Avithout authority. Such an assumption would indeed endanger the position of the Scripture miracles ; because in proportion as the evidence for later miracles assumed weight and sub stance and approximated to the evidence of the Gospel miracles, and was notwithstanding rejected ; in that pro portion Ave should be in danger of having in consistency to reject the Gospel miracles too. But there is no ground for such an assumption. One conclusion, however, there is which is a tempting one to deduce from the multitude of spurious miracles, viz. the impossibility of distinguishing the true ones. ' We cannot,' it may be said, ' go into particulars or draw minute distinctions. Here is a vast crowd of miraculous preten sions, tho product of every age of Christianity, including that of its vory birth. Of this an overwhelming proportion is confessod to bo falsa But how can avo distinguish be tween what is false and what is truo of this promiscuous mass 1 Miraculous ovidonco in such a condition defeats itself and is unavaUable for use ; and practically Ave must treat Christianity as if it stood without it.' 1 84 False Miracles [Lect. Nothing then can be more certain than that, granted true miracles, so long as man is man, these true miracles must encounter the rivalry of a growth of false ones, and the evidential disadvantage, whatever it be, thence ensuing. And therefore this position amounts to saying that per manent miraculous evidence to any religion is an impossible contrivance. But such a wholesale inference as this from the existence of spurious -miracles is contrary to all principles of evidence, and to the Avhole method in practice among mankind for ascertaining the truth of facts. Do Ave want to dispose of all cases of recorded miracles by somo summary rule which decides them all in a heap, tho rulo that a samplo 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 ordinary 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 review is a special case. In civU justice, e.g. every case is determined upon its OAvn merits, and according to our estimate ofthe quality of the testimony, the situation of tho parties, and the con nexion and coincidence of the facts in that particular case. No two sets of witnesses, no tivo sets of circumstances are exactly alike. Inasmuch, then, as these constitute in every case the grounds of decision, every case of evidence in 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 probabilities ; and a person would be tempted to say that one decided tho 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 pene trates into each case and comes into close quarters Avith VIII] False Miracles 185 the witnesses, the circumstances, the connexion of facts in it, the common type of the tivo is 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 universal rules relating to the punishment when the crime is proved, and to the right when the conditions are proved, but of Avhat constitutes 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 in the evidence of facts; every case is a special case. It is true that main features of fact, as ivell as types of testimony, repeat themselves often ; but in evory caso they demand and we give them a fresh inspection. It only requires the advantage of this principle to bring out the strong points, the significant features, and the effec tive weight of the evidence for the Gospel miracles. Upon the summary supposition indeed that the evidence of miracles is a class of evidence, Avhich, after the sight of some samples, dispenses with the examination of the rest, those miracles ivould stand little chance; but wc have no right to this summary supposition; tho evidence of the Gospel miracles is a special case which must be decided on its oivn grounds. Were tlie annals of mankind crowded even much more than they are Avith spurious cases, avo should still have to take the case of the Gospel miracles by itself. The general phrase in use, " the value of tcstimonj'," conceals degrees of strength ; the term " competent ivitness" hides all tho interval ivhich lies between an average ivit ness who appears in court, and tho sublimest impersona tion ofthe grave, the holy, the simple and truthful charac ter. The phrase "ordeal of testimony" covers all tlie degrees in severity and duration of such ordeal. Tin's degree in the strength of testimony is, however, in truth the critical and turning-point in the evidence of miracles; i86 False Miracles [Lect. for miracles are a weight resting upon the support of that eiddence ; but Avhether a support can bear a particular weight must depend on the degree of strength residing in that support. To ascertain hoivever the degree of strength Avhich belongs to the evidence for the Gospel miracles, we must go into the special case of that eAddence ; and Avhat Ave maintain is, that when we do go specially into the evidence for those miracles, Ave find this high degree of strength in it : that its foundation Ues so deep in the won derful character and extraordinary probation of the wit nesses, and in the unique character and result of the reve lation, that it sustains the weight which it is required to sustain. The truth of the miraculous credentials of Christianity rests upon various arguments, the mutual coherence and union of which forms the evidence of them. Nor in a case of evidence must we narrow the term ' argument ;' any thing is an argument which naturally and legitimately produces an effect upon our minds, and tends to make us think one way rather than another. Nor in judging upon the force a ad weight of these arguments, can we dispense Avith a proper state of the affections. It is no condition of a sound judgment that there should be an absence of feel ing in it ; our affections are a part of our judgment ; an argu ment only sinks into us properly, and takes proper hold of our minds, by means of the feelings which take it up and carry it into the understanding. One man thinks nothing of an argument, another a great deal of it, because feeling onablos tho ono to see tho argument, tho othor wants this light by which to see it. It is thus a great mistake to sup pose that those who are absorbed in the pleasurable exer tion of the intellect and are without the religious emotions, ivho do not hopo, who do not fear a3 spiritual beings, arc the best judges of reUgious evidences. For the truth is, in such a state a man is not possessed of his whole nature ; a 4 i VIII] False Miracles 187 man is only half himseff; nay, he is but a miserable frag ment of himself. Hope and fear are strong impulses- to and enliveners of the understanding ; they quicken the per ceptions ; under their purifying and sharpening influence we see the force of truths and arguments which otherwise ive are too dull to see. Thus half of a man's nature may reject the Christian evidence, but the whole accepts it. When every part of us is represented in our state of mind, when the reUgious affections as weU as the -intellect are strong and lively, then only is our state of mind a reason able one, then only are we our proper selves ; but the issue of this collective whole is Christian belief. H O JS- tJ- -J A >* NOTES LECTUEE I NOTE l, p. 1 1 THE nece,8f ^ °f lacies 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 divines ; and is, I think, sufficiently understood by every one. There are also invisible miracles, the Incarnation of Christ for mstance which, being secret, cannot be alleged as a proof of such a mission, but require themselves to beproved by visible miracle.,. Revelation itself too « miraculous and miracles arc the proof of it." (Analogy, m. u. ch. n ) Ihe writer assumes here that for the revelation of things supernatural and undiscoverable by human reason, miraculous evi dence is necewuy to attest its truth. The "invisible miracle," i.e. the doctrine of the Incarnation, he says, "requires to be proved by v at LT; iV MiTCleS ^ tke Pr°°f °f reTClation'" ^can* re" velation is atself miraculous.-is an invisible miracle which needs the visible to serve as guarantee to it. Again : « Take in the considera- Sin^ f-°D; W th9 """? 8y8tem °f the ™rld> and t]™ ™ see fZJl T ¦ V^ 0fAnature- "»d f attest the truth of it." here seem to be several things of great weight, not reiluciUo lo th'„ hciul Cor. of miracles or the completion of prophoev, in llio common am.ptnt.io,. of thoworik pllf. tlliw „v„ ,{,,, ',„ ;,/.,„, ™ menial pniofs : and those other things, however co„Si,l,ml,le U„T ,„• ye ought never to be urgcl apart from ils llim.f. ,„.,„,,•„, ,Mll „iU,. 11^ lV °m- L""> * iL ch' *'¦> ^ -in,/ «Th leiste acknowledge a Gorl, of an Almighty power, who made n 1 tlur.gs. Yet they Avould put it out of His power to mnl.e Ly re vol \A, 192 Note 1 [Lect. tion 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 revelation be made but by miracles ? In none Avhich we are able to conceive. Consequently in whatever degree it is possible, or not very improbable, that a revelation should be com municated to mankind at all, in the same degree it is probable, or not very improbable, that miracles should be wrought." (Evidences of Christianity : Preparatory Considerations.) That the truth of the Christian 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 first in stance, as Mr. Mansel observes : — " Whether tho 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 cerlain 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 appar- entlysurpassing 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 wrought them, become part of the moral as well as the sensible evidences of the religion Avhich they taught, and cannot be denied without destroying both kinds of evidence alike " Tho scientific question relates to tho possibility of supernatural occurrences at all; and if this be once decided in the negative, Chris tianity 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 Christ, but which in themselves have no essential connexion with one person more than with another ; but all belief in Christ as the great Example, as the teacher sent from God, as the crucified and risen Saviour, is gone, never to return. Tho perfect siiilessncss of His life and conduct can no longer be held before us ns our type and pattern, if tho works which Ho professed to perform by Divine power were either not performed at all or were performed by human science and skill. No mystery impenetrable by human rea son, no doctrine incapable of natural proof, can be believed on His authority ; for if lie professed to work miracles, and wrought them not, whirt warrant havo wo for tho trustworthiness of oilier parts of llis teaching?" (Aids to Faith, pp. -1, 5.) An able and thoughtful writer on " Miracles," in the Christian Remembrancer, puts the necessity of miracles as evidence of our Lord's Divine Nature in the following point of view : — "Truths, such as 'God is a Spirit,' or 'Do unto others as you Jks- 193 I] Note 1 would they should do unto you,' are abstract truths, resting on funda mental principles in the human mind. They therefore appeal to the human mind for their evidence, and to nothing else. By a mental process they are transformed from the sphere of feeling or intuition into that of logic, and when we appeal to an innate sense for their truth Ave simply appeal to the consciousness of every man to say whether this process has not been rightly performed. But the 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 consequently by no poAver of intuition could we assure our selves of its truth. However much the fact embodied in these words may answer 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, which, alas .' we know to have been baseless. That God was incarnate in Chris'; Jesus is a fact which must rest upon evidence just as any other historical fact. There is no power of clair voyance in tho human mind by which we can sec its truth indepen dent of evidence. " But this writer not only fails to perceive that the Christianity he adopts is a historical fact resting upon evidence, but that it is a super natural fact, and consequently, 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 life Avas blameless, and that He spake as never man spake,— all this Avould prove tnat He was wonderful among the sons of men,— but we need something more before Ave can acknowledge the justice of His claim to be the Son of God. That he was God Incarnate Avas a fact above nature ; it could, therefore, only be proved by a manifestation above nature, that is by miracle. " V "S 1S P° imPortnut lhat it merits further consideration. Wo say that the fact that Christ was God being a supernatural fact could only be proved by a supernatural manifestation. Now this assertion rests upon a fundamental principle of all our knowledge. We cannot know things according to that which they aro in themselves, but only in ami through the phenomena they manifest ; and hence our judg ment as to what anything is, is entirely dependent on the manifesta tions connected with it. How, for instance, do wo satisfy ourselves as to the nature and identity of anything 1 Supposing a substance is presented to a chemist, and he is asked to determines of what n.-.tnn, lt is, how does ho proceed ? He begins by carefully observing all its qualities, and noting tho phenomena to which it gives ii.se ' in any circumstances in which it may be placed, lie places it in every pos sible relation and notes llio signs and tokens which are manifested. 11 lt should happen that these phenomena arc idenlical with those of any previously known substance, the identity of the .snMnnre in quired about wilh Hint substance is determined. But .should the phenomena manifested be altogether unknown and strange, it is im mediately set down as a new substance, and the idea wc have of that K J94 Note I [Lect. substance is constructed out of the phenomena it manifests. In the same way the naturabst proceeds in determining the various species of plants and animals. He observes not only physical characteristics and relations, but, in the case of animals, actions and habits ; and from these he is enabled to conclude as to tho presence or absence of mind and intelligence, and generally as to tho inner nature. In the same way, by a process of induction, we judge of tho characters and mental capacities of those among whom wc mix. We are in no doubt Avhen we are in the presence of a fellow-being with human nature and sym pathies like ourselves. We see his inmost nature manifested in a thousand outward tokens, from which Ave draw an almost instantane ous 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 Avords and actions only what was human, our unavoidable conclusion must be that He was notliin" 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 ex hibited no sign. Ave must have supposed that Ho was undor 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 them selves, to conclude that He was God, but we could certainly con clude that in Him was more than man. " But the matter may be put in even a stronger light. As we can not know things in themselves, but only in and through their outward manifestations, so we cannot think the existence of any being in relation with tho things of this world without supposing tho outward tokens under which it is revealed to us. According to this principle, miracles aro the natural and liocoRmry consequence of tho Godhead in Christ,, so much so that wo cannot think Him truly Cod and imagine them absent. " Let us vealiz.o to ourselves tho circumstances. "Supposing tho question had been, not Avhothor Ho transcended, out whether He fell short of, what is human ; every one coming into His presence and conversing with Him could easily satisfy himself. A hundred outward tokens would reveal the presence of a livin" human soul. But just in the same way would it be evident to thoee around Him that His nature transcended that of man. If He were really moro than man, (hero would bo somo outward token to manifest that higher nature. It is uttorly impossible that it could bo otherwise. Tlowovor much Ho might hide His glory, still a thousand tokens, each tranHconding Avhat belongs to man, Avould bo visible. Ilia very look, His air, tho tono of His voice, HU wisdom and goodness, His moro than human knowlodgo, fooling, and sympathy, all theso supor- idded to tho visible assertion of His authority over nature would combine to point Ilim out as ono moro than human. Wo' do not know (hat duo weight, in an evidential point of view, has ever been given to tho astonishing fact that tho unanimous verdict of every ono privileged to come near our Blcssotl Lord has been that He was more than man. In this, friend and enemy, Jew, Ebionite, Christian. Gnostic, alike agree. Amid tho innumerable theories that for iSoo I] Note 195 years have been devised to explain the nature 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 impossible to think Him truly God and imagine them absent: just as we cannot think man existing Avithout a certain conformation of body, and certain acts which aro the appropriate expression of humanity, so no moro can we think the Godhead in Christ without imagining those manifestations which are the tokens of God." (Christian Remembrancer, October 1863.) NOTE 2, p. 14. The moral results of Christianity when they are appealed to as evidence, appear more strongly in that light when regarded in con nexion Avith prophecy, in which connexion Pascal views them : — " Prophetic avec l'accomplissement. Ce qui a preeddd et ce qui a suivi J. 0. " Les riches quittent leur bien, &c. Qu'est-ce que tout cela ? C'est ce qui a it& prddit si longtemps auparavant. Depuis 2,000 ans aucun paien n'avait adoro le Dieu des Juifs, et dans le temps predit la foule des pai'ens adore cet unique Dieu. Les temples sont detruits, les rois meme se soumettent k la croix. Qu'est-ce que tout cela ? C'est l'esprit de Dieu qui est repandu sur la terre Effundam spiritum meum. (Joel ii. 28.) Tous les peuples dtaient dans l'infidelitdct dans la concupisconco ; louto la terro fut nrdcnlo do charitd : les princeu quittent Jours gvandours ; Iob Alios sou (Trent lo martyro. D'ott vient cello forco? Cost quo lo Mcssio est arrive. Voi'la IVIl'ol. el les marques do sa venuo. ' (vol. ii. ed. Fowjcrctt, pp. 273, 277.) NOTE 3, p. 17. General statements of the evidence of miracles aro current in tho Fathers, who insist upon that argument in their controversies with the heathen, as modern apologists do in their defence of Christianity against tho infidel. Tertullian, e.g., after stating tho Eternal Sonship and immaculalo Conception ol our Lord, says: "Rocipilo interim banc fabulam, similia est vestris, dnm ostendimus qvomodo Christus probctur Quoin igitur [Judoii] solummodo hominein prnmimpaornnt do humililato, scqucbatur uli mogum ostium rent (pyw to yvwOehi 81-t 01V toOpuwoi dXXA OcoO ttvaiut Kal \iyos iarly i raOra ipyatfiuvos. . . . rU ISAiv airbv tIi v6s t\i\oO jobs 6(p0a\p.ovs toot- yoPTH, om to Ifcvirpc rty toOp&vuv {ivoKeip.lvtiv airy ytvcaiv, /cat Taurus r>ai S-nfuovpybv toVtov k«1 7rou/7>. (c. 18.) A modern writer wouldhavo 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 declara tion 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 came resurrexisse, et cum ilia in ccelum ascendisse non viderant, id se vidisse narrantibus ..... crcdebant." (De CivU. Dei, xxii. 5.) And to tho objection Avhy miracles were not continued, he answers that miracles Avere necessary at first for tho purpose of evidence, but not afterwards : "Necessaria fuisse priusquam crederet mundus), ad hoc ut crederet mundus." (Ibid. c. 8.) Origen, whoso works present a striking mixture of obsolete fanciful speculation and intellectual modern criticism, meets Celsus with the argument of mira-les. " Celsus," he says, "unable to deny the miracles of Jesus, calumniates them as Avorks 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 modem writer on evidences 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 Avith which they devoted them selves to the work of conversion, encountering every 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 npon 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 Si Kdl venpobs Avterrj, icai oix tan ir\do-fia tuv t&. evayyiXm ypo^itorusv, wapls foaytypirpBai rods dyaordirras. iirel S' o6k ton irXdV/ua vivv ciapiO/i^Tovs XeXex&u, (Ibid. c. 48.) Chrysostom uses Origen's argument : •' Had Christ not really risen from the dead, how do Ave account for the fact that the Apostles, who in their behaviour to TTim living had shown such wciiknesn ami cowordice that they desertod and betrayed Him, after His death shoAved such zeal that thoy laid down their lives for Him?" (In S. lynatium, torn. ii. p. 599.) Tho Resurrection of Christ, as being His own act, not brought about by tho instrumentality of another agent, visibly acting in Ilia behalf as tho medium of tho operation of the miracle (which Avas the manner in which tho other resurrections mentioned in Scripture had taken place), is regarded as in and of itself a proof of His Divinity. "His body," says Athanasius, "as 198 Note 3 [Lect. I] Note 199 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 ofthe 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 indwelling Word, were abolished Inasmuch as tho Word could not die, but was immortal, He assumed a Body that was able to die, in order that Ho might offer it up for the sake of all, and that the same Word, by reason of His junction to that Body, might destroy him that hath the power of death." (De Incam. § 20.) Chrysostom singles out tho peculiarity of tho miraclo of tho Resurrection — rb tavrdv two. SiivaoOai toaar^v. (In Joan. xxiv. torn. viii. p. 1 36.) But while tho Fathers appealed familiarly to tho evidence of miracles in behalf of tho truth of Christianity, there Avere particular kinds of belief strong in tho minds of tho Fathers, and of their nge, which prevented the argument of miracles from assuming in their hands the compactness and stringency Avhich it has gained in the hands of modern Avriters on evidence. Of the kinds of belief to which I refer, the first was their acceptance to a certain extent of the " dis pensation of Paganism," to use Dr. Newman's phrase (Arians, p. 89), and Avith it of certain miraculous pretensions which Paganism had put forth ; tho second Avas their belief in magic. A Avriter on evidence in the present age, in urging the evidence of miracles to tho divine nature and mission of Christ, is not incommoded by any strong belief existing cither in his own mind or in the age, in the reality of any supernatural demonstrations outsido of tho courso of miracles which constitute the evidences of revelation, and standing in a posi tion of rivalry to them. Tho Scripture miracles, if proved, thus stand alone in his plan of defence as true and admitted miracles, and the inference from tho truth of tho miracles to tho truth of tho doctrines is an unimpeded step, there being no counteracting force in the confessed existence of supernatural action under a false religion, or from a corrupt and evil power, which has to bo allowed and accounted for, in drawing tho evidential conclusion. But the Fathers believed that supernatural powers had been bestowed by Providence on various occasions, under Paganism ; and they had also a strong and uniloiibling belief in nuigio and a diabolical source of f.npcnialiintl ex hibitions. The argument, of miracles in their hands therefore was an obstructed and qualified argument, maintained in conflict villi various counter admissions ; and tho conclusion from it, though undoubting and full, was not given in the summary and rigorous form in which n. popular school of writers on evidence has put it. ci 1. The general attitude of the early Church toward the heathen world somewhat differed from that of modern Christendom. The doctrine of the Logos under the treatment of the Alexandrian school imparted a systematic form and theological basis to a higher estimate of Paganism : for in the eyo of that school " the dispensation of Paganism, so far as it contained truth, was but a loAver part of ono large dispensation, which our Lord, as the Divine Reason, had insti tuted 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 lightelh 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 communion — ono Church." (Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 1 17.) Such a Divino element being recognized in Paganism, tho next step was that a certain authority was attached bythe early Fathers in various instances to undent Pagan legend and traditions of miraculous appearances and interpositions. Cases of special Divine interposition in the Gentile Avorld are recognized in Scripture. " Scripture gives us reason to believe," says Dr. Newman, "that the traditions, thus originally dehvered to mankind at large, have been secretly reanimated and enforced by new communications from the unseen world. . . . The book of Genesis contains a record of the dis pensation of natural religion, or paganism, as well as of the patriarchal. The dreams of Pharaoh and Abimelech, as of Nebuchadnezzar afi er- wards, aro instances of the dealings of God with those to whom He did not vouchsafe a written revelation. . . . Let the book of Job bo taken as a less suspicious instance of the dealings of God with the heathen. Job was a lagan in the some sense in which the Eastern nations are Pagans in the present day. He lived among idolaters, yet ho and his friends had cleared themselves from the superstitions with which the true creed was beset : and, while one of them was divinely instructed by dreams, he himself at length heard the voice of God out of the whirlwind. . . . Scripture, as if for our full satisfaction, draws back the curtain further still in the history of Balaam. There a bad man and a heathen is made tho oracle of true Divino messages. . . . And so in tho cave, of Endor, oven a saint was sent, from the dend lo join the company of nn apostate king, mid tho sorceress whose aid he was seeking. Accordingly, there is nothing unreasonable in flic not inn, that, there may have been healhen poets and sages, or sibyls again, in a certain extent divinely illuminated, and organs through whom religious and moral truth was conveyed to their countrymen." (Armns, p. 89.) But the Fathers Avent further, and recognized Pagan supernatural events as occurring in the common stream of Pagan history, apart 200 Note 3 [Lect. I] Note 3 201 from any connection with or relation to the sacred people. Certain Pagan mu-acles, especially some Avhich occur in Roman history, had gained a respectable place in the works of heathen historians, the aame Hst recurs in different Fathers, and Minutiua Febx (Octavius, c. 27), Lactantius (Divin. Inst. lib. ii. c. 8), Tertullian (Ap ol. c. 22), and Augustine (De Civit. Dei, lib. x. c. 16), extend a kind of acceptance to them.1 The latter Father exhibits perhaps more of a critical Spirit than his predecessors, and in touching on the subject of natural marvels, especially the existence of certain extraordinary nations Avhich was asserted in geographical books of that age, says, " Sed omnia genera hominum quae dicuntur esse credere non est necesse." (De Civit. Dei, xvi. 8.) He supposes himself pressed by an objector who reminds him that if he discredits the marvels of secular Avriters he will haA-e to account for his behef in those of Scripture, but ho dis owns the dilemma. " Quod propterea poterunt dicere, ut respondendi nobis angustias ingerant : quia si dixerimus, non esse credendum, scripta Ula miraculorum infirmabimus ; si autem credendum esse con- cesserimus, confirmabimus numina paganorum. Sed nos non habemus necesse omnia credere quae continet historia gentium, cum et ipsi inter se historici, sicut ait Varro, per multa dissentiant." (De Civ. Dei, xxi. 6.) Later Avriters however of reputation have acknoAvledged Pagan miracles ; Dante (De Monarchia, lib. ii. c. 3) ranks certain recorded in Roman history as evidences, among other proof, ofthe divine authority of the Roman empire. And even our theologian Jackson entertains the idea of supernatural visitations under Paganism. 