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of mysterious manifestations of superhuman power, oftentimes of a kind that we should deem fantastic, taking place ordinarily on the fulfilment of divinely ordained conditions, likewise fantastic and mysterious. It is true that such expectations were greatly facilitated by habitual haste and carelessness in the observation of even the commonest phenomena. And, in these days also, and in civilized countries, a moral and intellectual status essentially the same as was thus evinced is fruitful in similar expectations. There are numbers of people who hold fantastic views respecting the conditions of good and ill luck, and who adopt fantastic practices in order to secure the former and avert the latter. There is many a person who would avoid, if possible, being one of a party of thirteen at dinner, fearing lest some member of the company should die before the year was out. On the supposition that the fatal number sat down to table, the expected death, if it happened, he would regard as belonging to a class of ordinary phenomena. Such superstitions are widely spread, and are by no means confined to the grossly ignorant or to the lowest of the social strata. But the habitual creations of an uninformed imagination must not be confounded with belief in the occasional occurrence of miracles. The phenomenon which has come to be looked upon as ordinary has thereby ceased to be regarded as miraculous. It may still, indeed, like a death-bed scene, be deeply impressive, but its effect is clearly distinguishable from that which a miracle, properly so called, tends to produce. It was not a phenomenon supposed to be of ordinary occurrence that drew from the spectators the exclamation, “We never saw it on this fashion!" (Mark ii. 12). No one who really believed that fairies and elves were accustomed to hold nocturnal revels in the fields and woods, or that certain old women were in the habit of riding through the air on broomsticks, would be thus affected, were he to fancy that he witnessed such a spectacle. What I maintain is that the ancients, so far as their intellectual attainments permitted, took cognizance of rules of sequence in their observation of phenomena, and distinguished accordingly between the ordinary and the miraculous; and I am not aware of any facts which would justify the notion that in former times people in general were more credulous than they are in these days as regards occurrences alien from experience, real or imaginary.

NOTE J.

In reference to comets, I ought perhaps to guard my statement by saying, that I allude to their being looked upon as awfully mysterious portents of coming woe. People are by no means wanting in whom the expected near approach of one of these fiery-looking bodies to our planet excites alarm.

NOTE K.

I admit that the following hostile remarks from a writer whom I have already quoted are here worthy of special attention. "If, then, I have correctly interpreted the opinions of ordinary educated people on this subject, it appears that the common attitude towards miracles is not that of doubt, of hesitation, of discontent with the existing evidence, but rather of absolute, derisive, and even unexamining incredulity. Such a fact, when we consider that the antecedent possibility of at least some miracles is usually admitted, and in the face of the vast mass of tradition that may be adduced in their favour, appears at first sight a striking anomaly, and the more so, because it can be shown that the belief in miracles has in most cases not been reasoned down, but has simply faded away" ("History of European Morals," vol. i. p. 369).

That a host of superstitious fancies has simply faded away is quite certain. It must be borne in mind, however, that these pictures of the mind, which looked so real when the imagination was best fitted to receive them, were for the most part outlined and coloured by certain religious notions that an advance in spiritual enlightenment has consigned to oblivion. But to some extent the pictures which have thus vanished have been, like dissolving views, succeeded by others: the old superstitions have been replaced by new and such as are congenial with the spiritual ethos of the age. Doubtless, in these days, no person could, without making himself a butt for popular ridicule, seriously affirm that he had seen a fairy, or that he dreaded the spells and incantations of some aged female of unprepossessing appearance. But people who have more or less belief in the possibility of obtaining communications from the world of spirits are by no means rare, and indeed are oftener to be met with among the comparatively intelligent and educated than in the lowest class of society. Spiritualists and persons of similar professions are largely resorted to, and it does not seem improbable that, by the time their occupations are gone, superstition will have assumed new aspects and forms. As to the reality and the interpretation of alleged phenomena, the attitude of "absolute, derisive," and "unexamining incredulity" is so far common as to be characteristic of a certain vulgar type of mind, its most offensive displays are in people whose observation and experience are habitually limited to a very narrow range of facts, but it is never the attitude of a profound or truly scientific mind.

