TEE SKEPTICISM OF BELIEVERS. 



557 



One or two familiar arguments from the evi- 

 dence-writers may give a clew to the inquiry. A 

 man believes in the immaculate conception. He 

 denies, then, that a certain event took place in 

 accordance with laws exemplified in all similar 

 cases. He impugns in this instance the validity 

 of that inductive process upon which he counts at 

 every step in daily life. He is a scientific skep- 

 tic in the strictest sense, for he is throwing doubt 

 upon the trustworthiness of one of the primary 

 ratiocinative processes. The same is true, when- 

 ever an event, admitted by all parties to have oc- 

 curred, is ascribed by one party to supernatural 

 interference. An amiable apologist expressed 

 his surprise the other day that men of science 

 should take into account such trifles as the exist- 

 ence of flint implements, and refuse to take into 

 account the existence of the Bible and of Chris- 

 tianity. Surely he never heard of the men of 

 science who denied the existence of the Bible and 

 of Christianity. Which man really declines "to 

 take a fact into account" — the man who declares 

 it to be altogether exceptional and supernatural, or 

 the man who regards it as a result of the normal 

 operation of recognized forces ? Which implies 

 the greatest "skepticism" — the assertion that 

 somebody wrote the book of Genesis by facul- 

 ties similar to those which enabled another to 

 write Homer, or the assertion that it is utterly 

 impossible that anybody would have written down 

 the legends of the Garden of Eden and the Ark, 

 without the direct assistance of God Almighty ? 

 If it is skeptical to deny one agency, it is equally 

 skeptical to deny the other. What is given to 

 Jehovah is taken from Moses. 



In the more common case of miracles, the fact 

 is denied as well as the explanation. The " skep- 

 tic" refuses to believe the myth of the Magi, be- 

 cause the story involves impossibilities and rests 

 upon no evidence. Somebody — we know not 

 •jvho — wrote — we know not when — on some au- 

 thority — we know not what — a story which in- 

 volves a belief in doctrines shown to be false, 

 and showed, by ignoring all difficulties, his entire 

 innocence of critical principles. To disbelieve 

 the story is called skeptical. Why? The dis- 

 belief implies the assumption that evidence is fal- 

 lible, and that, in particular, unfounded stories 

 may obtain currency in a sect when they tend to 

 honor its founder. Does any human being deny 

 those assumptions '? Nay, does not every one 

 who asserts the truth of this particular legend 

 implicitly assert them in regard to every other 

 creed hut his own? The so-called skeptic does 

 not differ from the believer in regard to any gen- 



eral principles of evidence. He merely asserts 

 the evidence to be non-existent in this particular 

 case, and refuses to believe without evidence.. 

 The phenomenon, admitted on all hands, is the 

 existence of a certain narrative. One thinker 

 classes it with authentic history ; the other classes 

 it with a well-known variety of popular legend. 

 Neither denies the existence of much authentic 

 history or of much groundless legend. If we ac- 

 cept as the measure of the " skepticism " involved 

 the weight of evidence resisted, he is most skep- 

 tical who is most illogical; and it is as skeptical 

 in one man to deny the capacity of the human 

 imagination as in the other to deny the interven- 

 tion of a supernatural agent. 



It is of course open to the believer to show 

 that the rejection of this particular story involves 

 the rejection of a whole narrative resting upon 

 sufficient evidence. The argument is of the less 

 importance, because miracles in this sense are 

 now seldom alleged as evidence. People have 

 become sensitive to the inconsistency involved in 

 basing a theory of the universe upon the alleged 

 exceptions to the general order. But another 

 argument, now put forward with more confidence, 

 illustrates in a more important case the skepti- 

 cism of believers. The character of Christ, we 

 are told, is absolutely perfect. The moral code 

 which he preached is equally perfect. The spir- 

 itual force which he revealed is the only one 

 capable of swaying humin nature. The appear- 

 ance of such a teacher, the promulgation of such 

 a code, and the revelation of such truths, consti- 

 tute an event in history so unique that it can be ex- 

 plained by nothing short of a divine intervention. 

 Nay, the discontinuity implied is of so vast an 

 order that nothing can explain the facts short of 

 the stupendous miracle of the incarnation of the 

 ruler of the universe. If the unbeliever grants 

 substantially the facts alleged, he has still to dis- 

 cuss the real problem. Grant Christ to be per- 

 fect — is the difference between him and the best 

 of his race such that it must correspond to the 

 difference between man and infinity? Grant his 

 teaching to be of flawless purity and unrivaled 

 power — are we to infer that nothing but the in- 

 conceivable catastrophe suggested can explain 

 the knowledge and the power displayed by the 

 founder of Christianity ? 



The question is, briefly, whether the facts 

 thus assumed are exceptional or miraculous. 

 Every fact that ever did or will exist is in some 

 sense exceptional ; that is to say, it exemplifies 

 the working of certain invariable laws under con- 

 ditions not elsewhere precisely realized. Given 