1 Such a partial recognition however of Pagan legends and reports of supernatural 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 argumen- turn ad hominem. Thus when heathen opponents taunted the Christians with the ignominious death of Him whom they asserted to be the Son of God, Justin Martyr encountered them with facts from their own mytho logy — tho miserable earthly fates which some of Jove's son3 had met — 'Aff/cX^Tridv koI Bepairevrty yepbpePOP, KepawaBivra toa\e\evffivai ek obpavdv hiivvoov 5e StaowapaxOivra.' 'Hpa/cXfo be 0vp elirOjv, el cypetwv ^upls tiruoap, wtiWtp paiov to Ouvpa (patverai. (Horn., vi. in Cor. torn. x. p. 45.) So again Augustine says (Contra Ep. Manichcci, c. 5) — " Ego vero Evangelio non credorem, nisi me catholicm ecclesioo commoverct nuc- toritas," — 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 distinguishes between two functions and capacities of the Church, one false, the other true ; one, according to which the Church was an infallible asserter, and her assertion enough ; tho other, accord ing to which tho Church was a body of men witnessing to the trans mission of certain doctrines and scriptures, upon certain evidence ; witnessing, i.e. to the evidence of those credenda, as well as to the credenda themselves — such evidence being principally miracles. This is Thorndikc's fundamental distinction in treating of the autho rity of the Church and the inspiration of Scripture — his answer to the dilemma, to which the Roman divines profess to reduce us upon the i 212 Note 3 [Lect. latter question, urging that we receive the inspiration of Scripture upon the authority of the Church ; and that therefore we stand com mitted to the principle of the authority of the Church in the fact of our belief in the Bible. We do, is Thorndike's reply, but not to the authority of the Church as an infallible asserter, but as a body witnessing to the transmission of certain evidence for the inspir ation of Scripture, contained in Apostolic history, — viz. the assertion of their own inspiration by the Apostles, attested by miracles. He explains then Augustine's statement in accordance with this dis criminating view. " The question is whether the authority of the Church as a corporation would have moved St. Augustine to believe the Gospel because they held 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." (Principles of Christian Truth, bk. i. ch. ii'.) The Fathers indeed assign other inferior uses to miracles besides the most important purpose of evidence ; such as those of exciting and stimulating, awakening men from the torpor of custom ; and in the light of this advantage they speak of miracles as an accommoda tion to human weakness. Thus Augustine : " Quamvis itaque miracula visibilium naturarum videndi assiduitate viluerunt, taiuen cum ea sapienter intueamur inusitatissimis rarissimisque majora sunt. Nam et omni miraculo quod fit per homincm majus miraculum est homo. Quapropter Deus qui fecit visibilia, coelum et terrain, non dedignatur facere visibilia miracula in coelo et terra quibus ad se invisi- bilem colendum excitet animum adhuc visibilibus deditum." (De Civ. Dei, x. 13.) Chrysostom looks upon miracles in the same light, when he accounts for the cessation of the gift of tongues by remarking that Christians 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 re moved this sign, not to disgrace but to honour you ; designing to shew that your faith does not depend upon tokens and signs." (torn. ii. p. 464.) In this light too tho Fathors would seem to viow miracles, when they join tho current miracloa of their own age to those of Scripture in tho evidential oillco. Tho Fathors assert uno ore that miracles bud then ceiiHiid ; yel they speak of miracles taking pluco in fhu Church then, and oven of theso miracles witnessing in a sense to tho truth of tho Gospel. Wo must reconcile theso two conflicting state ments by supposing that they recognized certain powers working in and events taking place in the Church, which, though not rising up to tho level of tho miracles of Scripture, etill shewed extraordinary I] Note 213 Divine action, and in the degree in which they did possessed an evi dential 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 miracles which Christians could then work, and of which the vestiges still remain among those who live according to the Christian precepts— tx'v *« owi'eoOat," (Contra Ccls. lib. i.. s. 2.) " It is a magnificent act of Jesus, that even to this day those whom He wills are healed in His name." (Ibid. ii. 33.) Ire naeus, after asserting that our Lord's miracles were verified by pro phecy, whieh shewed Him to be the Son of God, adds, " Wherefore in His name His true disciples now perform deeds of mercy :" lie mentions exorcisms, cures, &c. (Contra Hxr. ii. 32.) " That Jesus," says Justin Martyr, " was made man for the sake of the believers, and for the subversion of daomons, is manifest from what is done before your eyes all over the world ; when those who- are vexed by drenions, whom your own enchanters could not cure, are healed by our Chris tians abjuring and casting out the daemons in the name of Jesus." (Apol. ii. s. 6.) " 0 si audire eos velles," says Cyprian, " quando a nobis adjurantur et torquentur. .... Videbis nos rogari ab eis quos tu rogas, timeri ab eis quos tu times." (Ad Demetr. xv.) Augustine, speaking of the miracles attributed to the interference of the martyrs, says, " Cui nisi huic fidoi ottestantur ista miracula in qua prmdicatur Christus resurrexiase in came, et in coelum ascendisse in carne ? Quia et ipsi martyres, ... pro ista fide mortui sunt, qui ha;c a Domino impetrare possunt, propter cujus nomen occisi sunt." (De Civ. Dei, xxii. 9.) I have endeavoured to state the patristic use of the evidence of miracles, and the characteristics by which it was distinguished from the modem popular argument. With respect, however, to the Fathers' appeal to this evidence, it must bo 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 Boon moro as a groat assumption underlying tho wholo fabric of patristic reasoning on this subject, than ns anything formally expressed and devoloped in Btatoinont. Tho Fathers undoubtedly made deduc tions from tho force of miracles as evidence ; hut that the pomon of tlie Messiah and Son of God who en mo to be tho Mediator between God and man, and to atono by .Hie death tor tho sins of tho whole world would, when Ho came, he known and distinguished wholly without any miraculous element in His birth, life, or death, simply living in and passing through, tho world in that respect like an ordinary man 2r4 Note 3 [Lect. — was an idea which never even occurred to the mind of any Father, and which, had it been presented to him, he would have at once dis carded. The ancients, in their whole representation of the evidence of Christ's nature and supernatural ofiice— the evidence that He was what He professed to be, the only -begotten Son of God, the Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world— assumed the great miracles of His Birth, Resurrection and Ascension ; the Creed was used not only as a statement of our Lord's Divino character, but as the proof of it as well. 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 dis tinction must he by means of something miraculous : that where there was an invisible supernatural, which it was necessary to believe, the sign and token of it would be the visible supernatural. Tho 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 worshipping Jesus Christ, the Fathers indeed assumed the miraculous evidence of who Jesus Christ was ; for to worship a person who had Hved and died like an ordinary man, with however excellent gifts endowed, was an idea which they could not have conceived ; the miraculous testimony to His own assertion of His nature was taken for granted in the simple prayer, " 0 Son of David, have mercy upon us." " The facts of Christianity," says Archdeacon Lee, " aro represented by some as forming no part of its 'essential doctrines ; ' they rank, it is argued, no higher than its ' external accessories.' It is impossible to maintain this distinction. In the Christian revelation ihafact. of tho Resurrection is the cardinal doctrine, the doctrine of the Incarnation is the fundamental 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 which rest upon the evidence of senso." (On Miracles, p. 5.) Let ub beware, in conclusion, of depreciating tho groundwork of Christian evidence laid down by tho Fathers, because theso ancient writers entertained some points of belief relating to flic class of inferior spirits and the art of Magic which are not accepted at tho present day. Such partial thauniaturgic pretensions as the 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 with a true insight into Christian I] Note 4 2i5 evidence. Nor must we forget that the most indiscriminating belief in magic and witchcraft continued up to very recent times in the Chris tian 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.1 Yet we should justly complain if upon this ground any one refused to allow those divines the credit of being able to weigh Christian evidence. Jackson, Hammond, Thomdike, and others hved when the popular impression ofthe power of witchcraft to produce sensible supernatural 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 iu our schools, and Pascal meditated another, of which tho fragmentary beginnings are pro- served in his "Thoughts." Our divines all that time discussed the miraculous proofs of Christianity, and shewed themselves quite ade quate to that task. Sir Matthew Hale, in the year 1665, declared his own heUef in witchcraft upon the occasion of condemning two women to death for that crime ; yet it would be a very mistaken inference to draw from the existence of such a belief in that eminent Christian lawyer, that he could not have a correct perception of the evidences of Christianity, or was 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 statements on this subject. NOTE 4, p. 19. " I therefore proceed," says Spinoza, " to the consideration of the four principles which I here propose to myself to demonstrate, and in tho following order: ist, I shall begin by shewing that, nothing happens contrary to the order of nature, and that this order subsists without pause or interruption, eternal and unchangeable. I shall at the same tiino take occasion to explain what is to he under stood 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 lnueli belter illustrated and proclaimed by the regular and invariable order of nature. . 1 " All the nations of Christendom, '' says Dr. ITcy (Norrisiau Professor 1780-1795), ''havo so far taken these powers for granted, as to provide legal remedies against them. At this time there subsist in this University ono if not several foundations for annual sermons to be preached against them." (Bishop Kay's Tertullian, p. 171.) 2l6 Note 4 [Lect. "(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 necessarily 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 op position 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, tlien, happens in nature which is in contradiction with its universal laws.1 Nor this only ; nothing happens which is not in accordance with these laws, or does not follow them : for whatever is, and whatever happens, is and happens by the will and eternal decree of God ; that is, as has been already shewn, whatever happens does 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 happens in nature which does not follow 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 signifies nothing more than an event, a phenomenon, the cause of which 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 that the cause of which 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, which was to shew that from miracles we 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 Bupposo that it is said that a miracle is that which, cannot be explained by natural causes ; this may be understood in two ways : either that it has natural causes which cannot be inves tigated by tho human understanding, or that it' acknowledges no causo savo Ood, or tho will of God. But aB all that happens, also happens by tho solo will and power of God, it wero then necessary to say Ihnl a miracle either owned natural causes, or if it did not, that it was inexplicable by any causo ; in other words, that it was something which it surpassed tho human capacity to understand. But of nny- 1 Spinoza says in 0 note, — "By nature hero I do not understand tho material universe only, and its affections, but besides matter an infinity of other things." I] Note 4 217 thing in general, and of tho particular thing in question, viz. the miracle, which surpasses our powers of comprehension, nothing what ever can be known. For that which we clearly and distinctly under stand 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 powers of comprehension, we cannot understand anything, either of the essence or existence, or any other quality of God or nature " Wherefore, as regards our understanding, those events which we clearly snd distinctly comprehend, are with much better right en titled works of God, and referred to His will, than those which are wholly unintelligible to us, although they strongly Beize upon our ima gination and wrap us in amazement ; inasmuch as those works of nature only which we clearly and distinctly apprehend render our knowledge of God truly sublime, and point to His will and decrees with tho greatest clearness For if miracles bo understood as interruptions 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 have, and would induce doubt both of the existence of God and of everything else." (Tractatus TlieologiCo-Politicus, 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 conclusion. In the premiss, Spinoza uses " Nature " in the sense of the universe both spiritual and material ; in which sense it is true that " nothing happens in nature which is in con tradiction with its universal laws." For even a miracle, though con trary to the order of the material world, or an interruption of it, is in agreement with 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 ma terial 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 tho law and order of tho wholo univorso, in which case Ho would bo acting against His own intelligence and will. But it does not follow that God may not act in contradiction to the order of apavl, because tho part is subordinate to tho whole : and therefore 1111 exception to the order of a part may bo subservient to the order and design of the whole. Spinoza, it. may bo added, from the term " law " extracts " a fixed and immutable course of tilings," or necessity : but " law" in this sonso is a pure hypothesis, without proof. Tho argument of Spinoza under the second head is based upon 218 Note 4 [Lect. 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 with 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 5, p. 24. 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 revela tion which communicates truths undiscoverable by human reason. Were Mahometanism simply Deism, or rather Monotheism ; did it only inculcate upon mankind tho great principle of the Unity of God ; impressing together with that doctrine the obligation of worship and other moral and religious duties which were obvious to reason ; in that case Mahometanism could not require the evidence of miracles to witness to its truth. Because the principle of the Unity of God is one which naturally approves itself to the reason of man. 1. But Mahomet did not adopt this position : he did not confine himself to the ground of human reason, but professed to have a now and express revelation of his own to communicate to mankind, a reve lation which came to him straight from heaven. " We reveal unto thee this Koran,"1 God is represented as saying to Mahomet in that book ; " Thou hast certainly 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. 1 " Which we have sent down in tho Arabic tongue." (Koran, chap. xii. ) Salo says : " Tho Mahommedans absolutely deny that tlie Koran was composed by their prophet himself, or any other for him ; it being their gcnui-nl and orthodox belief that it is of divine original, nuy, that it is eternal and uncreated, remaining, as somo express it, in tho very essence of God ; that tho first transcript has been from everlasting by God's throne, written on a table, of vast bigness, called the preserved table, in which aro also recorded the divino decrees past aud future ; that a copy from this table, in one volume on paper, was, hy the ministry of tit p angel Gabriel, sent down to the lowest heaven, in the month of Unmaihmi, on tiie night of power : from whence Galiricl revealed it to Mahomnieil by parcels, some at Mecca and some at Medina, at different times, during the space of twenty-three years, os the exigency of affairs required. " (Preliminary Discourse, ace. iii.) I] Note 5 219 A ii.) It is true that this revelation to Mahomet is exhibited as a supple mentary one, not, i.e. as a revelation which contradicts and supersedes the former revelations of the Law and the Gospel, but which carrie3 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 development of the Law, was a separate revelation from the Law, on which account it was attested by its own special and appropriate credentials : the revelation to Mahomet there fore, if it stood in a like supplementary relation to bof ' of these former revelations together, was a revelation additional to both, a new reve lation to mankind which required its own credentials, as the Gospel did when it succeeded to the Law. " The Koran," says Mr. Forster, " was delivered by Mahomet, pro fessedly as tho complement of the former Scriptures of tho Law and the Gospel, as a further 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 with the Old and New Testaments." (Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. ii. p. 14.) The supernatural communication then of God to Mahomet, the Divino Mission of Mahomet, needed attestation, to oblige a rational assent to and belief in 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 his reason. The Divine intercourse with him was a fact which belonged in its own nature to the invisible and supernatural world. Mahomet's assertion then was not proof of it, neither was his success : it required the guarantee of miracles. 2. But besides the Divine mission of Mahomet to establish a new dis pensation, the. substance ofthe Mahometan revelation itself is in many parts wholly undiscoverable by human reason. The great principle of Monotheism is so prominent in Mahometanism, as a system of religious belief, that wo arc apt to regard it as tbe only one, and .so to look upon the religion in a light in which it can dispense with miraculous evidence. But besides the great doctrine of the Divine Unity, many most important articles of belief are divulged in the Koran — articles relating to tho intermediate state, the mode of the. general resurrection, the proceedings of the last judgment, the state ol purgatory, its pains and duration ; the happiness of heaven and the torments of hell. Minute Tevelations are made on these subjects, which are of overpower ing interest to tho Mahometan believer ; but which are entire])- super- 220 Note 5 [Lect. ~Y "] A^te i 22 I natural 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 world, Mahometanism also contains a large mass of rules and usages re lating to practice, all of which rest upon a ground of express revelation, and are regarded upon that account as oMigatory ; 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 own evidence, with 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 du-ect sign and warrant that the command to observe them comes from God. What tokens then do the positive institutions of Mahometanism present as credentials of their Divine origin, and in proof of their obbgatorinesa 1 The positive rules and institutions of the Mosaic law exhibited the warrant of miracles, but those of Mahometanism do not. The minute regulations prescribed for the performance of prayer, the observance of sacred seasons and days, the institution of pilgrimage, and much other ceremonial matter, all stand in tho Mahometan religion upon tho express ground of a Divine com mand ; bo 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 Divine authority no rational proof ia given. Should the Mahometans ever alter the basis of their rebgion, 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 upon grounds of reason, aud discard all tho revelations of tho Koran relating to the invisible world and a futuro stale ; should they transfer tho positive institutions of Maho- molaiiiHin from tho ground of a Divino command to that of expediency, and bo from being sacred and unchangeable lowor thorn into alterable human arrangements ; in that case their religion would not need miracles, but then thoir religion would ceaso to bo Mahometanism. Such a religion would be Deism, or natural religion. But Mahome tanism as it is, is more than Deism ; it is a professed revelation, and \ the revelation of what is undiscoverable by human reason ; the behef in which, not only without that degree but without that kind of proof which a revelation requires, is in its very form irrational belief, though thousands not only of rational but intelligent persons may hold it. LECTUEE II. NOTE 1, p. 27. Bishop Butler in the introduction to the " Analogy" called atten tion to the deficiency in the philosophical treatment of the argument from experience, that tho 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 proceeds 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 belongs to the subject of Logic, and is a part of that subject which has not yet been thoroughly considered." The "Analogy" came out in 1736, and Hume's " Treatise of Human Nature," which entered upon this new field of inquiry, and took up for tho first time in philosophy the question of the ground of the argument of experience, by a curious coincidence, followed the notice of the want in the " Analogy " by an interval of only two years, coming out in 1738. NOTE 2, p. 42. The general definition of Induction, that it is "a process of in ference from the known to the unknown ; " the operation of the mind by which wo infer that what wo know to bo trim iu pnrlieulnc cases will bo true in all similar cases, that what is trim at certain times will bo true in similar circumstances at all times (Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 297)> >H universally assented to. Tho peculiarity of the process is confessed to bo that it gots out of facts something moro than what they actually contain; extends them further than they actually, go. To pronounce upon what is wholly unknown, and say that it, the unknown thing, is or will bo so and so, because tho known is so and «o, is thus to extend known facts beyond themselves ; but unless 222 Note 2 [Lect. this is done, there ia no induction. "Any operation involving no inference, any process in which what 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 liad ? Certainly not." There was no induction then (p. 301). " There was not that transition from known cases to unknown which 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 Discovery, p. 284). But after the first general definition of induction Dr. Whewell and Mr. Mill disagree. In Mr. Mill's view induction is in its csscnco a simplo dbect process of arguing from some things to other things, from particulars to particulars, without the medium of tho conscious contemplation of those known particulars in a general form, that is to say, tho medium, of language or general propositions. The mind simply passes on from several individual cases known to another individual case not known. " Not only may we reason from particulars to par ticulars 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 bums.' He knows from memory that he has been burnt, and on this evidence believes, when he sees a candle, that if be 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 particular from particulars. In the same way also brutes reason. There is no ground for attributing to any of the lower animals tho use of signs, of such a nature as to render general propositions possible. But thoso animals profit by experi ence, and avoid what they have found to cause them pain, in the same milliner, though not always with the same skill, as n human creature. Not only the burnt child, but tho burnt dog dreads the the" (Mill, i. 210). " All inference is from particulars to particulars. General pro positions are merely registers of such inferences already made, and short formula! for making moro , , . . the real logical antece dent or premisses being the particular facts from which the, general Note 2 223 Hume who regards it as an instinctive process, performed m no argu- S« or by any argumentative medium T he ^Tjj ^» acn-ees with Hume's idea of the process as being no part of the distinc £ hnml reason, or resting upon grounds of ^^;^ being common to rational and n-rational natures Expc 1 mental Lna'-savs Hume "we possess in common with beasts, Mr. Z^ "Tthis W (U I inferring unknown particulars bom an inference dbect from particulars ; as well as front the idea of ,1 - SPrTLm" "Not only a general thought but a general word or ?S isTrequJteelei^in induction.- (Philosophy of Disco- TnSte Ih» a "general proposition" or "word" or "conscious on hi intelligent minds, is a question which must be decided by the iS oiv of the fact-the consideration of what by the inspection of our own minds we perceive ourselves to do in induction. On examining then what goes on in our own minds, when as mtchgent and raUonal Ssfroin known particulars we infer what is un knownm, beyon (bern-wbicb is induction, it does not appear to be at all necc sai} or Essential to that proceeding, that those V™^.^^ ™ should pass through the medium of a genera proposi 1011 To in due ivo inference naturally and with full propriety attaches itse.if 1 a oWvvation a certain number of times made ; upon 1 ,0 more repot, ion of 'the fact observed the mind goes 01, to an inference respecting ha is not observed, vi... that, tbe latter will be hke the termor ; the observations may bo rational nnd intelligent ones, made with sagacity and discernment, but that they should have been made time aUe.r 1 "The elements and materials of science," the writer a.hls "«ro "^ ,.,,./ nUhs contemplated by the intellect: it. is by consisting 0 sue elements and such materials that science is science." (p. 244.) But has inductive science to do with necessary truths ? 