Mr. Huxley ("Lay Sermons," etc., p. 179) has truly said that "there are savages without God, in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts." These facts, I think, are easily accounted for. Not every stage of moral culture in a community admits of the belief

in one all-ruling Will taking root in it; whereas there is no stage, so far as we know, which excludes the possibility of a prevalent impression of the existence of a world of spirits. Why it is that this impression, which our high civilization might have been credited with the power of utterly effacing, still continues in a measure, and is likely to be permanent, I have already explained. What are commonly known as ghost stories I regard as idle tales, of no significance whatever in respect to the possibilities of spiritual interaction. There are conditions under which people may readily persuade themselves that they see what they have been expecting to see. If a person of weak character or weak nerves visits a churchyard alone at dead of night, and is, at the same time under the belief that such places at such an hour are haunted by ghosts, or is under the necessity of trying hard to persuade himself that his attitude towards this superstition is one of daring incredulity, it is not at all unlikely that his experience on that occasion will seem to confirm the superstition. An animal startled from his repose, or even a waving bough, seen in the dim mysterious light of the pale moon, will quickly shape itself to his fancy into the expected and dreaded apparition, and will suffice to scare him from the place. But it will easily be seen that the sort of tales which are due to experiences of this kind have nothing whatever in common with the story to which I have called attention in note 1 to this chapter.

NOTE L.

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Hume maintains that "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish;" to which assertion he adds, "and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains after deducting the inferior” (“An Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,” sect. x.).

My contention is, that the facts which constitute our Saviour's credentials are not as miracles established by the testimony of those who are recorded to have witnessed them, and that to perceive the force of the testimony by which they are really established is to be able to regard them as fitting manifestations of the power of the Almighty and Eternal Spirit, and as being thus in harmony with all His other works and the laws to which they conform.

CHAPTER IX.

INCARNATE MANIFESTATION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL

CHARACTER.

“Ος ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου.”—COL. i. 15.

I. IN ascribing to the Supreme Cause Infinity and Eternity, and, with qualifications already specified, unlimited Power, we form concepts of attributes which, although unimaginable, are nevertheless intelligible; and, in effect, we assert that, with respect to these attributes, it may be known. For to affirm that it is absolutely unknowable is equivalent to denying that it has any cognoscible attributes whatsoever. Such a denial leaves boundless room for guesses, but no room at all for argument, it being plainly incompetent for us to advance an opinion on rational grounds against any conjecture, provided it be self-consistent, that the wildest fancy may entertain respecting entities which we hold to be, relatively to human apprehension in the present state of existence, necessarily nondescript. Yet, while we know, or may know, perfectly well what we mean when we represent to ourselves the Supreme Cause as Infinite, Eternal, and of unlimited Power, and while it may be perfectly evident to every one who thus employs such terms that he is not singular in his conception of their force, but that in respect to this there is a mutual intelligence of minds, we cannot

help feeling that our representation thus far is colourless and empty, the concepts being such that it is impossible to denominate them with scientific accuracy, except by using terms of negative import. We have not yet found a name for the Supreme Cause, and until we have done this, although by no means at liberty to deny that it is cognoscible, and even that it is in some measure known— for our concepts, let it be borne in mind, are not meaningless each has a strictly scientific signification, we must needs confess that we have defined, if so boldly metaphorical a use of this word may be permitted in reference to an entity conceived of as Infinite-that we have outlined, so to speak, something which is to our apprehensions an absolute blank. If, indeed, we have seen our way to introduce into our mental representation Mind and Will, and any attributes we may have found to be essentially involved in these, we have doubtless done something towards filling up the blank. But the conception of a Mind whose purposes we have no capacity for discerning, and of a Will of whose determinations our moral sense is incapable of forming any judgment, adds to the blank nothing but a smear. No addition which comes short of the character of the Supreme Cause can fill up the blank: only in so far as the Almighty discovers Himself to our Moral Sense do we know Him, and are able to represent Him to our minds by names which presuppose acquaintance with His personality.

2. Now, there is one name which sums up, harmonizes, and interprets for us all others that may be fitly used in designating His character: all are comprehended in the saying, "God is Love." As regards the discovery of this fundamental truth I would observe, that it is paralleled, very imperfectly no doubt, nevertheless suggestively, by

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