224 Note 2 [Lect. time, and should simply exist iu the memory as a series or- succession of particular facts, is enough in order that the mductive inference 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 observed in so many patients the con nection of a disease with certain symptoms ; he expects the same con nection in the next patient. This 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 parti culars are the only ground which we really have for mduction to proceed upon, and the essential argument is in every case of induction from particulars. Particulars are all we know of, and therefore all we can possibly argue from. It is true we may introduce if we pleasa a general proposition into tbe affair, and instead of proceeding straight from tbe particular facts and getting the inference from them as an induction, turn the particular facts into a general proposition from wdiich we obtain the inference as a deduction. Instead of saying, 'Alex ander, Caesar, Queen EUzabeth, Peter, Bobert, William, (the hst might be supposed extended to all who ever Uved, and still be only a Ust of particular persons,) have died ; therefore I shall die ;' I may aay, ' All men die,' which is a general proposition, and, infer my own death as included in it. But this is a more 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, tho onlyovidcnco we have for the mortality of the Duke of Wellington. Not one iota is added to the proof by interpolating a general proposition. Since tbe individual cases are all the evidence we can possess, evidence which no logical form into which we choose to throw it can make greater than it is .... I am unable to Bee why we should be for bidden to take tbe shortest cut from these premisses to the conclu sion, and constrained to travel tlie 'high priori road' bythe arbitrary fiat of logicians.'' (vol. i. p. 209.) A general proposition introduced into an Inductive ni-RUinnnt can not bo inserted as any real or truo ground of it; for if it is inserted as a truth, it is a petitio principii, and should therefore bo immediately ejected. But if it is only introduced as a formal medium or modo of steteiiimil, it. is not of tho ossonco of tho rational and scientific argu ment of induction. The general proposition, so far as it cornea in correctly at all, is II] Note 2 225 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 conclusion of the inductive argu ment, i.e. it is only used as such from the necessities of language, and' because we have no other available formula for expressing the true conclusion in our mind. The inductive conclusion which really exists in the mind is indeed neither a general proposition nor a par ticular proposition. It is a vague indefinite 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 -ex pectation in our minds, this anticipatory look-out into the future or unknown, 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 sub ject. A general proposition is thus to the real inductive conclusion within the mind a case which is too large for its contents, which sticks out on aU sides' with unsubstantial ampUtude. The inductive con clusion ia not knowledge, and therefore if we give it the form of knowledge by meana 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 tho other hand, is the inductive conclusion a 'particular' in tho strict sense; we reason from particulars, but not properly to particulars. If be cause the sun has always risen hitherto, I say it will rise to-morrow morning, or the morning after ; that is a limitation of the real induc tive 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 morniug, 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 aun will rise to-morrow, or tho sun will riso always ; I havo tho samo meaning in my mind in both expressions. The samo gonoral anticipation speaks undor both forms. .All men hitherto havo diod ; / shall dio. This latter is a particular. But it is evidently exactly tho samo realty, whether I sny, '1 shall die,' or 'All men will dio ;' it is actually in tho mind tho same anticipation in cither caso. For tho argument of tho Second Lecture it is enough, if without entering into the comparison of tho inductive process as it goes on in rational creatures with tho samo process as it goes ou in irrational, P 226 Note 2 [Lect. that process looked at in itself is admitted to be unaccountable and not founded on reason : for if—that which is identical with this pro cess — the belief in the order of nature does not rest upon reason, the "round 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 when 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 posi tive difference between that inference in rational natures and irra tional. It is so difficult wholly to abstract the inference from the facts from which it is an inference, that we do not get the idea of the pure inference itself into our minds. According to the received lan guage however of philosophers this inference is wholly unaccountable and altogether non-logical in rational natures : " to pass from parti culars to generals is a mysterious step," says Dr. Whewell, however scientific the material to which it is applied :— " there must neces sarily be a logical defect in it"—" the rules of the syllogism do not authorize the answers of the inductive generalizing impulse." (Philo sophy of Discovery, 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? Man is a rational being, but if he does not draw the inductive infer- ence with his reason, that inference is not affected by his peculiar and distinctive gift of tbe rational faculty. Man knows indeed, when he contemplates 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, who have not tbe self-con templative 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 1 Mr. Mill, though he has admitted that brutes " reason" (vol. i. p. 210) and draw instinctively tho inductive inference, yet "objects" with Dr. Whewell "to the application of the term induction to any operation pcrfo-med by mere instinct ; that is from an animal impulse, without the exer tion of any intelligence." (Note, vol. i. p. 295.) Nor is such a restric tion iu the application of the term otherwise than proper, because we associate with tbe term induction not only the mysterious and unreasoning step beyond the facts which have been described II] Note 2 227 \>ut also the scientific search for and discovery of the facts them selves ; 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. What it is which constitutes the ground of induction or the infer ence from the known to the unknown has been since Hume's time a matter of dispute among philosophers, all of whom however agree in the negative point, that the inference does not rest upon any ground of reason. " The ingenious author of the Treatise of Human Nature," says Dr, Eeid, " first observed that our belief of the continuance of the laws of nature cannot be founded either upon knowledge or proba bility ; but far from conceiving it to be an original principle of the mind, he endeavours to account for it from his 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 instinctive prescience of the opera tions 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 unknown. " 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, fab to the earth— are propositions that differ as much as the proposi tions, A, a stone has once fallen to the earth ; B, a stone will always fall to the earth. At whatever 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 stage of in quiry, it is just as absurd to make it at any other stage." His own ratioualois " succession of thought"— "the natural tendency of the mind to exist in certain states after existing in certain other states." The general expectation which sueceeds to the facts of experience, ho 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 samo wav 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, 228 Note 2 [Lect. but it is immediately afterwards to have those particular sensations ; and this merely because the 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 consequents, is not, in the very feeling of the moment, to beUeve in the future similarity, but, in consequence of a similar original tendency, it is immediately after wards 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 post, from which it flows, is indeed true ; but what resemblance has sweet ness, as a sensation 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, m, that these succes sions regularly take pi ace ; andintheregularsuccessionsof nature, which could not, in one instance more than in another, have been predicted without experience, nothing is mysterious, or everything is mysterious. It is wonderful, indeed, — for what is not wonderful 1 — that any belief should arise as to a future which as yet has no existence ; and which therefore cannot, in the strict sense of the word, 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 phenomena of nature, however regularly arranged, would havo been arranged in vain." (Brown's Philosophy of tlxa Human Mind—Cliapter on Objects of Physical Enquiry, vol. i. p. 190.) The criticism to which both these explanations of the inference from expe rience is open, is that they are only ingenious statements of the fact. Keid's " instinctive prescience" is as a phrase inaccurate, because we have not prescience or knowledge of the future ; such prescience can only really mean expectation ; and then the explanation becomes only a statement of the fact that wo do expect the future to be like the past. Brown's explanation approaches more to the nature of an explanation, and yet at bottom it is only tho statement that after experience of tho past we have expectation of the future, that tho former Blato of mind succeeds the latter. Hume's rationale of custom, though undoubtedly deficient, has tho advantage of connecting the argument of experience with a great principle in nature, which is not identical with it, with which however it appears to be connected ; and thus approaches more to the nature of an explanation than these two. Tho question, however, what is tho nature of tho inductive inference, and to what principle we are to refer it, is an ulterior question which docs not affect the argument of this Lecture, for H] Note 2 229 which it is enough to say what it is not, viz. that it is not grounded 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, 1S61) :— "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 universality and immutability of the operations of nature must rest ultimately upon this internal instinct. Trace that bebef, with Hume, to custom ; or with others to association ; or with others to a separate principle in the human mind ; call it tire general izing principle, or the inductive principle : whatever account we give 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 ineffaceably 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 by God? Is it more than an instinct, a tendency, an impulse, requir ing, Uke so many other tendencies of our nature, to be narrowly watched, balanced, and corrected by opposite tendencies ? AU 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 without control or qualification. Are we yet sufficiently acquainted ^vith the nature of this principle to decide this question ? Are there not obvious marks which class it rather with our instincts than with our reason — with imperfect impulses of our compound nature, rather than with absolute revelations from God ? We can break its links. We cannot beheve gratitude to be a sin, or falsehood meritorious; but wo can imagine and believe in the existence of a world, where all the combinations of nature may be totally dilferent from our present experience. The connexion between death and the swallowing of arsenic is of a totally different kind from that between injustice and the puniahnblo character of injustice No one would nliirin of moral truths, an Science alllriiis of material causes and effects, that our knowledge of them rests wholly upon experience. "That the principlo has been so little studied, is so lit lie under stood, would sntllco to warn uh against asserting ul, once its Divine authority and sanction for the universal immutability of Nat ore. It would seem partly to bo a result of the mechanical association of ideas, hy which the mind (iponfiinooiinly and liiicniiai-iuusly recalls and suggests combinations once observed, forming thus our memory, our habits, our character, our pleasures, our imagination, and a very large proportion of our practical reasoning. But every step we take 230 Note [Lect. H] Note 3 231 i?Jw C°m?eIi3 *US t0 ^P tMs asso«ating tendency under the strictest control, to regard it, as a hundred other tendencies in our nature, necessary to existence— valuable as a prompter— but re- teTtimonat"eVeTy St6P t0 b6 kept ln Che°k by exPerience> h7 M^ iri It may be objected to the ordinary account of induction as based upon repetition and recurrence, that in the case of experiments repeti tion is not wanted to produce the feeling of assurance in tho mind ; i.e. that this ia not the basis of the practical certainty we have in the result of experiments: that our assurance of this is not gradually acquired, slight at first and increasing afterwards every time the experiment is tried ; but that after one chemical experiment, shewing tho properties of a substance, or tho effects of tho union of two sub stances, we feel as sure that the samo properties and effects will appear ngain as wo do after the experiment has been fifty times re peated; 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 ingreclient may have got in ; not from the need of repetition supposing the accuracy of the experiment. 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 wore 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 certainty, being of this nature, sometimes arose upon one case, instead of always requiring repetition. The difference would shew that there were difficulties in the interior of the subject of induction which 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 in telligent attitude of tho mind toward an experiment, the certainty reposed in an experiment is an inductive cortainty. There is indeed a posture of mind iu which experiments are regarded simply as phenomena of experience, phenomena presented to the eye apart from their object and rationale; and the confidence in experiments, re garded in this light, docs 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 tho issue of an old familiar experiment that Lad been performed in all laboratories and lecture-rooms for years, with more confidence and more as a matter of course than we should the issue of a new one which had gnly 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 which 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 with exactly the samo properties as the substance upon which tho late experiment was tried; but upon this assumption, the fact that such and such is the property of the substance before us, is, after the late experiment, no step of induction, but an article of knowledge. Wo know that the property is there, which the second experiment only makes visible to the eye and docs not provo to the mind. It must bo observed that in tho case of an experiment we have, to begin with, tho advantage of tho common instinctive induc tion 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 groundwork still continues; that is true, and so far the result oi the experiment is inductive. So far as it is not an absolute certainty that this is the same substance, with the same properties, as the last one, so far it is not a certainty that the result of the experiment will be the same : but in attending to the experiment the mind puts aside the uncertainty, whatever there may be, of the groundwork of it, and does not consider it. NOTE 3, p. 42. I bat, " The first part of tho inductive process is not reasonin", but observation; the second is not reasoning, but instinct." Tho first part of the inductive process may with general truth be described as "observation," in distinction 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 observa tion. Such facts, i.e. facts of scientific observation, Dr. Whewol! calls "selected facts," the selection of them being by means of certain con ceptions of the mind, by which facts are perceived in their proper relation, which he caUs "colligation." (Philosophy of Ind. Sciences, vol. ii. chaps, ii.-iv.) " In tho progress of science," says Dr. Whewell,' 232 Note 3 [Lect. II] Note 4 J^T lfoundJ°9<*h/r*y the aid of suitable conceptions. This part of the formation of our knowledge I call the colligation of facts ; and wo may apply the term to every case in which by an act of the intellect we establish a precise connexion among tho phenomena which are presented to our senses." (p. 36.) Even to tho old, and as it happens untrue, Aristotelian fact of tho longevity of "acholoua" animals, the writer appUes the term » conception." « It is a selected lact, a fact selected and compared in several cases, which is what wo mean by a conception. . . . He appbed the conception acholoux to his observation of animala. This conception divided them into two classes, and these classes wore, ho fancied, long-lived and short lived respectively." (Philosophy of Discovery, p. 455.) It may, however, happen that particular facts upon which induc tions arc founded, aro not tho results of observation solely, but that he ascertainment of them involves reasoning, ..,7. astronomical facts, the distance of the moon, the globular form of the earth, &c In par ticular cases, again, it is disputed 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. MiU says, this was only "the sum ot 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 aU to bo joined together,"— which was description. Dr. Whewell says "that the intermediate positions between tho several observations are an induction, [quoting Mr Mill 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 positions as belonaing to the same curve?'' (Philosophy of Discovery, p. 248.) What proves the curve would perhaps he 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 unobserved points not fitting in with it. I have mentioned these cases to iUustrate the point that observation, popularly B0 called, sometimes involves regular reasoning But though tho obBorvation of facts which constitutes the first part of induction involves in particular cases reasoning, observation alone is all that is required for induction, and this is tho main faculty at work in this stago. NOTE 4, p. 42. " This very essence of the wholo argument is the invaluable pre servation of tho principle of order: not necessarily such as wo can 233 r directly recognise, but the universal conviction of the unfailin" sub ordination of everything to some grand principles of law, however imperfectly apprehended: or realised in our partial conceptions and the successive subordination of such laws to others of still limber generality to an extent transcending our conceptions, and constitutiim tho true chain of universal causation, which culminates in tho sublbne conception 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 tho sublime prospect, by imagining so unworthy an idea as that ol occasional interruptions in the physical economy of the world. x J "Tho only instance considered was that of the alleged sudden supernatural origination of new species of organised bciima in remote geological epochs. It is iu relation lo the broad principle of law if once rightly apprehended, that such inferences are seen to bo whollv unwarranted by science, and such fancies utterly derogatory and inadmissible in philosophy; while, even in those instances properly understood, the real scientific conclusions of the invariable and indis soluble chain of causation stand vindicated in the sublime contempla tions with which they are thus associated. ,. "To a. correct apprehension of the whole argument, the one essen tial requisite is to have obtained a complete and satisfactory grasp of this one grand principle of law pervading nature, or rather constituting the very idea of nature ;— which forms the vital essence of the whole ot inductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher inferences from the inductivostudy of natural causes, which are tho indications ot a supreme intelligence and a moral cause. " The whole of the ensuing discussion must stand or fall with the admission of this grand principle. Those who are not prepared to embrace it in its full extent, may probably not accept the conclusions • but they must be sent back to the school of inductive science, where alone it must be independently imbibed and thoroughly assimilated with the mind ot the student in the first instance. " On the slightest consideration of the nature, the foundations, and general results of inductive science, we Bee abundant exemplification at once ol ; the legitimate objects which fall within the province of physical philosophy, and the limits which, from the nature of the case, must be imposed on its investigations. We recognise the powers of intellect fitly employed in tho atudy of nature, but indicating no conclusions beyond nature; yet pro-cmincntlv leading us to perceive m nature, and 111 tho invariable and universal constancy or As laws tho indications of universal, unchangeable, and recondite nrmmmntut dependence, and connexion in reason." (Powell on the Order of Nature, "In an age of physical research like the present, all highly culti vated inmdH nn. duly advanced intellects have imbibed, ,,,0,0'or less the lessons of the inductive philosophy, and have at least in some mensun learned to appreciate the grand foundation conception Note 4 [Lect. of universal law — to recognise the impossibility even of any two material atoms subsisting together without a determinate relation — of any action of the one on 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 connexion." (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, p. 133.) " The enlarged critical and inductive study of the natural world cannot but tend powerfuUy to evince the inconceivabloness of imagined interruptions of natural order, or supposed suspensions of the laws of matter, and of that vast series 01 dependent causation which constitutes the legitimate field for the investigation of science, whose constancy is the sole warrant for its generalizations." (p. 1 10.) " No amount of attestation of innumerable and honest witnesses would ever convince any ono versed in mathematical and mechanical science, that a person had squared tho circlo or discovered perpetual motion. Antecedent credibility depends on antecedent knowledge, and enlarged views of the connexion and dependence of truths ; and tho value of any testimony will be modified or destroyed in different degrees to ininds differently enlightened." (p. 141.) A writer in the Quarterly Keview has forcibly pointed out that such language as this violates " the very caution prescribed and com manded by the logic of induction, which rigidly confines statements of facts to actual experience, refraining from any admixture with these of assumption or hypothesis." The " Immutability of the Laws of Nature" is, he observes, such an assumption or hypothesis, and is therefore an offence against " inductive logic — that logic whose nobleness and potency is centred in a rigid discrimination of experi ence from imagination." (Article on the Immutability of Nature, 1861.) NOTE 5, p. 46. 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 tho mind. " I must protest," ho Bays, "against adducing as evidence of tho truth of a fact in ex ternal naturo the disposition, however goncral, of tho human mind to believe it. Belief is not proof, and does riot dispense with the necessity of proof. ... To demand evidence when tho belief is ensured by the mind's own laws is supposed to be appealing to the intellect against tho intellect. But this I apprehend is a misunderstanding of the nature of evidence. By evidence is not meant anything and every thing which produces beUef. There are many things which generate H] Note 5 235 beUef besides evidence : a mere strong association of ideas often causes a beUef so intense as to be unshaken by experience or argu ment. Evidence is not that which the mind does or must yield to, but that which it ought to yield to." (vol. ii. p. 95.) We could not have a more decided announcement that the writer intended to estab lish law in nature, or the belief in the uniformity of nature, upon a logical and argumentative as distinguished from an instinctive ground. He disproves 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, he surely would soon cease to believe in any unifor mity, the uniformity itself no longer existing. If this is admitted, cither the belief in uniformity is not an instinct, or it is an instinct con querable, Uke aU 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 pro nounced to be instinctive upon the condition of her past uniformity. The belief which is pronounced to be instinctive absolutely, is the belief that tho unknown wiU be like the known. It depends there fore upon what the known or past is, what wo bebeve the unknown or future wUl he. If the past has been order, we believe the future wUl be order ; if the past has been chaos, we believe the future will bo chaos. The instinctive heUef which is spoken of is tho belief according to which the future hi our ininds instinctively reflects tho past, whatever that past may be. Discarding, then, altogether the instinctive or nut - cdent ground, as the ground of the legitimate belief in the uniformity of naturo, Mr. Mill proceeds to provide this belief with real evidence, or to place it upon a full logical basis. And the first ground which ho puts forward is that this belief is " verified by experience." " Some believe it," he says, "to bo a principle which, antecedently to any verification by experience, wo aro compelled by the constitution of our thinking faculty to assume as Irue ;" but ho, on the other hand, pronounces that this principle both requires and has tho verification of experience. "The assumption with regard lo the course of nature and the order of tho universe," i.e., the belief in its uniformity, be. says, "is an assumption involved in every case of induction. Ami if we consult the actual course of nature we find that the assumption is warranted. The universe we find is so constituted, that whatever is true in any oi;o 236 Note 5 [Lect. case is true in all cases of a similar description. This universal fact is a warrant for aU inferences from experience The justifica tion 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 substitnte for it a sup posed internal necessity." (vol. i. 316 ; v. 2, 97.) I am at a loss to understand what Mr. MiU can mean by saying that the assumption of the uniformity of nature is " verified by ex perience," " is warranted by a universal fact ;" and by saying that " the justification of our belief that the future will resemble the past, is that the future does resemble the past." If, indeed, I use experi ence in such a sense as to combine it with and include within it an instinctive or antecedent ground, that is the ground upon which the belief in the uniformity of nature is ordinarily put ; the ground, viz. that although such a belief of course implies a past experience, and would be impossible without it, the beUef is instinctive upon this past experience. The sun having riaen up to thia morning, which is past experience, I believe that it wilt rise to-morrow, which is an in stinctive belief or assumption upon that past experience. But if I use the "verification of experience" in distinction to an antecedent or instinctive ground, in that case the " verification " of my beUef in the sun's rising to-morrow " by experience " can only mean the verifica tion of it by the fact itself of the sun's rising to-morrow. Such an "experimental proof" of induction would indeed convert any in ductive conclusion into a universal proposition ; for a conclusion which is "proved" and " verified " by " experience," as distinguished from any "general disposition of the human mind to believe it," is undoubtedly an actual and true fact. But such an " experimental proof" of induction cannot be stated without an absurdity ; for we cannot without a contradiction in terms speak of the subject of induc tive belief being verified by experience when that belief is by the very supposition an advance upon our experience : my beUef that the sun • will rise to-morrow cannot bo verified by the fact of the sun's rising to-morrow, when as yot by tho voTy form of tho expression that, fact ha3 not yet taken place. Such a kind of verification could only be expressed by saying, " I believe that the sun has risen to-morrow.^ Whatever amount of oxperienco wo may have backward, that experi ence can only verify the belief that preceded it— the belief in those particular facts of which that experience was tho verification ; that past experienco cannot poBsibly verify my belief in a fact which is now future : yet this is what Mr. Mill verbally stateB,— "The justi fication of our belief that tho future will resemble the past, iB that the H] Note 237 future does resemble the past." That which 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 the 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 wOl resemble the past. The order or uniformity of nature could indeed be verified by experience, were it a past order or uniformity only ; but it is a future order as well ; and the belief respecting that future must rest upon an assumption by which we connect that past with this future. As Mr. Mill, however, advances further in the construction of a logical basis for induction, his argumentative phraseology changes, and the principle of the uniformity of nature ia 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 generahzation a3 an explanation of the induc tive 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." (vol. 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 mstance of induc tion ; we arrive at this universal law by generalization from many laws of inferior generaUty." (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 particular 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 tho order of tho universe is involved in every case of induction." (vol. i, p. 316.) But Lhc construction of such a ground of induction as this appears to shew that induction does not, rather than that it does, rest upon a logical basis. For what is tho stele of tho case ? The general assumption of tbe uniformity of nature rests upon parti cular cases of induction ; those particular eases of induction rest upon that "oncral assumption of the uniformity of nature. Tho large generalization rests upon prior generalizations ; the prior generaliza tions upon the large one. But if tho two grounds or bases of indue- =38 Note 5 [Lect tion rest upon each other, what is this but to say that induction as a whole is foundationZess; that it stands upon no ground of reason. If in every case of induction there is an assumption, and that assump tion rests upon those cases of induction ; both together are argunienta- tively suspended in space. Mr. Mill of course perceives the objection to which his ground is open, and replies ; but instead of shewing that his ground furnishes that " proof" or "evidence" with which, he has said, induction cannot dispense, he appears to disclaim the very intention of giving such proof or evidence 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 we place at the head of our reasonings when we throw them into syllogisms over contribute to their validity .... not contributing at all to prove the conclusion, but being a necessary comb tion of its being proved ; since no conclusion is proved for which 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 syUogism, which, Mr. Mill says, "is a. petitio principii," — 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, however, Mr. Mill seems to promise such an explanation of the apparent circular reasoning upon which he has based induction as will shew that the circularity in it is only ap parent, and that it is at the bottom real proof. " If we assume the universality of tho very law which these cases [particularly induc tions] do not at first sight appear to exempUfy [i.e. the very law which is founded upon them'], is not this a petitio principii? Can we prove a proposition by an argument which takes it for granted 1 And if not, on what eviclenco does it rest?" (vol. ii. p. 94.) Mr. Mill's ex planation then is, that tho largo generalization rises upon some parti cular cases, aud being gained proves the others. " The more obvious of tho particular uniformities suggest and givo evidence of tho general uniformity, and tho general uniformity once established enables us to prove tho 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 whole 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 H] Note 5 239 stiU remains an assumption ; for those cases which assumed it evi dently 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 upon unscientific and empirical inductions ; for tlie 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 co-extensive with all human experi ence." But the principle of universal law or uniformity once proved corrects and improves upon the looser and earlier inductions ; and " Ave substitute for the more fallible forms of the process, an operation grounded on tho samo process in a less fallible 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 nothing 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 tho particular cases on the general law. The representation, then, of the uniformity of nature as being, in distraction to an antecedent assumption, " a universal fact," " certain," "absolute/' "proved;" tho assertion that " the justification of our belief that the future will resemhlo tho past is that tho future does resemble the past ; " this identification of a law of nature with a uni versal proposition falls to the ground, and with it tlie following state ments: — " Wc cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it. We must disbelieve the aUeged fact, or believe that we were mistaken in admitting the sup posed Law." " If an alleged fact be in contradiction, not to any num ber 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 which would conflict with a com plete induction" (vol. ii. pp. 157, 159, 164). It is proper, however, lo 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 with ami carry out. this account uf induction, but to bo in opposition to if. lie says : — " But in order that any alleged fact should bo contrary to a law of causation, the allegation must be, not simply that the cause existed without bote" followed by the effect, for that would be no uncommon occurrence ; but that this happened in the .absence of any adequate 240 Note 5 [Lect. counteracting cause. Now, in the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion is the exact opposite of this. It is, that the effect was de feated, not in the absence, but in consequence of a counteracting cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act of the wUl of some being w;ho has power over nature ; and in particular of a being whose will, beuig assumed to have endowed aU the causes with the powers by which they produce their effects, may weU 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 sup posed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause. Of the adequacy of that cause, if present, there can be no doubt ; and the only antecedent improbabiUty which can be ascribed to the miracle, ia the improbabiUty that any such cause existed (vol ii. p. 159). This statement then certainly implies that a miracle is not im possible, and admits of being rationally beUeved. For a miracle is pronounced to be possible if there is an adequate cause in counter action to natural causes to account for it : " the interposition of an act of the wUl 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 beUef in such a being. But such a statement aa to the possibiUty of a miracle does not agree with the previous position which Mr. Mill has laid down ; because he has said that a fact in contradiction to a completed induction is impos sible, and we know that a miracle is such a fact. That men, e.g., do not after death return to life again is " a completed induction ; " and therefore the resurrection of a man after death is a contradiction to a " completed induction." It is true that a miracle is not in contradic tion to a law of causation, in the sense of causation by an act of the Divine wiU ; but the law of causation of which Mr. Mill has aU along spoken, and the contradiction to which he has pronounced to be an impossibUity, 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 miraclo, though it is not contrary to a law of causation which includes the Divino will as a cause, is contrary to this law of natural causation or tho ordor of niiLuro. 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 statement, however, ho adopts another test, that viz. of causation absolutely, and refuses to pro nounce upon tho impossibility of a fact so long as, though contrary to the order of natural causes, it can he referred to an adequate counteracting cause. I gladly accept Mr. Mill's statement on the H] Note 5 241 subject of belief in miracles, but if this statement is true, Mr. MUl's previous language requires correction.1 The sense of abstract possibility indeed in Mr. Mill's mind, re vealed 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 aa a philosophical liberty and right, includes in it many results so stupendous and overwhelming that no miracle can be compared with them. " I am convinced," he says, " that any one accustomed to abstraction and analysis, who wiU fairly exert his faculties for this purpose, will, when his imagination has once learned to entertain the notion, find no difficulty in conceiving that in some one, for in stance, of the many firmaments into which sidereal astronomy now divides the universe, events may succeed one another at random with out any fixed law." (ii. 96.) " In distant parts of the stellar regions, where the phenomena may bo wholly unlike those with which ivo are acquainted, it would he folly to affirm confidently that this gene ral 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 which is within the range of our own observation." (p. 104.) It must be remarked that this reign of enormity, contradictory at ita very root to our order of nature, and involving all the miraclea, did they take place on thia earth, which the wildest fancy can even picture to itself, has not, according to Mr. MiU's conception, its possible locality in another and invisible world, but in this very material universe in which we are living ; the distance of this portentous scene from this planet, however long, is a certain definite distance. Such conceptions as these have subjected Mr. MiU to much criticism, but to whatever charge they are open, it is not to the charge of a limited sense of possibUity. The objection made to miracles is that they are diver gences from the laws ofthe material world introduced into the mate rial world; the Bame persons who would admit any amount of 1 Mr. Mill's statement of Hume's argument, as only asserting (lint "no evidence, enn prove aniirnele to anyone who did nut previously believe tho existence, of a Being with supernatural power," is 1111 incorrect one. JIhuiu iiHsm-ts Hint llio existence or 11 Coil makes no di Heron t*« to Ilia nr<,'ii- mont; nml rightly: because liis nrgninent rests simply upon a eoinpni-islui uf llio respective eontniiliclions to experience in the two facts themselves — •the truth of llio miracle, and the falsehood of the witness; tho former 01 which two eontrnilietions, hesnys, is greater than the latter. Hut it' I Ms argument, incorrect, it, is eipmlly eorivcl. whether 1 Deity is .¦mppe.nl or not. For if experience is our only guide, it is the only 'test also of the will ofthe Deity; which will, therefore, is no additional consideration to experience, but is identical with niul is merged in it. Q 242 Note i [Lect. strangeness in another invisible world objecting to the introduction of divergence or strangeness into this world. Mr. MUl's conception violates this distinction conspicuously, and so involves the great point objected to in miracles. LECTUEE III. NOTE 1, p. 51. A iiieacle is popularly called " a violation of the laws of nature." This phrase is objected to by somo writers, upon tho ground that the laws of nature which are spoken of as violated in a miracle, are not really violated but continue in force aU 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, ami for the time put out of working order by a higher. .... Continually we behold in the world around us lower laws held in restraint by higher, mechanic by dynamic, chemical by vital, physical by moral ; yet we say not, when the lower thus gives place in favour of the higher, that there was any violation of law, or that anything con trary to nature came to pasa ; rather we acknowledge the law of a greater freedom swaUowing up the law of a lesser. Thus -when I lift up my arm, the law of gravitation is not, as far as my arm is con cerned, denied or annihilated ; it exists as much as ever, but is held in suspense by the higher law of my wUl. The chemical laws which would bring about decay in animal substances still subsist, even when they are checked and hindered by the salt, which keeps those sub stances from corruption." (Notes on tlie Miracles : Preliminary Essay, ch. U.) Upon the same ground Mr. LleweUyn Davies objects to the de scription of a miracle as " a suspension of the laws of nature :" — " We do not say that the knowledge and the will of man when they come into play susiwnd tho laws of nature. If I hold a stono in my hand, or set a magnet so as to hold up a heavy piece of iron, the law of gravity acts as regularly as if the stone or the iron feU 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 withdrawn, and things would be very different from what they are. So with the Divine WiU. We ought not to say that any operation of it, however miraculous, suspends the laws of nature." (Signs of tiu Kirujdorn of Heaven, p. 37. HI] Note 1 243 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 of any other laws of nature. It is simply the intervention of a Being pos sessing or endued with superhuman power, — an intervention which, though it temporarily modifies or suspends the operation ofthe laws ordinarily in operation in the world, is yet in itself exercised in strict accordance with the law of that Being's nature, or superindued nature, by whom it is exercised." (Replies to Essays and Reviews, p. 148.) The writer of an article in the Christian Remembrancer (October 1R63), objects to both terms, " suspension" and " contradiction :" — "An important inquiry still remains, viz. whether our definition of a miracle as nn event with a supernatural cause is a sufficient, one? In later times, as we know, this definition has not been thought suffi cient; but another idea has been added to if, viz. 'contrary to nature,' ' suspension of a natural law or cause.' The inquiry is a most im portant one; for, if we adopt this addition, we lay the miracle open, as we shall see, to very formidable objections. In addressing our selves to the solution ol 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 un doubtedly be regarded as miraculous, even though not contrary to nature. The stone, for instance, rolled away from the 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 con trary 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 would have been perfectly natural. AVe thus see. that the distinguishing 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 all 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, whether we do or do not call it a violation of natural law, a suspension, &c, is a question of lan guage and no more, so long as wo strictly understand that the natural laws to which these terms "violation" and "suspension" are applied are one set of laws only, viz. that which comes within the cognizance of our experience. The effect of these laws is in the particular in stance of a miracle hindered or prevented ; something takes place which would not take place if these laws alone were in operation. 244 Note r [Lect. > III] Note 2 245 Whether this prevention of the effect, or this other epct, be called a violation of the law or not, is immaterial, as far as regards the par ticular law in question ; it makes no difference whether we say that that law is suspended, or continues in force but is counteracted. The phrase "violation or suspension of law" in its ordinary signification, baa reference only to the particular material laws which 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 mu-acle be a viola tion or suspension of particular laws, there are other higher laws of which it is an instance, at the very time that it ia a violation or sus pension of the lower ones : and that a miracle is thus not against law upon the scale of the xohole of the universe ; the giving way of lower law to higher being itself an instance of law, the violation of tbe particular being the observance of the whole. "What in each of theso cases is wrought may bo against ono par ticular law, that law being contemplated in its isolation, 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 m harmony with the system of laws; for the law of thoae laws is that when- nowers come into conflict, the weaker shaU give way to the stronger, the lower to tbe 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 laws of ita fallen condition, for they are laws of a mightier range and higher perfection; and as such tliey claim to make themselves felt, and to havo the pre-eminence and the predominance which are rightly their own." (Trench, Notes on the Miracles : Preliminary Essay, ch. Ui.) Bishop Fitzgerald expresses the same idea with some philosophical additions : — "A^ain when miracles are described as ' interferences with the laws of nature,' this description makes them appear improbable to many minds, from their not sufficiently considering that the laws of nature interfere with one another; and that we cannot get rid ot ¦ interferences' upon any hypothesis consistent with experience. When organization is superinduced upon inorganic matter, the tawsot i noruimw mutter aro interfered with and controlled; when aiiuniu lite comes in tboroavc new interferences; when reason ,and emsennco e superadded to will, wo have a new class of controlling and mter- leri.iu, lowers, flit, laws of which are moral In be. r character. In- . "., Los of ...ro speculation, who could do nothing but observe am "son survey ing a portion of llio universe-such as the greater put ft '', lor I universe nmy lm-wholly desliluUMil hving inlmbi. Hits mhdit have reasoned that such powers as active beings possess were i^ acred that it was incredible that the Great Creator would. suffer the majestic uniformity of laws which He was constantly maintaining through boundless space and innumerable worlds, to be controUed and interfered with at the caprice of such a creature aa man. Yet we know by experience that God has enabled us to con trol and interfere with the laws of external nature for our own pur poses; nor does this seem lesa improbable beforehand (but rather more), than that He should Himself interfere with those laws for our advantage." (Article on Miracles; Dictionary of the Bible, p. 376.) NOTE 2, p. 64. "No extent of physical investigation can warrant the denial of a distinct order of impressions and convictions wholly different in kind, and affecting thai portion of our compound constitution which we term the moral and spiritual. " 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 contravene 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 intimations, in a peculiarly exalted sense, may be afforded to some highly-gifted individuals, and worthily ascribed to a Divine source, thus according with the idea we attach to the term ' revelation.' " On other grounds it may perhaps he argued, that such a mode of communicating high spiritual truth is suitable to the truths com municated ; that spiritual things are exhibited by spiritual means ; moral doctrines conveyed through the fitting channel of the moral faculties of man. But all we are at present concerned to maintain is, that both the substance and the mode of the disclosure are thus wholly- remote from anything to which physical difficulties can attach, or which comes under the province of sense 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: whether as related to what we experi ence within ourselves, or pointing to and supposing a more extended and undefined world of spiritual, unseen, eternal existence, above and beyond all that is matter of sense or reason, of which science gives no in timation — apart from the world of material existence, of ordinary human action, or evon of metaphysical speculation, wholly Urn domain and creation of faith and inspiration. Such a world, it is acknowledged, is disclosed by Christianity as the subject of a peculiar revelation, presenting objects which mo wholly uml exclusively those of faith, mil of sense or Knowledge. "Thus it follows, iu regard to revolution in general, lhat so far as its objects aro properly those which aro iu their nnluro ivalnrtoil to purely religions and spiritual truths, wo must acknowledge that in these, its more characteristic and essential elements, it can involve nothing which can come into contact or collusion with the truth ofphgsi- 246 Note 2 [Legt. Ill] Note 3 247 cal science or inductive uniformity ; though whoUy extraneous to the world of positive knowledge, it can imply nothing at variance with any part of it, and thus can involve us in no difficulties on physical grounds. " Thus, a purely spiritual revelation, as such, stands on quite dis tinct grounds from the idea of physical interruption. Yet this dis tinction has been continually lost sight of, while it is of the most primary importance for vindicating the acceptance of such revelation as the source of spiritual truth " (Powell's Order of Nature, p. 276). " Men formerly, and even at present under metaphysical influences, have cavilled at mysteries, but acquiesced in miracles. Under a moro positive system, the most enUghtened are the first to admit spiritual mysteries as matters of faith, utterly beyond reason, though they find deviations from physical truth irreconcilable to science" (Ibid. p. 292). " If in what has preceded no reference has been made to such high mysteries as tho 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 properly fall under the present discussion ; since though in some few points touching upon material things — on tho human existence and death of Christ, and on the nature of man — yet they involve no consideration of a physical kind, 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 aro of a metaphysical, moral, or philological nature. " But if, in other cases, the highest doctrines are essentially con nected with the narrative of miracles, we have seen that the most earnest believers contemplate the miracle by the light of the doctrine, and both solely with the eye of fo.ith. . . . " 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 typo of spiritual life here, and the assurance of eternal life here after. " So, in like manner, the transcendent mysteries of the Incarna tion and tho Ascension aro never alluded to at all by the Apostles in a historical or material sense, but only so far as thoy aro involved in points of spiritual doctrine, and as objects ot faith; as connected with the Divine manifestation of the 'Word mado flesh,' 'yet without sin,' with the inscrutable work ot redemption on earth and the unseen intercession in heaven — with the invisible dispensations of the gift of grace from above, and with tho hidden things of the future, which ' eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered the heart of man,' with the predicted return of Christ to judge the world, and tho eternal triumph of His heavenly kingdom. " And in this spiritualised sense has tho Christian Church in all a"-es 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 aU which the spirit of faith adores the ' great pystery of godliness, — manifested in the flesh,— justified 1 in the spirit, seen of angels, — preached unto the Gentiles, — believed ¦-U on in the world, — received up to glory ' " (Ibid. p. 456). NOTE 3, p. 68. "L'dniti!: jointe a l'infini ne l'augmente de rien, non plus qu'un pied a, une mesure infinie. Le fini s'aneautit en presence de l'infini, ct devient un pur ndant. Ainsi notre esprit devant Dieu ; ainsi noire justice devant la justico divine " Nous connaissons qu'U y a un infini et ignorons sa nature, comme nous savons qu'il ost faux quo les nomhres soient finis ; done il est vrai qu'il y a un infini en nombre, mais nous ne savons ce qu'il est. 11 est faux qu'il soit pair, U est faux qu'U soit impair ; car, en ajoutant 1'unite, U ne change point de nature : cependant c'est un nombre, et tout nombre est pair ou impair ; U est vrai que cela s'entend de tous nombres finis ¦A. " Nous connaissons l'existence' de l'infini et ignorons sa nature, parce qu'il a etondue comme nous, mais non pas des bornes comme 1 nous" (Pascal, ed. Fougeres, vol. ii. pp. 163, 164). " The idea of infinite has, I confess, something of positive in all those tilings we apply to it. When we would think of infinite space or duration, we, at first step, usually make some veiy large idea, as, perhaps, of million of ages or miles, which possibly wc double 'and multiply several times. AU that wo thus amass together in our I 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 depth of the sea where, having let down a large portion of his sound ing-line, he reaches no bottom ; whereby he luiows the depth to be so many fathoms and more, but how much that moro is lie hath no distinct notion at all ; and could he always supply new line ami find j the plummet always sink, without ever stopping, he would bo soine- j thing in the posture of the mind reaching alter a complete and posi- *"* live idea of infinity. In which case, let this lino bo ten or ten thousand fathoms long, it equally discovers what is beyond it, and gives only ! this confused and comparative idea, that this 'is not, all, but one ma'v yet go further. So much as the mind comprehends of any space, it lias a positive idea of ; but in endeavouring to make it infinite,' it being always enlarging, always advancing, tlie idea is still imperfect and incomplete. . . . . For to say a man has a positive clear idea of any quantity, without knowing how great it is, is ns reasonable as to say he has the positive clear idea of the number of the sands on the seashore, who knows not how many there be, but only (hat, tin y 248 Note 4 [Lect. are more than twenty. .... So that what Ues beyond out positive idea towards infinity, lies in obscurity ; and as the in determinate 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." (Locke On Human Understanding, bk. U. ch. 17). " Prasterea, si jam finitum constituatur Omne, quod est, spatium, si quis procurrat ad oras TJltimus extremas, jaciatque volatile telum, Id validis utrum contortum vn-ibus ire, Quo fuerit missum, mavis, longeque volare, An prohibere aliquid censes, obstareque, posse 1 TJlterutrum fatearis enim sumasque, necesse est, Quorum utrumque tibi effugium proocludit, et omne Cogit ut exempta concedas fine patere. Nam sive est aliquid, quod prohibeat officiatque, Quo minu' quo missum est veniat, finique locet se ; Sive foras fortur, non est ea fini' profecto. Hoe pacto sequar, atque, oras ubicumque locaris Extremas, quaeram, quid telo denique fiat. Fiet, uti nusquam possit consistere finis ; Effugiumque fugse prolatet copia semper." Lucretius, i. 962. NOTE 4, p. 69. One particular argument of Bishop Butler in opposition to the pre sumption 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 itseU further in a revelation. " There is no presumption, from analogy, against some operations which we should now caU miraculous ; particularly none against a revelation at tbe beginning of the world ; nothing of such presump tion 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 bo. Now, either there was no course of nature at the time which we aro speaking of, or, if thcro woro, wo aro not acquainted what tho courso of naturo is upon the first peopling of worlds. And therefore the question, whether mankind had a revolution 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 wo havo the like reason, bo it more or less, to admit tho report of tradition concerning this question, and concerning common matters of fact of the same antiquity ; for instance, what part of the earth was first peopled. HI] Note 4 249 " Or thus : when mankind was 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 apply to it the word mir aculous ; whether this power stopped immediately after it had made man, or went on, and exerted itself farther in giving 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 caUed by that name ; the case 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 miracles : there is no more presumption, worth mentioning, against His having exerted this mira culous power,. in a certain degree greater, than hi 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 which science has brought to Ught 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.1 But supposing this to be the case, science stiU does not assert that there is no begin ning, 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 in- 1 "It has been already observed that strict science offers no evidence of the commencement of the existing order of the universe. It exhibits indeed .1 wonderful succession of changes, hut 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 existence when nothing existed before : no creation in the sense of origination out of non-existence, or formation out of nothing. Tho nebular theory may bo adopted in cosmology, or tho development hypothesis in paleontology — or any other still more ambi tious systems reaching back in imagination into tho abysses of past time ; yot these nro only tho expositions of ideas theoretical anil imaginary, but still properly within tho domain of physical order, mid even by lliein we reach no proper commencement of existence. Moro than half n century apo, Dr. Hutton announced tho first ideas of a natural geology, anil boldly dcolm-eil, 'In tho economy of tho world I can find no truces,, I 11 beginning, no prospect of an em!,' and all tho later progress of science 1ms pointed, as from ita naturo it must do, to tho samo conclusion, nor can any other tii'iuu-h of science help us farther back than geulngy. In a wind, geology (as Sir C. Lycll litis so happily expressed it) is 'the autobiography of tho earth,' but, like other autobiographies, it cannot go back to the birth." (PowelVs Order of Nature, p. 250. ) 250 Note 4 [Lect. competent 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, viz. the farthest point backward reached ; she cannot assert what succession Ues beyond the last ascertained point, stiU less that this succession is infinite. It may be said that when the process of re search has gone on for a long time, and when it always has been found hitherto that however far back we have gone, there has been something discovered farther back still ; the presumption 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 presumption, 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 that there is no scientific evidence of a beginning in nature as a proof there is no beginning, must depend on the consideration whether there would or could be scientific evi dence 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 furnished by the absence of scientific evidence for one. Evidence of a beginning, we must remember, is only another word for our being able to trace and find one ; that is to say, evidence ia only another expression for our faculties. Have we then the faculties for dis covering by analysis a beginning in nature 1 In reply to this ques tion 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, when all that analysis can ever possibly discover is the existence of some earlier fact than all hitherto ascertained ones, which ia not a beginning, and no evidence of one.1 1 Mr. linden Towcll supposes that ho enhances his statement of fact that science contains no evidence of a beginning by the addition that to " imagine a beginning is altogether out of tho domain of science :" — which is the samo as supposing that the testimony of a witness that a fact did not tako place, is strengthened by the circumstance that, not being on the spot he could not have seen it if it had taken place. That wo cannot however in material nature by physical analysis dis- HI] Note 4 251 Science then is not opposed to the idea of creation, because all that is essential to the integral notion of creation is a beginning, and a beginning is not and cannot be disproved by science. Science is opposed indeed to a certain conception of creation, to creation con ceived 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 graduation, progression, succession of steps. But whether creation takes place in this way or by a long and extended series of stages commencing with the lowest forms of organic nature, and terminating in the existing result, is altogether Urelevant to the idea of creation, for which aU that is requisite is a beginning— which science does not disprove. The researches of science farther and farther backward, raise indeed, as has been said, a kind of impression in the mind of the absolute inter- minableness of the succession of causes. But such an impression cannot be urged as any proof that this series is mterininable, because we possess 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 world has existed from aU eternity, and is uncreated, cannot be pronounced by science. Upon whatever ground, then, the existence of a Creator, and Gover nor of the world 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 tho particular 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 world ; and these two phrases, " mankind being first placed in this state," and "the beginning" or "formation ofthe woild," are used iu the same meaning : a supposition winch is opposed to recent science. But this supposition makes no difference to Butler's argument so long as the former of these two events, i.e. the first rise of the human race, cover a beginning, is not inconsistent with that beginning admitting of legitimate proof when wo include in nature tho order of intelligent beings, and apply to naturo so understood certain principles of reasoning inherent in tho very constitution of our minds, liccnuso wo conclude from 1.1m existence of tho universe some self-existent bein£, we conclude from the order of intelligent being3 in the universe, and the. appearances of design ill it, tho intelligence of that Self-existent Being; and we conclude from the Original Being being intelligent, and matter not, that tho material world cannot be that Original being, i.e. must have a beginning. (Clarke's Demonstration, Trap, viii.) 252 Note 4 [Lect. UI] Note 4. 253- whether or not contemporaneous with the other, i.e. the beginning of he world, is m itself correctly described in the argument; for if when mankind was first placed in this state there was a power exerted totaUy different from the present course of nature," the argu ment correctly proceeds, "whether this power stopped, or went on," So. But that the power exerted upon the occasion of the first rise ot mankind was extraordinary is not disproved or contradicted by modern science; for aU that modern science has ascertained is, that man came in subsequently to a long succession of iixational 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 different 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 irom any hypothesis respecting them, the introductions of all new species were severaUy " exertions of a power different from the course ot nature." These species may be said indeed to constitute a succes sion or a series, and nature in the successive introduction of them may be said to exhibit marks of a plan or programme. But a mere succes sion of events does not of itself constitute an order or course of nature • that depends on the mode or continuity of the succession. If there are long breaks in the chain, and if these several introductions or be ginnings of new forms of life take place at vast and irregular intervals embracing lengths of intervening time almost transcending our con ception, these several new introductions would no more form an order of nature, than particular instances of resurrection after death at in tervals of hundreds or thousands of years, since the creation of man kind would form a law of resurrection. These several introductions of new ble would still be each of them a change in the order of nature existing at the time of their respectively taking place; and, inasmuch ns everything that is produced must have a causo, thoy would bo 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 sot forth tho hypothesis, would bo inconsistent with any evont boloiigmg to that progress being different from tho order of naturo ; because tho order of nature and creation would then be iden- tical ; tho formation of now species would ho a process always going on in all its stages, earlier or later, according to tho particular in stances; and the production of each new species, na each was pro- duced, 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 con stantly changing and advancing order of nature. The miraculous stage indeed, if any, would be not that of creation, which was a con tinuous 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 with out 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 docs not fill up these voids, but leaves them standing as they are, make any difference in the character of these phenomena. A " creational law" which coexists with such gaps and breaks can only be a theory 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 which, 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 aro stiU anomalous and strange facts. The philosopher, however, when he speaks of a creational law, or " a con tinuously operative secondary creational power," 1 only moans 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, and all previous animal progress, that even supposing an order of nature up to his introduction, that introduction of him was still " the exer tion of a power different from that order of nature." Of this new phenomenon, then, Sir Charles Lycll says,— "In our attempt to ac count for' the origin of species wo find ouvhoIvom brought, I'acn to laco with tho working of a law of development ot so high an order as tu 6tand nearly in tho samo relation as tho Deity Himself to man's finite understanding ; a, law capablo ol adding now and powerful causes, such as tho moral and intellectual faculties of tho human race, to a system of nature which had gone for millions of years without tho intervention of an analogous cause.'' (Antiquity of Man, ch. xxiii.) To the hypothesis of a creational law made in this statement I 1 Owen's Fidroontology, p. 414. 254 Note 4 [Lect. apply the remarks made above. But Ste Charles Lyell advances a further step, and while acknowledging the mystery of the origin of man, makes a cautious attempt to bring that mystery within the limits of a class and order of known phenomena, which have come into observation in the actual present course of nature, and within the region of human history and tradition. " The inventors of useful arts, the poets and prophets of the early stages of a nation's growth, the promulgators of new systems of reli gion, ethics, and philosophy, 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 ot the prodigies which accompanied their birth. Nor can we wonder that such notions have prevailed when we consider what important revolutions in the moral and intellectual world such leading spirits have brought about ; and when we reflect that mental as well as phy sical attributes are transmissible by inheritance, so that we may pos sibly discern in such leaps the origin of the superiority of certain races oi mankind. In our own time, the occasional appearance of such extraordinary mental powers may he attributed to atavism • but there must have been a beginning to the scries of such rare and ano malous events " To say that such leaps constitute no interruption to the ordinary course of nature, is more than we axe warranted in affirming. In the case of the occasional birth of an individual of superior genius, there is certainly no break in the regular genealogical succession ; and when all the mists of mythological fiction are dispelled by historical criti cism, when it is acknowledged that the earth did not tremble at the nativity of the gifted infant, and that the face of heaven was not full of fiery shapes, still a mighty mystery 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 supposes, actually taken place in the intellectual nature of mankind, within the region of historical tradition,— which though it has imparted to its descrip tions the shape of popular poetry and imagination, has still preserved in them the substance of true facts,— human nature he conceives to have been a leap of the same kind ; only that instead of being a tran sition from lower man to higher man, it was a transition from tho brute to tbe man. " If in conformity with the theory of progression, we believe mankind to have risen slowly from a rude and humble starting-point, such leaps may have successively introduced not only higher and higher forms and grades of intellect, but at a much remoter period may have cleared at one bound the space which separated the highest stage of the unprogressive intelligence of the inferior animals HI] Note 4 255 from the first and lowest form of improveable reason manifested by- man." But in the first place, supposing that advances in the scale of humanity have taken place by physical transmission, are differences in the scale of humanity parallel cases to the difference between the man and the brute 1 Sir C. Lyell states his belief that man is an im mortal being and a subject of moral probation, in which respects he supposes him to differ from the brute. But is any difference in the scale of humanity parallel to a dUference between being and not being immortal, and between being and not being a subject of moral probation ? And therefore is any ascent hy a physical medium to a higher level in the human scale a precedent for the animal '•' clearing at a bound" by this medium the awful chasm which separates an im mortal being from a perishing one, and the animal state from a state of moral probation ? In the next place, is there any evidence even 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 physical descent, and that a permanent rise in the subsequent intellectual level of mankind was produced by the operation of a genealogical law? Historical tradition, indeed, 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 inteUect of mankind and founded "the superiority of certain races " by the natural transmission of their own higher quali ties of mind, which thus became the hereditary property and new nature of posterity. Sir C. Lyell 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, lie does not deprive the course of nature of mystery, but he conceives never theless, that the leap from animal to human naturo is paralleled by facts which have appeared in the existing course of nature. Neither history, however, nor tradition discloses such facta tis Kir C. Lvoil needs for the purpose of his parallel. Wo see indeed genealogical ascents of intellect, but those ascents arc not permanent, ami found no new intellectual nature : for tho son having risen above tho intel lectual level of his father, his son returns back to the lower stage. Again, we see permanent ascents in the intellect of man, but those' 256 J Note 5 [Lect. ascents are not genealogical ; they are not produced by physical transmission, but by education, by civilization, and instruction in the aits of life. Human nature, before and after the 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 by physi cal inheritance are the facts which Sir C. Lyell needs lor the purpose of his parallel ; but these do not present themselves. NOTE 5, p. 70. It is not perhaps sufficiently considered that, whatever criterion we adopt of the Tightness or wrongness of actions, i.e., what makes actions right or wrong, 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 obUgation in the individual ; the notion being that, because expediency 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 obUgation ; because after the criterion has done its part and fixed upon the actions on account of their expediency, the question still remains, Under what obUgation 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 com munity, but the link which connects them with the duty of the individual is wanting. The system of Benlham is defective in this important link— the medium between the community and the individual, by which what is useful to tho community becomes binding upon tho individual. He gives with great copiousness of statement hia definition of right and wrong in actions, viz., their being advantageous or disadvantageous to the whole social body, including tho individual himself. " Only so fur ns if produces happiness or misery can an act bo properly called virtuous or vicious." (Deontology, vol. i. p. 141.) " Will clamouring for 'ought' or 'ought not,' that perpetual petitio principii, stand ia III] Note 5 257 *i* the stead of utility ? Men may wear out the air with sonorous' and unmeaning words ; those words will not act upon the mind ; nothing wiU act upon it but the 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." (Introduction to Deontology, vol. U.) But supposing this criterion of rightness in actions themselves to be adopted, viz., their producing happiness, the question stiU remains, "Why must I perform 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" aUowed to exist in our minds, there is a tie which binds the individual to society. He cannot neglect the happiness of others without self-reproach, and without tho right of others to reproach him. But without this sense of "ought "how does the matter stand? A certain class of actions aro attended by most valuable results, and it is undoubtedly highly for the interest of the community that they should he performed. But all that is by the very profession proved is the interest of the community. What difference does it make in the 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 1 Without the sense of " ought" in the individual there is a large amount of human hap piness laid before us as the result of certain actions, but there is nothing to bind the individual to those actions, or make him respon sible for that 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 which is no more a reflection upon him than the omission of anything else which was not incumbent upon him. Without the principle of " ought" to supplement the criterion of expediency, the virtuousness of an action is identical with certain advantageous effects, and means theso effects, and has no other meaning. But theso effocts nro wholly outside the individual agent, and do not affect him in tho slightest degrco as attaching any quality to him, or making any difference in his inward condition. Traiso or blamo can only attach lo him in the sense in which these terms must be used and to which they must be confined in this philosophy, viz., as tho nsscrtion of one or another set. of ell'eels ; in which sense they assert external, or, as wo may say, historicuf facts only, and do not touch the man. Bentlmm's position, then, is not true—" Tho elcinonfs of pain and R .4. 25» Note 5 [Lect. IIII pleasure give to the deontologist instruments sufficient for his work. 'Give me matter and motion,' said Descartes, 'and I will make a physical world.' 'Give me,' may the utilit;. ian teacher exclaim, 'give me the human sensibilities— joy and grief, pain and pleasure— and I will create a moral world. I will produce not only justice, but generosity, patriotism, philanthropy, and the long and Ulustrious train of sublime and amiable virtues.'" (Introduction to Deontology, vol. ii.) " Deontology " does not supply the link between the good ot society and the individual. It may be said that tho principle of benevolence exists in the human mind as a passion or affection, indepen dently of the sense of " ought " or duty ; and that this is the link which connects the individual with society. But the mere affection of benevo lence is only such a link so long as the affection is carried on by its own impulse, as tlie appetite of hunger or curiosity or any other is ; when benevolence becomes an effort, unless there is tho sense of "ought" to supply the place of the force of the appetite, society's hold upon the individual goes. For though benevolence, whUe it was in force, was advantageous 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 the moral sense. Yet, unaccountable as it may seem, it is only when benevolence does become an effort, and therefore depends entirely upon the sense of "ought" for its exertion, that it is admitted to b,( a virtue by Bcntham. " 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 which is pernicious to the com munity there is no identity between virtue and usefulness, for there are manv beneficial actions which do not partake of the nature of virtue. * Virtue demands effort." (Deontology, vol. i. p. 146.) But why should a man make the effort ? Bcntham cannot say he " ought" to make it, and no other reason, applying to the individual, can bo alleged. His very definition of virtue then makes it dependent just on That principle which in his philosophy is omitted. He is possessed indeed of certain " sanctions or inducements to action," such as tho fear of punishment and tho desire for approbation. But the former of these two motives can only apply to a very small proportion of human actions, if by punishment wo mean civil or physical punish ment; and the approbation of others is founded upon tho sense of " oiHit" in those who give it, and its force as a motive depends upon tho sense of "ought" in him who i3 tho subject of it. Abstracted from this tho approbation of others is merely their assertion of cci- 4. Note 6 259 tain facts which to the individual 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 interest 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 asser tion of certain consequences of his conduct. NOTE 6, p. 71. The philosophy of universal necessary law which puts man and material nature under the same head, and which argues that if man is not under that law, neither can nature he asserted to be, i.e., that if free-will is allowed in man, miracles may bo allowed in nature, is thus stated : — "Step by step the notion of evolution bylaw is transforming the whole field of our knowledge and opinion Not the physical world alone is now the domain of mductive science, but the moral, the intellectual, and tho spiritual are being added to its empire. ... It is the crown of philosophy to see the immutable even in the complex 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 primary actions of law, and some approximating theory of growth. Much is dark and contradictory, ... "Why this rigorous repudiation of all disorder in the material world, whilst insisting on stupendous perturbations of the moral ? AVhy are all facts contrary to science rejected, and theories contrary to history retained? Why aro physical miracles absurd, if .spiritual miracles abound? Why are there no suspensions of the laws of matter, yet cardinal suspensions of the laws of mind 1 . . . . They see 'the grand foundation— conception of universal law,' 'the invari able operation of a scries of eternally impressed consequences foUowing in some necessary chain of orderly causation.' Such a law, we con ceive, is read in all human history, life, and spirit." (Article on Neo- Christianity, Westminster Review, Oct. 1860.) NOTE 7, p. 72. The secularist position is stated thus hy its chief promulgator : — "You cannot live for both worlds, because you do not know both. You know bnt one. Live for the ono you do "know." (Secular Mis cellany, p. 26.) " Secular principles relate to the present, existence, of man, and to methods of procedure the issues of which can be tested by the experi ence of this life. A person holding secular principles as general rules of life, concerns himself with present time and materiality, neither ignoring noi denying the future and spiritual, which are independent i 260 Note [Lect. questions. Secularity draws the line of distinction between the things of time and the things of eternity. That is secular which pertains to this world. The distinction may be seen in the fact that the cardinal. propositions of theology are proveable only in the next life, and not in this. If I believe in a given creed, it may turn out to be the 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 Ufe." (Principles of Secularism, p. 6.) " We desire to know and not to hope. We have no wants, and wish to have none which truth will not satisfy. AVe would realize this life — we would also deserve another, but without the selfishness which craves it, or the presumption which expects it, or the discontent which demands it" (Secularism Distinguished from Unitarianism, p. 16.) LECT UKE IV. NOTE 1, p. 76. " 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 law .... " The firm conception of the immutabUity of order is the first rudi ment in all scientific foundation for cosmo-theology. Our conclusion cannot go beyond the assumption in our evidence. Our argument can lead us only to such limited notions of the Divino attributes as are consistent with the principle of 'Cosmos.' If we speak of 'wis dom,' it is as evinced in laws of profoundly-adjusted reason ; if of ' power,' it is only in the conception of universal and eternal main tenance of those arrangements ; if of ' infinite intelligence,' it is as manifested throughout the infinity of nature ; and to whose dominion we can imagine no limit, as we can imagine none to natural order. " If we attempt to extend the idea of ' power' to infinity, or what we call the attribute of ' Omnipotence,' in conformity with a strictly natural theology, it can only be from the boundless extent to which we find theso natural arrangements kept up in incessant activity, but unchangeable order; the unlimited, and wo believe illimitable expan sion, both in time and space, of tho same undeviating regularity with which the operations of tho universally connected machinery aro sus tained. The dilUeiilty which presents itself to many minds, how to reconcile the idea of unalterable law with volition (which seems to im ply something changeable), can only bo answered by appealing to Hiomo iniiiiutablo laws ns tho solo evidence and exponent, wo have of supremo volition ; a volition of immutable mind, an empire of fixed intelligence. "Tho simplo argument from tho invariable order of nature is i L IV] Note 2 261 wholly 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 A Theism of Omni potence in any sense deviating from the order of nature must be derived entirely from other teaching : in fact it is commonly traceable to early religious 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 natural : 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 interrupted. " The supernatural is the offspring of ignorance, and the parent of superstition and idolatry ; the natural is the assurance of science, and the preliminary to all rational views of Theism." (Powell's Order of Nature, p. 245.) " It was formerly argued that every Theist must admit -the credi bility 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 faU into an argument in a vicious circle. The older writers on natural theology, indeed, have professed to deduce very exact conclu sions as to the Divine perfections, especially Omnipotence ; conclusions which, according to the physical argument already referred to, appear carried beyond those limits to which reason or science are competent to lead us ; while, in fact, aU our higher and more precise ideas of the Divine perfections aro really derived from that very revelation, whose evidence is the point in question. The Divino Omnipotence is en tirely an inference from the language of tlie Bible, adopted on the as sumption of a beUef in revelation. That ' with God nothing is impos sible,' is the very declaration of Scripture ; yet on this the whole belief in miracles is buUt, and thus, with the many, that belief is whoUy the result, not the antecedent of faith." (Powell's Study of Evidences of Christianity, p. 1 13.) NOTE 2, p. 79. rnn,ORorni5R8 havo applied tho term ''demonstrative'-' to cot-fain proofs of tho existence of a God ; and were these reasonings demon strative in the strict mathematical sense it would not bo correct to say tint this great truth rusted on a ground of faith. Bui the term " de monstrative" does not appear to be used in this instance, by those who apply it, in a strict anil mathematical sense. These kind of rea sonings do indeed proceed upon axioms which instinctively approve themselves aa rational ; and tho axioms being admitted, n chain of irresistible consequences finally educes from them this cardinal truth: 262 Note 2 [Lect. IV] Note 2 263 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. which 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 mathema tical axiom this principle may be, we yet perceive a distinct difference between this principle and an axiom of mathematics, when wo com pare 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 everything that be gins to exist must have a cause, the argument proceeds,— Therefore there 111 usl always bo existence antecedent to what begins ; therefore something must have from eternity oxisted ; an eternal succession of Beings being neither caused from without nor self-existent, is an in consistency : 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 necessarUy is omnipresent, for the necessity is the same everywhere ; and aa the cause of intelligent beings, is HimseU' inteUigent,— does this superstructure of reasoning possess the strict force of a mathematical proof. The demonstrative argument for the existence of a God is indeed the accurate working out of some stroim instinctive maxims of reason, but when we endeavour to pursue these maxims and the reasoning upon them to the 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 connexion upon this subject-matter. Nor therefore do such reasonings, though called demonstrative, when we consider the astonishing nature of the great truth which is educed from them, appear to dispense with faith in the acceptance of and dependence upon them. Locke strongly asserts the demonstrative nature of the proof of tho existence of a God. " It is as certain that there is a Cod, os that the opposite angles, made by the intersection of two straight lines are equal." (Essay on the- Human Understanding, bk. i. ch. iv. s. 16.) " But though this be the most obvious truth that reason discovers, and though its evidenco bo, if I mistake not, equal to a mathematical certainty ; yet it requires thought and attention, and the mind must apply itself to a regular deduction of it from somo part of our intuitive knowledge, or else we shall be as uncertain and ignorant of this as of other propositions, which are in themselves capable of clear demon stration We have a more certain knowledge of tho existence K of a God than of anything our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I presumo I may say that we may more certainly know that there is a God, than that there is anything else without us. When I say we know, I mean that such knowledge is within out reach, which we cannot miss if we wiU but apply our minds to that, as Ave do to several other inquiries." The proof comes under these heads :— " Man knows that he himself is ; " " He knows also that nothing cannot produce a being, therefore something eternal ; " " Two sorts of beings, cogitative and incogitativo ; " " Therefore there has been an eternal wisdom." (Book iv. ch. x.) Clarke says — " I proceed now to the main thing I at first proposed ; namely, to endeavour to show, to such considering persons as I have already described, that, tho Being and Attributes ol Ood arc not only possible or barely probable in themselves, but also strictly demonstrable to any unprejudiced mind, from tho most uncontestable principles of right reason " Now many arguments there are by which the Being and Attri butes of God have been undertaken to be demonstrated; and perhaps most of those arguments, if thoroughly understood, rightly stated, fully pursued, and duly separated from the false or uncertain reason ings which have sometimes been intermixed with them, would at length appear to be substantial and conclusive. But because I would endeavour, as far as possible, to avoid all manner of perplexity and confusion, therefore I shall not at this time use any variety of argu ments, but endeavour by one clear and plain series of propositions necessarily connected and following one from another, to demonstrate the certainty of the Being of God, and to deduce in order the neces sary 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 purpose 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 bo liable to contradiction or dispute; but shall endeavour to urge such proposi tions only as cannot be denied without departing from that reason which all atheists pretend to be tho foundation of their unbelief." (Demonstration, cCc, Introduction.) Mr. Goldwin Smith, while arguing that what docs rest upon pro bable 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 tho phrase " probable evidence :" — "I confess that I, for one, enter with the less anxiety into any question concerning the validity of mere historical evidence, because 264 Note 2 [Lect. I am convinced that no question concerning tho validity of mere historical 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 evidence consists is always falU- ble ; the chance of error can never be excluded : and the extra ordinary 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 practicaUy need no higher. The great results of history are here ; we have and enjoy them as certainly aa we have and enjoy any object of sense; and it signifies Uttle by what exact agency in any particular case the work of human progress was carried on. But in the case of a religion probable evidence will not suffice. Beligion is not a speculation which we may be content to hold sub ject to a certain chance of error, nor is it a practical interest of the kind which Butler has in his mind when he tells us that we must act on this, as in other cases, on probability. It is a spiritual affec tion which nothing less than the assured presence of its object can excite. We may be quite content to hold that the life of Ca;sar was 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 partiabty, prejudice, or imperfect information of his contemporaries ; 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, upon probabibties, when certainty is beyond our power. But our hearts would refuse their office if we were to bid them adore and hold communion with a probable God." (Rational Religion, &c, p. 108.) When the evidence, however, of a Deity is described as " demon strative " or " not probable," such a description does not appear to exclude a ground of faith in the acceptance of such evidence ; the con clusion being of so immense and astonishing a nature that taith 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 bo observed that it is not only a Moral Deity whoso exist ence is an object of faith ; but a Deity at all, i.e. such as ia dis tinguishable from a mere universal forco. Language is sometimes used ns if the ground ol faith only applied to llio moral attributes of tho Doily, and tho more existence of a Supremo Intelligent Being were tho conclusion of reason without faith, But tho ground of faith comes in prior to the moral attributes of tho Deity, because the cxistenco of a God at all in any sense which comes up to the IV] Notes 3, 4 265 notion of the existence of a Personal Infinite Being is of itself— before going into any further question— such an amazing and super natural truth that it cannot be embraced without faith. Although, U 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 but be, notwithstanding 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. 84. " But were these views of the 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 who 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 interposition ; that it is derogatory to the idea of Infinite Power and Wisdom to suppose an order of things so imperfectly established that it must be occasionaUy 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 operation of the Deity whatever; as inconsistent with unchangeable, infinite perfec tion. Such arc the arguments of Theodore Parker, who denies miracles because ' everywhere I find law the constant mode of opera tion of an infinite God;' or that of Wegscheider, that the belief in nuracles is irreconcilable with the idea of an eternal God consistent with Himself," cOc. (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, P-H3-) The writer admits that when the miraculous action of the Deity is denied upon Theistic reasonings, the denial affects the action of the Deity generaUy. But has not the same denial the same result when built upon physical reasonings? NOTE 4, p. 85. "All religion, ns such, ever has been and must bo a thing entirely sui qcneris, and implies mystery and faith, however rightly allied to knowledge, and susceptible of a variety of external forms, ncronling to tho diversity of human character and the singes of human en lightenment." (Poivell's Order of Nature, p. 197,) 266 Note i NOTE 5, p. S5. [Lect. 1 V] Note 2 267 (Vid. Note 2, Leot. III.) The attempt to disconnect religion with physics in cne remarkable instance is thus commented on by Dr. Heurtley : — " The miracles which are connected with our Lord's Person and office are ' never,' we are told, ' insisted on in their physical details, but solely in their spiritual and doctrinal application.' _ The resurrec tion, for instance, is ' emphatically 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 ns this, unless he thought by his bold confidence to impose upon himself and overbear the reclamations of others. Most persons would rise from the perusal of the 15th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians with the thorough conviction that how much use soever the Apostle may make of our Lord's resurrection doctrinally, he does most emphatically dwell upon it in its physical letter. Its literal truth as a ' physiological phenomenon' is the very basis and substratum of all that is said on tho subject." (Replies to Essays and Reviews, p. 172.) LECTUEE V. NOTE 1, p. 95. In the proof of miracles divines assume the existence of a Deity. Butler " takes for proved that there is an intelligent Author of Naturo 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 Chris tian miracles, an intelligent and personal Supreme Being. " Suppose the world we live in to have had a Creator ; suppose it to appear from the predominant aim and tendency of the provisions and con trivances observable in the universe, that the Deity when He formed it consulted for the happiness of His sensitive creation ; supposo the disposition which dictated this counsel to continue ; supposo 0 part of the creation to havo received faculties from their Maker by which thoy are capable of rendering a moral obedience to Ilis will Suppose, iieverlhok'ss, almost the whole race, cither by the imper fection of their faculties, the misfortune of their situation, or by tbe 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 bo made? is it "* incredible that God should interpose for such a purpose?" _ (Evidences of Christianity, Preparatory Considerations.) " The Christian argu ment of miracles," says Archdeacon Lee, "takes for granted two elementary truths— the Omnipotence and the Personality of God." (On Miracles, p. 39.) NOTE 2, p. 100. " 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 the story of Caesar, or of any other man. For suppose 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 bo 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, concerning the degree of the peculiar presumption .supposed against miracles; not whether there be any peculiar pre sumption at all against them. For, if there be the presumption of millions to one against the most common facts, what can a small pre sumption additional to this amount to, though it be peculiar? It cannot be estimated, and is as nothing." (Analogy, part u. ch. 2.) Butler would appear in this passage to confound two different kinds of improbability, which Mr. Mill calls improbabiUty before the fact, and improbabUity after.1 According to this statement the main and principal presumption against a miracle is that presumption which lies against all, even the most ordinary facts, when they are imagined 1 The mistake consists in overlooking the distinction between (what may be called) improbability before tho fact, and improbability after it; two different properties, the latter of which is always a ground of disbelief ; the. former is so or not, ns it may happen In the cast of a per fectly fair dio the chances are five to ono against throwing ace; that is. ace will be thrown on an average only once in six throws. 13ut this is no reason against believing that nee was thrown on a given occasion, if any credible "witness asserts it ; since, although ace is only thrown once iu six times, some number which is only thrown once in six times must have been thrown, if the die was thrown at all. Tho improbability, then,_or iu other words, the unusualness of any fact, is no reason for disbelieving it, if tho nature of tho enso renders it certain that either that or something equally improbable, that is, equally unusual, did happen Wo nre told thnt A. It. (lied yesterday ; the moment, before ne were so tohl, tho clmnecs against his having died on Unit day may liiive boon ten thousand to ono ; but since he was certain to die at some time or other, and when he died must necessarily die on somn particular (lay, while the chances are innumerable ngainst every day in particular, experience affords 110 ground tor discrediting any testimony which may be produced to the event having taken place on a given day." (Logic, vol. ii. p. 166.) 268 Note 2 [Lect. V] Note 2 269 antecedently. The presumption 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 ; but according to his statement, this presump tion which a miracle has against it in common with aU fasts whatever, is the great and main presumption against a miracle ; and any addi tional to this, which may be pecuUar 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 state ment is not an adequate representation of the presumption against a miracle, and does not carry our common sense along with it, because it does not distinguish between the different natures of an improba bility beforehand — upon a ground of mere random anticipation — of any event, and improbability upon tho 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, which is ipso facto removed by evidence. A random guess is in other words the entire absence of evidence ; but the mere absence of proof offers no resistance to proof. Whereas the improbability 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 particu lar: they are chances against this event, not against this kind of event." (Article on Miracles: Dictionary of tlie Bible.) On the other hand, the presumption against a miracle is presumption against the kind of event. Whereas then Butler represents the "particular" presumption agninst a miracle, which is the same that there is against any common fact beforehand, as the principal improbability of a miracle, and the " specific " presumption as bo minute an addition to this as to bo incapable of bebig estimated, the order and value of the presumptions ought to bo reversed ; tho former being in truth nothing of a presumption, that is to say, a presumption which does not tell in the least as soon as ever evidence is offered ; tho latter being a presumption which acts when evidence is offered. In this particular case Butler's criterion is not, a natural oiio ; for tho objection to tho hind of event a lairacle is, is plainly our natural objection to a miracle. " Butler," says Bishop Fitzgerald, " seems to havo been very; sen sible of the imperfect state, in his own time, of the 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 under took to refute Hume ; yet there is one passage in which we may perhaps detect a misconception of the subject in the pages even of this great -writer. " ft is plain that in this passage Butler lays no stress upon the Eeculiarities of the story of Caesar, which he casually mentions. For e expressly adds, ' or of any other man ;' and repeatedly explains that what he says appbea equaUy to any ordinary facts, or to a single fact "The way in which he proposes to estimate the presumption 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 tho facts considered in themselves, but ofthe likelihood of tho coincidence of the facts with a rash and arbitrary anticipation. The case of a person guessing before hand, and the case of a witness reporting what has occurred, are essentially different. In the common instance, for example, of an ordinary die, before the cast, there is nothing to determine my mind, ¦with any probabUity of a correct judgment, to the selection of any one of the six faces rather than another ; and therefore we rightly Bay that there are five chances to one against any one side, considered as thus arbitrarily selected. But when a person who has had oppor tunities of observing the cast, reports to me the presentation of a particular face, there is evidently no such presumption against tho coincidence of his statement and the actual fact ; because ho has, by the supposition, had 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 readUy believe his report of the cast of a die with a million of sides as of one with only six ; though in respect of a random guess beforehand, the chances against the correctness of tho guess would be vastly greater in the former case, than in that of an ordinary cube. "The truth is, that the chances to which Butler seems to refer as a presumption against ordinary events, are not in ordinary cases over come by testimony at all. Tho 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 111111I0 by an actual observer. It is possiblo, howovor, that throughout this obscure passage, Butler is arguing upon the principles of some ob jector unknown to us; and, indeed, it is certain thai somo writers upon tho doctrino of chances (who were far from friendly to revealed religion) have utterly con rounded together tho i|iieslions of the chances against tho coincidence of an ordinary ovenl, with a innilom guess, und of tho probability of such an event considered by itself." (Dictionary of Hie Bible : Article on Miracles.) 2 7° Note 2 [Lect. Archdeacon Lee disagrees with Bishop Fitzgerald. "So far is Bishop Butler from ignoring the distinction between ' probabiUty be fore and after the fact,' or, as he expresses himself with greater pre cision, ' before and after proof,' that his whole argument proceeds upon 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 ia not the same aa recognizing the two kinds of probabiUty "before" and "after." He recognizes improbability before proof, and certainly after proof ; but not that improbability which conflicts with proof, that which is meant by "im probability after the fact." The writer adds :— " The two instances selected by Mr. MUl are indeed, as he states, ' thinga in strict conformity to the usual course of experience, 'the chances merely being against ihem ; ' but they are not in the least analogous to the instances on which Bishop Butler founds his pro position. Tho great difference is, that we do know all the chances in the one case, and that wc do not know all tlie chances in the other. There are but six sides to the die ; the chances, therefore, are but five to one agamst ace at any throw. The years of human life cannot exceed a definite number, to which we can approximate within moderate limits ; but the probabiUty of the events on which the ' Analogy ' depends cannot be thus estimated. The history of Caesar, or of any other man, or common facts, are matters incapable of being submitted to calculus of probabiUties. The events of human life present a variety to which no bounds can be set. What human cal culation can make Ml aUowance for the influence of human motives; or foresee all the possible outbursts of human passion ; or reduce the contingencies of political change to the dominion of unvarying law I" (On Miracles, p. 75.) But does it make any difference in the nature of the improbability before proof, now spoken of, whether or not we can calculate the chances in question? We know that the chances are five to one against the throw 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 the opposing chances, which constitutes improbability beiorehand, makes not the slightest difference in the weight of that improbabUity, when evidence is given of the fact ; which weight is then nothing, equally whether the antecedent chances are units or thousands. . One die has six sides, another, let us suppose with Bishop Fitzgerald, has a milUon ; beforehand, therefore, the chances in these two cases were respectively five to one and a mUlion to one against any particular V] Note 3 271 •e- throw ; but this difference in the number of chances beforehand would not make a particular throw when made at all more difficult to beheve or make it require at aU more evidence in the case of one die than in the case of the other ; because the weight of the improba bility before the fact would, upon evidence of the fact, vanish and disappear at once aUke, 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 faU on some side ; which fall, therefore, is in either case equally 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 against it than some one given ordinary event has, but one does not require greater evidence than the other. NOTE 3, p. 102. " This of course turns on the general grounds of our antecedent convictions. The question agitated is not that of mere testimony, of its value, or of its failures. It refers to those antecedent considerations which must govern our entire view of the subject, and which hem" dependent on higher laws of relief, must be paramount to aU atUsto?- tion, or rather belong to a province distinct from it. What is alleged is a case of the supernatural ; but no testimony can reach to the supernatural ; testimony can apply 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 belief 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 wc bo bound to believe them? " This, perhaps it will be said, is an extreme case. Let us sup pose another. If the most numerous ship's company were all to asseverate that they had seen a mermaid, Avould 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 innumerable and honest witnesses would ever con vince any one versed in mathematical and mechanical science, that a person had squared the circle or discovered perpetual motion. Ante cedent credibility depends on antecedent knowledge, and enlareed views of tho connection and dependence of truths ; and the value of any testimony will be modified or destroyed in different decrees to minds differently enlightened. " Testimony, after all, is but a second-hand assurance ; it is but a blind guitte._ Testimony can avail nothing agaiust reason." (Powell's Study of Evidences, pp. 107, 141.) j 272 Notes 4, 5 [Lect. NOTE 4, p. 104. " The essential question of miracles stands quite apart from any consideration of testimony; the question would remain the same if we had the evidence of our own senses to an aUeged miracle, that is to an extraordinary or inexplicable fact. It is not tho mere fact, but the cause or explanation of it, which is the point at issue." (Powell's Study of Evidences, p. 141.) " But material as, in reference to the study of the last remark, is the discussion of testimony, it must stiU be observed that in the general and abstract point of view this is really but adventitious to the question of miracles ; and that, supposing all doubt as to testimony were entirely removed, as in the case of an actual witness having the , evidence of his own senses to an extraordinary and perhaps inexplicable fact, still the material enquiry would remain, Is it a miracle ? It is here, in fact, that the essence of the question of credibiUty is centred — not in regard to the mere external apparent event, but to the cause of it." (PoweU's Order of Nature, p. 286.) " We have observed 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 of the laws of nature ; a point on which opinions wUl chiefly vary according to the degree of acquaintance with physical phUosophy and the acceptance of its wider principles ; especiaUy as these principles are now understood, and seem to im ply the grand conception of the universal Cosmos, and the aublime conclusions resulting from it or embodied in it." (Ibid. p. 291.) " Of old the sceptic professed he would be convinced by seeing a miracle. At the present day, a visible miracle would but be the very subject of his scepticism. It is not the attestation, but the nature of tbe alleged marvel, which is now the point in question." (Ibid. p. 296.) NOTE 5, p. 106. " The philosopher denies the credibility of alleged events profess edly in their nature at variance with all physical analogy." (Study of Evidences, p. 135.) " The literal senso of physical events impossible to Bcionco cannot be essential to spiritual truth." (Order of Nature, p. 376.) " Questions ot this kind aro often porploxod by want of duo atten tion to tho laws of thought and belief, and of duo distinction in idoiis and terms. Tho proposition ' that an event may bo so incredible as intrinsically to set aside any degreo of testimony,' in no way applies to or affects tho honesty or veracity of that testimony, or tho reality of llio impressions oil tho minds of tho witnesses, so far as relates to the matter of sensible fact only. It merely means : that from tho naturo of our antecedent convictions, tho probability of V] Note 6 273 Bomo 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 of Evidences, p. 107.) The transference indeed everywhere insisted upon by this writer, of miracles from the region of history to that of faith (see following note), indicates of itself that the thing pronounced to be incredible, and to be incapable of being accepted as real, is not the cause of the miraculous facts, but the miraculous facts themselves aa recorded. For were the miracles credible as facts, and the supernatural causes alone denied, why should not they be matters of history, to be accepted upon historical evidence — the facts accepted, however the causes were disputed? But miracles are denied the character of historical events, and relegated to tho domain of faith ; which shews that, in the mind of the writer, the facts themselves rank as in credible, and not the cause ouly. NOTE 6, p. 108. '•' 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 distinctly recognized as tho sole work of a religious principle of faith, and not an assent of tlie under standing to external evidence, tho appeal to which seems altogether disowned and set aside. Conviction appears to he avowedly removed from the basis of testimony and sensible facts, and placed on that of spiritual impression and high religious feeUng.'/ (Powell's Order of Nature, p. 367.) " The tielief in miracles, whether in ancient or modern times, has always been a point not of evidence addressed to the intellect, but of religious faith impressed on the spirit. The mere fact was nothing : however well attested, it might be set aside ; however fabulous, it might be accepted, — according to the predisposing religious per suasion of the parties. If a more philosophical survey tend to ignore suspensions ot nature, as inconceivable to reason, tho spirit of faith gives a difierent interpretation, and transfers miracles to tho more congenial region of spiritual contemplation and Divino mystery." (Ilnd. p. 439.) " To conclude, an alleged miraclo can only bo regarded iu one of two ways ; either abstractedly an a physical event, und thereforo lo be investigated by reason and physical evidence, ulid referred to physical causes, possibly to known causes, but at all events to some higher causo or law, if at present, unknown; or, as connected with religious doctrine, regarded in a sacred light, asserted on the authority of inspiration. In this caso it ceases to be capable of investigation by reason, or to own its dominion ; it is ac- s 74 Notes 7-9 [Lect. cepted on religious grounds, and can appeal only to the principle and influence of faith. " Thus miraculous narratives become invested with the character of articles of faith." (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, p. 142.) NOTE, 7, p. 109. " The case indeed of the antecedent argument of miracles is very clear, however little some are mclined to perceive it. In nature and from nature, by science and by reason, we neither have nor can pos sibly have any evidence of a Deity working miracles; for that we must go out of nature and beyond reason. If we could have any such evidence from nature, it could only prove extraordinary natural effects, which would 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 system of natural causes." (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christi anity, p. 141.) NOTE 8, p. 109. "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 the popular acceptation, it is clear the Gospel miracles are always objects, not evidences of faith ; and when they are connected specially with doctrines, as in several of the higher mysteries 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 tho external events sacred from examination, and shields them also within the pale of the sanctuary ; the miracles are merged in the doctrines with which they are connected, and associated with the declarations of spiritual things which are, as bucIi, exempt from those criticisms to which physical statements would be necessarily amenable." (Ibid. p. 143.) NOTE 9, p. in. " It is not indeed improbable, nay, rather it is exceedingly probable, that tho force of this practical realization and appropriation should have been taken into exact account by Him who launched His revela tion into tho world wilh so much, and so much only, force, as was necessary to secure its reception at the hands of those who by their willingness proved their worthiness to receive it." (Scepticism and Revelation, by IT. Harris, B.D., Rector of Wintcrboumc-Ilassct, p. 12.) Mr. Harris gives as an instance of this principle the evidence of the Resurrection : — " In what terms is the attestation on behalf of this miracle described VI] Note 1 275 by St. Peter : — ' Him God raised up the tbh-d day, and showed Him openly ; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead.' What but the self-confidence of truth itself would have dared to express itself in such terms as these ? With what quiet assurance does revelation here assert the dignity of her position, as though she almost disdained to make full use of the authority placed at her disposal," LECTUEE VI. NOTE 1, p 117. " CoNSTDF.n 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 which asserted that there were men wearing their heads underneath their shoulders. The first assertion was more credible than the latter. But why more credible? So long as neither phenomenon had been actually witnessed, what reasfei was there for finding the one harder to be believed than the other 1 Apparently, because there is less constancy in the colours of animals than in the general structure of their internal anatomy. But how do we know this ? Doubtless, from experience. It appears, then, that we need experience to inform us, in what degree, and in what cases, or sorts of cases, experience is to bo relied on. Experience must be consulted in order to learn from it under what circumstances arguments from it will be valid. Wo havo no ulterior test to which we subject experience in general ; but, we make experience its own test. Experience testities 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 instances, with a greater degree of assur ance, in proportion as the case belongs to a class In ivhich tho uniformities have hitherto been found moro 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 tho state ments, it might ho conceded that the event, though of a very singular kind, was yet not such as to involve anything absolutely at variance oven wilh tho known laws of nature : — very remarkable coincidences of events ; very unusual appearances ;— very extraordinary nll'eclions of tho human body ;— such especially .13 those astonishing but wcll- nscei-laine.d cases of catalepsy, trance, or suspended animation :— very marvellous and sudden cures of diseases ; — the phenomena of double consciousness, visions, somnambulism, and spectral impressions ;— plight perhaps be included in this class, and, subject to such natural interpretation, bo entirely admissible. Other instances might, howcixr 1 276 Notes 2, 3 [Lect. be recounted more absolutely at variance with natural order, such, e.g. aa implied a subversion of gravitation, or of the constitution of matter ; descriptions inconceivable to those impressed with the truth of tho great first principle of all induction— the invariable constancy of the order of nature. " In such cases we might imagine a misapprehension or exaggera. tion of some real event, or possibly some kind of ocular illusion, mental hallucination, or the like." (Powell's Order of Nature, p. 270.) NOTE 2, p. 119. " The simoon, or whatever it was, which swept off in one night tho 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 tho deepest reverence in the supposition that the physical instruments employed for accomplishing the deluge, which are represented under the imago of the 'fountains of the great deep being liroken 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." (Essays and Reviews considered, by Rev. H. A. Wood- gate, p. 93.) NOTE 3, p. 119. Mr. Mansel makes some able and acute remarks upon the charac teristic 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 physical phenomena. The appearance of a comet, or the faU of an aerobte, may be reduced by the advance of science from a supposed supernatural to a natural occurrence ; and this reduction furnishes n reasonable presumption that other phenomena 0/ a like character will in time meet with a like explanation. But the reverse is the case with respect to thoso phenomena which aro narrated as having beun produced by personal agency. In proportion as tho science of to-day surpasses that of former generations, so is tho improbability that any man could havo done in past times, by natural means, work's which no bIUU of tho present ago is able to imitate. Tho two classes: of phenomena rest in fact on exactly opposite foundations. In order that natural occurrences, taking piaco without human agency, may t weiii' tho nppeuriineo of prodigies, it is necessary that the causo and manner of their production should bo unknown; and every advance of science from tho unknown to the known tends to lessen the number of such prodigies by referring them to natural causes, mid increa*\ VI] Notes 4, 5 277 the probability of a simUar explanation of the remainder. But on the other hand, in order that a man may perform marvellous acts by natural means, it is necessary that the cause and manner of their pro duction should he known by the performer ; and in this case every fresh advance of science from the unknown to the known diminishes the probabiUty that what is unknown now could have been known in a former age. " The effect, therefore, of scientific progress, as regards the Scrip tural miracles, is gradually to eliminate the hypothesis which refers them to unknown natural causes." (Aids to Faith, p. 14.) NOTE 4, p. 121. " Paetioular theories as to the manner in which miracles have been wrought are matters rather curious than practically useful. In all such cases wc must bear in mind the great maxim — Subtiliteis naturos longe superat subtilitatem mentis humance Some find it easier to conceive of miracles as not really taking place in the exter nal order of nature, hut in the impressions made by it upon our minds It is plain that these various hypotheses are merely ways in which different minds find it more or less easy to conceive the mode in which miracles may have been wrought." (Bislwp Fitzgerald's Article on Miracles: Dictionary ofthe Bible, p. 382.) . NOTE 5, p. 125. 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 interposi tions. " An extraordinary Divine causality, and not that ordinary which we acknowledge everywhere and in everything, belongs to the essence of the miracle ; powers of God other than those which have been always working." The writer, however, does not suppose that the difference Ues in the Divine action itself so much as in the revela tion of it. " The unresting activity of God, which at other times hides and conceala itself behind the veil of wdiat we term natural laws, does in the miracle unveil itself ; it steps out from its conceal ment, and tho hand which works it is laid barn." (Preliminary Kssuy, chap, n.) The writer of the article on " The Immutability of Nature,'' in tho Quarterly Iteviow, No. 220, speaking only of the philosophical question, dfnicBtho philosophical ground of tho common distinction juBt referred to. " It is only an arbitrary unproved hypothesis, that in the ordinary operations of naturo the Divino will acts only in- dUoctly and not directly, precisely as in flu; case of miracles, flow can you draw a distinction between the ordinary operations of the Divine will in tho daily course of things and its extraordinary in tho 278 Note 5 [Lect, VI] Note 6 279 miracles of Christianity? .... If a sovereign, directing the move ments of a mighty host by secret telegrams every minute, or concealed under a disguise, should on occasions for some wise consistent object appear at the head of his troops and give the word of command him self, would this startle tho soldier? Would ho call it an anomaly?" (P- 376.) _ The author of " Dialogues on Divine Providence " rejects the dis tinction : — ''What do we know of the laws of naturo more than you began by saying? They express a certain uniformity in nature; they assure us that_ the same cause will be followed by the Bame effect. But why this uniformity exists, why there is this connection between cause and effect, neither they can tell us nor can any one tell us of them " Pn. I am disposed to think you are right. If so, what follows ? "II. Only this: it is a mere liguro of speech to say that God acts through laws. The expression conveys to the mind an idea of a medium interposed between the Worker and His work. But the nature of general laws, if wo have 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 works. On the same occasions He acts in the same way." (Dialogues on Divine Providence, p. 17.) " Providence and Law are both words by which we express, or endeavour to express, certain truths about the manner in which God works. Providence impUes that in ail 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 resem blance, which the structure of our minds leads us to believe to exist in a stUl greater degree than we can trace it. In God, as a Being of perfect knowledge and perfect power, there is no opposition between the greatest uniformity of action and the most particular regard for the issue of each action, in all its multiform consequences. He sees all things from tho first, effects all that He wills in His own way, never makes a mistake, never miscalculates a consequence, never overlooks an clement or a condition, is never deceived or overpowered by inde pendent or subordinate agents, never need suspend His steps to watch nn event, or retrace His course to rectify an error. But tho wisest of men must often do this: and so, misled by a false analogy, we are apt to attribute to God tho imperfection of our own works, Wc form our calculations ; and they prove erroneous because tlie immutable laws around us interfere with our plans in somo unforeseen way. And this makes us sometimes speak ami think as if the events which depend on the laws which Ood has made were in some way inde pendent of Ilim, and out of the reach of His power. The most pro found and thoughtful among us can never lay down universal rules of conduct with such absolute accuracy that considerations of justice, it equity, or expediency wiU not sometimes lead him to make excep tions 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 justi fication for assigning any similar bounds to His ? Dare we assert that His intuitionofuniversallawsdoesnot comprchcndevcryactual andpossible particular instance? Is it not to attribute human fallibility to Him, to think that tho uniformity of action which He is pleased to observe cannot coexist with the most perfect and delicate regard to the ten dencies and consequences of all His actions? We make a great assump tion if we regard general laws as instruments and mediums of Divine operations." (Dialogues on Divine 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 allow, are in the hands of God. A believer would not doubt that one who dies by an accidont of this kind, dies nt the time and in the manner which God, in His Providence, thinks be^t. The fish-bone is tho inst.rumr.nt of His Will. It has fixed itself in tho sufferer's throat by no miraculous agency, but in the ordinary courso 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 two nights before, the conditions of wind and wave which caused a fish with a hone of this particular shape to be caught, the demand and consequent supply wliich brought it to a town some hundred miles from the sea, the Uttle circumstances which led to the purchase in the town of this individual fish, and a hundred other points of detail ; such as tho Ught by wliich the dinner was eaten, the exact degree of hardness or softness of the fish, as dependent on the precise manner of cooking, even the power of contractility in tho eater's throat, which may again have depended on his general health, or on the bracing or relaxing stato of the atmosphere. Vary but one of these conditions, and the same result would probably not have hap pened. And perhaps 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 who, having first accepted the truth, that death in tin's case happened according to the Providence of God, saw His linger also in every circumstance which had led to it, and attributed them all to His Will." (Dialogues on Divine Providence, r>. 111.) NOTE C, p. 127. "Let tho reader imagine himself sifting before tho calculating engine, and let him again observe and uscortun, by lengthened induction, the nature of the law it is computing. Let him imagine that ho has seen tho changes wrought on its face by tho lapse of thousands of years, and that, without one solitary exception, he has found the engine register tho series of square numbers. Suppose, now, the maker of that machine to say to tho observer, 'I will, by 2«0 Note 7 [Lect. ii moving a certain mechanism, which ia invisible to you, causo 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 inclined to attribute to him a degree of power but Uttle superior to that which 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 the uniformity of the law of square numbers, hear the maker of that engine say to him, ' The next number which shaU appear on those wheels, and which you expect to find a square number, shall not be such. When the machine was originaUy ordered to make these calculations, I impressed.on it a law, which should coincide with that of square numbers in every case except the one which i=i now about to appear, after which no future exception can ever occur ; but the unvarying law of squares shaU be pursued until the machine itself perishes from decay. "Undoubtedly the observer would ascribe a greater degree of power to the artist who thus wiUed that event at the distance of ages before 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 ita 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 he gave it that structure in order to meet events which he foresaw must nappen at those respective periods, there can be no doubt that the observer would ascribe to the inventor far higher knowledge than if, when those events severally occurred, he were to intervene, and temporarily alter the calculations of the machine. " If, besides this, Le 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 devia tions whenever certain combinations were presented to his eye ; if he were thus to impart a power of predicting 6uch excepted cases, de pendent on the will, although otherwise beyond the limits of the observer's power and knowledge, such a structure would be admitted as evidence of a BtiU more skilful contrivance." (Ninth Bridgwater Treatise, ch. viti.) NOTE 7, p. 131. Neander contemplates a miracle in this light, as assuming this highest and supremo region of frco-will : — " Many will admit certain facts to bo inoxplieablo by any known laws and at the same time refuse to grant them a miraculous or supernatural character. Somo are led by an unprejudiced admission of the facts to acknowledge, without any regard whatever to religion, that thoy transcend the limits of existing science, and content them selves with that acknowledgment, leaving to the progress of natural fc VII] Note 1 281 philosophy or psychology to discover the laws, as yet unknown, that will explain the mysterious phenomena It is not upon this road that we can lead men to recognize the supernatural and the divine; to admit the powers of heaven as manifesting themselves upon earth. Miracles belong to a region of holiness and freedom, to which neither experience, nor observation, nor scientific discovery can lead. There is no bridge betweeen this domain and that of natural phenomena. Only by means of our inward affinity for this Spiritual kingdom, only by hearing and obeying, in the stillness of the soul, the voice of God within us, can we reach those lofty regions." (Life of Clirist, bk. iv. ch. 5.) Archbishop Trench dweUs 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 continuaUy remember Him, yet there is danger that they will lead us to forget Him, until this world around us shall prove not a translucent medium, through which we behold Him, but a thick impenetrable veil, concealing Him wholly from our sight. Were there no other purpose in the miracles than this, namely, to testify the liberty of God, and to affirm the wUl of God, which, how ever it habituaUy shews itself in nature, is yet more than and above nature ; were it only to break a link in that chain of cause and effect, which else we should come to regard as itself God, as the iron chain of an inexorable necessity, binding heaven no less than earth, they would serve a great purpose, they would not have been wrought in vain." (Notes on the Miracles : Preliminary Essay, ch. U.) LECTURE VII. NOTE 1, p. 142. The proof of Mahomefs 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 ignominious a descent. Mahomet was perfectly acquainted with tho Gospel and with tho moral standard ofthe Qospol: ho -wrote tho Koran with tho Bible, both tho Old and New Testament, before him ; he know that tho spirit and practice of tho later dispensation was an advance upon that of the earlier, and that tho standard of morals had boon a matter of growth and pro gress; yet in promulgating a new religion, -with the higher standard before his eyea, he adopted tho lower one, and retrograded not only from Christianity but from Judaism. Not only was ho fully 282 Note i [Lect. acquainted with the Gospel revelation, but even professed his own to carry out and to succeed it in the Divine counsels: yet in engraft ing his own religion upon the Law and the Gospel, he wholly threw aside the moral development and progress which marked the succes sion of the two dispensations: and his own dispensation which was given out to be an advance even upon the Gospel, and the crown of the whole structure of revelation, 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 stiU an improve ment 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 weakness, at an earlier and an infant stage in the progress of revelation, when no better system has como to light; another thing lo institute tho siiuio in tho maturity of revelation, when the legislator has a more perfect moral system before his eyes. Tho true principle of adaptation and accommodation has not respect to the inferior condition of the party which is the subject of it singly and solely; nor is that circumstance alone one to justify tbe application of the principle : were it so, Christianity could in no age of the world, not even in our own, be preached to the heathen without some nitermediate religion being preached first as an accom modation. The principle of adaptation, as a legitimate rule and' principle, has respect not only to the condition of the people to be converted, but also to tho progress of revelation. Tho moral condi tion of the unconverted world may be bad, and of course is bad ; but nothing can justify the choice of a lower religion and moral code to wliich to convert them, when there exists before us a higher one. Yet this was Mahomet's course ; — a courso which indicates his esti mate of human nature. Thus on the subject of polygamy, divorce, and concubinage, tho Mahometan code was doubtless an accommodation to the moral standard of the Arabian tribes ; but it was an accommodation when 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 tho Mosaic code the tacit admission of polygamy, and thu moro express toleration of divorce, would operate with equal force to extort from the legislator the recognition of the state of con cubinage." "But," ho adds, "the liberty of concubinage granted or rather preached by the pretended successor of Moses, widely separates the religions in their moral aspeel — the studiously restricted latitude of the one, tho unbridled and unbounded licentiousness of tho other." VII] Note i 2S3 (Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. 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 traditional adulterations of the Babbins." (P- 330.) The same estimate of human nature moulds the legislator's direc tions on the subject of the property rights of wives and orphans. Here are cases in which the proverbial rapacity of the Oriental would be very difficult to deal with ; and a stringent rule, which admitted of no escape, would provoke him, and only appear, in the eye of the accommodating lawgiver, certain to meet with violation, and, along with violation, contempt. The directions therefore in the Koran are constructed with evident loopholes: "And give women their dowry freely; but if they voluntarily remit unto you any part of ii, enjoy it with satisfaction and advantage." (Koran, ch. iv.) It is easy to see what the practical operation of such a clause as this would be, — that it would 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. A proviso respecting female orphans leaves a dangerous discretion to the guardian : " And give not unto those who are of weak understanding the substance which God hath appointed you to preserve for them" (Ibid.) : a good rule if used fairly, but which is obviously suggestive of an unfair use of it. It was not likely that an Arabian guardian would part with the legal possession of any properly sooner than was necessary; nor was overhastc in surrendering an estate to a female orphan of weak mind a fault which he would bo in the least likely to commit. He need hardly then have been cautioned against it. And on the other hand, he might and would not improbably extract from such a rule a permission to constitute himself an arbitrary judge of his ward's 2'ower to mnnago her own affairs, and to detain her property upon the slightest excuse on that head. The promulgator of a new religion, who with a high and spiritual code before him adopts a lower and laxor one. as that of bis religion, not only adopts that lower code but implicitly pronounces judgment upon the higher ono which ho rejects. Ho says virtually that he con siders such a code impracticable, that it may bo put, forth in u 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. 284 Notes 2, [Lect. VII] Note 4 285 NOTE 2, p. 149. " If the special character of this deliverance bo investigated, we find it summed up in the word nirvana, ' extinction,' ' blowing out.' _ Such was the supreme felicity of the Buddha : such the goal to which he ever pointed the- aspirations of his followers. It was formerly dis puted whether more is meant by the expression nirvana than ' eternal quietude,' 'unbroken sleep, 'impenetrable apathy;' but the oldest literature of Buddhism will scarcely suffer us to doubt that Gautama intended by it nothing short of absolute ' annihilation,' the destruction of all elements which constitute existence." (Hardwictis Christ and other Masters, pt. ii. p. 66.) Dr. Bowland Williams's representation of the Buddhist doctrine of nirvana is a slight, but very slight, modification of Mr. Hard-wick's statement. " It seems acknowledged that such a conception of pas- siveness in Deity affects your notions of the life to be expected here after : for it takes away aU clear individuaUty, and leaves a breathless absorption." (Cliristianity and Hinduism, p. 528.) The Brahman doc trine of the final state professes some difference from the Buddhist ; but both schools maintain in common the characteristic of imperson- aUty as attaching to the final state. " The human soul, being cased in a body, as in a succession of Bheaths, the first of which is inteUec- tual 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 personality, and thus individualizes itself in isolation from the supreme soul : therefore also in its many passages from life to life the unhappy soul of man carries with it this subtle body above spoken of, and thereby is constituted what we call a person." (Ibid, p. 92.) This personality, however, vanishes in the final state, when the soul is restored to oneness. "You will not," continues the Brahman speaker in the dialogue, " accept the term void as an adequate descrip tion 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 Ood." (Ibid.) NOTE 3, p. 150. Tiira (novating principle in patriarchal religious lite Mr. Davison considers to havo been prophecy:— " Prophecy deigned to take theso early disciples of it by the hand. Wo see their personal fortunes, and in mauy particulars, thete 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 tae ¦A ** supports 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 rebgion by prophecj' in the Patriarchal age, which was the first aira of its more copious pro mulgation." (Davison on Prophecy, p. 93.) Again, the institution of sacrifice, typical under the 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 combinpd, 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 wUlingness to accept a better atonement adequate to the needs of the conscience, if God should provide it, and a desire after inward purity, which bodily lustration might represent, but could not supply ; in short, that tern- , per which David has confessed and described, when he rejects his reliance upon the legal rites Although it is clear there was no distinct perception of the Christian object of faith, we cannot rea sonably doubt the penitent of the Law would have been the devout disciple of tbe Gospel, had God been pleased to reveal to him tho real sacrifice of propitiation which the Law did not provide." (Davison on Prophecy, p. 143.) " With reference to the Patriarch and the Jew, those anticipations of Gospel truth had a twofold purpose, immediate and prospective : 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 were 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 were the sentiments of many a primitive worshipper, when ho laid his hand and confessed his guilt upon the head of the victim." (Dr. Hawkins's Discourses on the Historical Scriptures, p. 154.) "lino vero, ut sic loquar, quemadmodum so veriUis habct, non nominum consuetudo, Chrisliauus etiam illo tunc jiopulus fniU" (Augustine, Serm. 300,) NOTE -1, p. 1 S4. " II est dangereux de trop faire voir & l'homme combien il est cgal »ux betes, sans lui montrer sa grandeur. 11 est encoro dangereux'do lui trop fairo voir sa grandeur sans sa bassesse. 286 Note 5 [Lect. VII] Note 5 287 " II est non seulement impossible mais inutile do connaitre Dieu sans J.-C. lis ne s'en sont pas eloignes, mais approchcs ; lis ne se sont pas abaisses mais. . . . Quo quisquam optimus est, pessimus si hoc ipsum quod sit optimus ascribat sibi. " Aussi eeux qui ont connu Dieu sans connaitre leur misere ne l'ont pas glorifie mais s'en sont glorifids. Quia non cognovit per sapientiam, placuit Deo per stultitiam prcedicationis salvos facere. " Non seulement nous ne connaissons Dieu que par J.-C. mais nous ne nous connaissons nous mem.es que par J.-C." (Pensies de Pascal, pp. 85> 3i6, 317-) See some valuable remarks on the practical inefficiency of Platonic doctrine in the Christian Remembrancer, October, 1S63 : Article on Miracles, p. 271. NOTE 5, p. 157. " If at the present clay any very extraordinary and unaccountable fact were exhibited before the eyes of an unbiassed, educated, well- informed individual, and supposing aU 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 tune receive its explanation by the advance of discovery . " It is thus the prevalent conviction that at the present day miracles are not to be expected, and consequently alleged marvels are com monly discredited." (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, p. 107.) Mr. Leckie says : — " There is certainly no change in the history of the last 3013 years more striking or suggestive, than that which has taken place in the estimate of the miraculous. At present nearly all educated men re ceive an account of a miracle taking place in their own day, with an absolute and derisive credulity, which dispenses with all examination of the evidence. Although they may be entirely unable to give a satisfactory explanation of some phenomena that have taken place, they never on that account dream of ascribing them to supernatural agency, such an hypothesis being, as they believe, altogether beyond the range of reasonable discussion. Yet a few centuries ago, there was no solution to which the mind of men turned more readily in every perplexity." (Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. p. I.) The above extract, wliich is the opening paragraph of Mr. Leckic's work, is not a correct representation of the belief of modern society. Undoubtedly there is a section of the community whose belief is cor- k. rectly represented by it ; but that is not a fact which meets the case : the assertion is that educated society as a whole thinks a miracle now- a-days impossible ; and that it is society as a wholo which does so, is the very point, /but is this true ? Religions society, i.e. reUgious in its belief, is the greater part by far of modern educated society. So ciety as a whole then, making allowance for exceptions, is religious society. And the question is, what does such society think ? what would he a fair account of its state of mind ? Writers who forestall what appears to them the unerring result of certain tendencies, un consciously adopt as representative society that section of it which has already airived at this expected result : but they must be recalled to fact. The truth is, then, that no broad or round statement could do justice to the attitude of mind in which religious society of this clay stands toward tho hodiernal miraculous. There is a presumption felt against it, a general expectation that a supernatural event will not occur now ; but this is with a reserve. Keligious persons do not allow themselves to be condemned to such simplicity of point of view as admits of being represented by round statements. The presumption against the hodiernal miraculous is not an absolute or logical position. It would be contrary to the very principles of their religious belief, and to their deepest convictions to make it such. I have mentioned the belief in special providences as a belief in a certain remote miraculous agency. But we may appeal to the actual testimony of conversation, which is the best exponent of the belief of society, whether the idea of the possibihty of supernatural events happening now is not a very commonly received and entertained one? Has the religious and serious literature, again, of the present day de parted in any material respect from the standard of belief on this sub ject which we meet in the religious writers of the last century ; eg. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Doddridge ? These two writers are far from' being regarded now as obsolete or antiquated, they are popular authors now, they are favourites with the public, their writings are read without the least idea that there is any chasm intervening be tween them and modern thought ; they aro resorted to very much as if thoy were writers of our own day. Indeed, "the obstinate prin ciple of rationality," which Dr. Johnson attributed to himself, has been a great clement in his popularity. But theso two writers, as is well known, maintained the credibility of the occurrence of super natural events now. " It is proper," 'says Boswell, "once for all to give a true and fair statement of Johnson's way of talking upon the question, whether departed spirits are ever permitted to appear in 288 Note 5 [Lect. this world, or in any way to operate upon human life. He has been ignorantly misrepresented as weakly credulous upon that subject ; and, therefore, though I feel an inclination to disdain and treat with silent contempt so foolish a notion concerning my Ulustrious friend, yet, as I find it has gained ground, it is necessary to refute it. The real fact then is, that Johnson had a very philosophical mind, and such a rational respect for testimony, as to make him submit his understanding to what was authoritatively proved, though he could not comprehend why it was so. Being thus disposed he was willing to inquire into the truth of any relation of supernatural agency, a general belief of which has prevailed in all ages and nations. But so far was he from being the dupe of implicit faith, that he examined tho matter with zealous attention, and no man waa more ready to refute its falsehood, when ho hud discovered it." Dr. Doddridgo inserted in his Life of Colonel Gardiner the well-known account of the vision which appeared to him and led to his conversion. Without entering then into any criticism of this or other such accounts, I say that such manifestations of belief in these and other writers do not appear to reUgious readers of the present day in the light of irrational eccentri cities or mere obsolete notions: they fall in with a current and established standard of beUef. When it is said that educated society of the present day rejects the miracles of the present day, it should be remembered what sort of miracles tho miracles of the present day are. Wo Bpcak now of classes of miracles. What are these 1 Vulgar witchcraft and magic ; again spiritualist miracles ; again controversial miracles in the Roman Church connected with the worship of the Virgin and other popular 'doctrines ; that is to say, either disreputable miracles, or miracles connected simply with fashionable amusement and curiosity, 6r miracles derived from a source of imposture and delusion, so old and well-known that it has become a byword and a proverb. There is a growth and an accumulation of human judgment, with regard to tho value of tho polemical class of miracles, of wliich rational men havo a right to avail thomsolvea. Modern society then, it ia said, re jects tho mu-acles which occur now, and these are the miracles wliich occur now. When tho rejection of miracles which happen now is alleged, it should also bo mentioned what sort of miracles they are which now happen. Can any comparison bo miulo, in point of dignity and claim to respect, between such supomaturalisin as this and tho power which broke through tho barrier of naturo to guarantee a revelation which VII] Note 5 289 4 has, as a matter of fact, changed the condition of the world and raised human nature ? The scientific era of the world has doubtless been an important period in the education of mankind ; and with other parts of the mind of man, his beUef in the marvellous has received an education. It has worked itself out of the wildness, the extravagance, and the rank luxuriance of former ages ; it has disciplined itself ; it has discovered its own faults, and learned not to mistake the want of discrimination for reverence, and the idle reception of every story for faith. This is educated beUef in the supernatural. It is so tempered and cautious, and its disposition to assertion is so checked, that, compared with the reckless audacity of medieval belief, it looks to many like disbelief. The positive element in it is overwhelmed by the juxtaposition with the monstrous credulity which it has superseded ; the negative element is alone seen. But it is not disbelief notwithstanding. Modem educated society is not unmoored from the beUef in the hodiernal supernatural, as a possibUity. This is a question of fact. Theory may be stated absolutely, and tendencies may be asserted absolutely and summarUy, although such assertions are hazardous ; but when persons come to state matters of fact, as e.g. what is the sentiment and belief of society at the present day upon the subject of the hodiernal supernatural, the statement should be faithful to the modifications of actual fact. Mr. Leckie's statement is not ; it is un true ; and the real state of tho case requires another statement, which enters reaUy into particulars and into the variety of elements in tlie mind of modern society. The argument that the actual progress of society has been fatal to a great deal of beUef, that a great deal of supernaturaUsm which was once accepted by the intelligent and educated of every age is now universally rejected, is undoubtedly a potent weapon in the hands of unbelief. It has that strength which is always gained by an appeal to actual facts ; even though they he one particular and limited class of facts. It is an argument which must, in the nature of the case, bo very convincing as condemnatory of the miraculous evidences of Christianity, to those who decide tho question of revelation and its evidences by a rough application of thoso comnion-sciiso views which aro nearest at hand and aro tho easiost to hit on. It looks at first, sight very like common sense lo say, *An tho world has become more civilized, bo much belief in tho supernatural bus gono ; therefore, 11s civilization increases, tho mit will go loo ;' but whim wo f;n a little deeper wo find that it is common senso judging upon narrow and limited data, not having the wholo of tho case before it. Cor,imon 290 Note 5 [Lect. VII] Note 5 2Cj\ sense is a correct guide or not, according to the amount of knowledge upon which it goes ; ignorant common sense makes the greatest mis takes ; rough or careless common sense, which overlooks facts and passes over distinctions, also makes the greatest mistakes. Common sense is the faculty of judging correctly upon the data which are be fore it ; but it does not in the least imply possessing or realizing all the proper data. The present is a case in point. Here is a position affecting a common-sense sound, which prophesies the total disbeliel in the supernatural ; but the fact which it has before it, and upon which it judges, is one kind or rank of supernaturalisni alone, viz., the grossest, the coarsest, the most revolting, absurd and monstrous. The belief in. this has disappeared with growing civilization, and therefore a common sense which only has this field of the super natural before it, decides that all belief in the supernatural will in tune disappear. It is a position built upon the roughest and most external historical data, without taking into account the inner religious mind of man, and the insight which the religious sense im parts, and by which it enables man to discriminate between different kinds of supernatural pretensions, their intrinsic character, and their evidences. We commonly indeed associate common sense with the use of the readier and more tangible and palpable sort of data, and call the faculty of judging upon these data by that name. If we allow this appropriation of the term in the present case, then the distinction which I have just drawn may be expressed thus. In matters of ordinary Ufe common sense of itself rules ; but in reUgious questions the reUgious sense is a part of common sense, and common sense is imperfect and defective unless it has the supplement of the religious sense. When then we come to judge of the evidences of a revelation and the Christian miracles, we are bound, even on principles of com mon sense, to listen to what the religious sense has to suggest. But the first result of religious thought and feeling is an immense dis tinction between tho vulgar supernaturalism of uncivilized ages and the Gospel miracles ; a distinction in the reason and object of the miracles, in their character, in the character of Him in whom they centre, and in the character of the witnesses. Under tho influence of a religious insight, this distinction is perfectly obvious and natural, or is a part of common sense. More than this, religious thought and feeling supply a very good and a perfectly natural reason why the evidences of revelation should not meet the test of easy common sense ; because they suggest that those evidences were intended aud designed for those who had cultivated the religious sense. 7 Let us suppose a person of deep reUgious mind, who felt strongly that the evidences of revelation could not be seen in their proper strength without the religious sense and temper, i.e. by common sense alone ; and that it was in harmony with the Divine character that this faUure to satisfy common sense alone should be designed. It is clear that his rationale of Christian evidence is an answer by antici pation to Mr. Leckie's attack ; that it cuts under it, and takes, by a previous admission, the ground from underneath an argument which depends entirely for its force upon a rough prima facie common sense, which does not take into account the reasons and considera tions which naturally spring out of the reUgious sense. The progress of enquiry has been fatal to a great deal of beUef in other instances besides the supernatural ; and yet it has only in those instances castigated and educated the belief, and not destroyed it. Take, e.g., the doctrine of. final causes. We know the abuses and extravagancies with which this doctrine was taught in the Middle Ages, and by which it was perverted, as Bacon so often complains, to the total neglect of the search for physical causes. The philosopher went through nature with the maxim of Aristotle in his mouth, that " Nature made nothing in vain," and appUed it as the sole reason and account to be given of every arrangement in nature. " Did you ask what was the cause of the eyebrows ? " says Bacon, " you were told it was the design to defend the eyes. Did you ask what was the cause of the hardness of the hides of animals ? you were told that it was the design to protect them from the cold. Did you ask what was the cause of the leaves of trees ? the reply was, that it was the design to give shelter to tho fruit. Did you ask what caused the bones ? you were told it was the design to supply the body with a framework to support it. Did you ask what caused the clouds in the sky ? you were told that it Was the design to supply the earth with rain and moisture. Did you ask the cause of the earth's denseness and solidity ? you were told it was the design to furnish animals with a standing-ground and dweUing-place." (De Avgm. 1. iii. ch. iv.) In this way, hi every case in which a cause was wanted for a natural effect, the vacuum was filled up with an immediate act of the Deity, creating that particular physical condition of things, on account of its scrviceablcness and use; and hero all enquiry stopped, lt did not occur, e.g. to anybody, as Bacon says, that " there was ap/ii/siW coum'. for the hardness of tho hides of beasts, in the contraction ofthe pores by the cold and exposure to the outer air; besides a final cause, in the defence of the animal from the weather. And so throughout." The result Hvas, he continues, ingens scientiarum dctrimenlum. " The Note 5 [Lect. VII] Note 5 *9; .tino- of final causes in physics, expelled and cast out the inquisi- , i of°physical causes, and was the occasion 'of men resting in mere ociious and shadowy account of things, instead of penetrating to „ e real natural reasons." 'bis mischievous and despotic reign of final causes has been long r, and in innumerable instances where, before the advance of i nee, an act of creating design stood as the sole cause of a par- ilar natural arrangement, that design has been displaced as the nediate cause, and a purely physical cause has been inserted m ; i place. Throughout the whole realm of nature blind agents or raical lawa have been discovered, which occupy the next place to ,t o ultimate facta of wliich the reason ia enquired ; and what directly ¦cedes these natural dispositions of things, is found to be not design t material agency producing the effect in question without an ention. The laws of motion and gravitation, e.g. are blind agents, i ' icb are the immediate producers of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. .And a succession of blind physical causes has produced tne consistency, and the atmosphere of this earth— aU that condition ot it which makes it fit for the habitation of men. The discovery of this material agency in the production of the existing condition of nature, has been and is now extending, and in investigating the works of creation we are more and more met by intervening classes of causes which are purely natural. And, as usual, theory is in advance of facts, and threatens such large additions to the empire ot physical causation, and such an immense further withdrawal ot nature from the immediate action of design, that some minds have been filled with serious apprehensions. Speculation has invaded the realm of animal nature, and proposes to account even lor those organic animal structures which are the most conspicuous instancea ofdesis Kdppopras ICivTat, xctpfcr- iciTa ^x^"TW,,i ira"roSoiro?s -yXiiiriraii ~Ka\oipTUP, rb. Kp6ia tQv dpSpilnriiiv s m. paSSag-eS already oited from tne B«°k of Acts .that the power of working miracles was conferred by the hands of the Apostles only ; and consequently ceased with the last discinle on whom their hands were laid. I perceive in th k^STt Fathers, who lived in the middle and end of the second °cent,uy when speaking on this subject, something which betrays, if not a con viction, at least a suspic on, that the power of working'miracles was withdrawn, combined wath an anxiety to keep up a belief of its coT muaneein the Church. They affirm in general terms that imiracles were performed but rarely venture to produce an instance of "parti cular miracle. Those ?vho followed tlfem were less seru piiiou? and ZTXf ° Ten\u ira°le3 . Vffly diffel'ent ind^ in cireumsten e and character from the miracles ofthe Gospel, yet readily believed by men who were not disposed nicely to exainine into the7 evidence of facts which they wished to be true. Tho success of tho first attempts naturally encouraged others to practise similar impositions upon the credulity of mankind. In every succeeding age miracles mu ti 1 ed in number and increased m extravagance; till at length, by thoir fre quency, they lost all title to the name, since they could no Wc. be considered as deviations from the ordinary course of nature." (Kane's Tertullian, pp. y8 et seq.) ,^uyc> Upon the question of the continuance of miraculous powers in the Church our earlier divines decline to draw any precise line, and are I % VIII] Note 5 3°: favourable to an indefinite prolongation of their existence in tho Church. Thus Jackson :— " GeneraUy, miracles wore usual in the infancy of Christianity, as we read in ecclesiastical stories; nor can it bo certainly gathered when they did certainly cease. To say they endured no longer than the primitive Church can give no universal satisfaction, saye 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: ior some churches were but in the prime or change, when others were full of Christian knowledge. The use of miracles at the same instant was befitting the one, not the other. For God usually speaks to new born children in Christ hy 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 goodness with apples, or other like visible pledges of their love: but when they come to riper years, and arc capable ol discourse, or apprehensive of wholesome admonitions, they seek to rule them by reason, rroporlioinibly to this course ot pareiite doth God speak to His Church: in her infancy (wheresoever planted), by sensible documents of His power; in her maturity, by the ordinary preaching of His word, which is more apt to ripen and confirm true Christian faith than any miracles are, so men would submit their reason unto the rules set down in Scripture, and unpartiaUy examine aU events of time by them, as elsewhere, God willing, we shall show. "These grounds, well considered, will move any sober spirit at the least to suspend his assent, and not suffer his mind to be hastily over- swayed with absolute distrust of all such miracles, as either our writers report to have been wrought, 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 * Comments on the Creed, bk. i. ch. 13.) Professor Blunt dissents from Bishop Kayo's position respecting the early Church miracles :— "Though the Bishop of Lincoln's theory is one which is well eal- culated to° reconcile a sceptical age to the acceptance of ecclesiastical miracles in a degree, and though I have sometimes felt inclined to adopt it myself, yet on further reading and further examination ot the subject, I am "led to doubt if the testimony of the Fathers can bo squared to it, if it can satisfy the conditions of the case. (On the Early Fathers, p. 406.) Warburton admits some special miracles, rejects the great boib\ especially those of later times, and for the rest adopts the position of a suspense of judgment : — "Not that it is my purpose positively to brand as false every pre tended miracle recorded in ecclesiastical and civil history, which wants 304 Note 5 this favourable capacity of being reduced to one or other of the species explained above. All that I contend for is, that those miracles, still remaining unsupported by the nature of that evidence which I have shown ought to force conviction from every reasonable mind, should be at present excluded from the privilege of that conviction. " Indeed the greater part may be safely given up. Of the rest, wliich yet stand undiscredited by any considerable marks of impos ture, we may safely suspend our'bebef, till time hath afforded further lights to direct our judgment" (Divine Legation, bk. ix. ch. &.) YALE UNIVERSITY a39002 000986i+6i+b