FALLACIES OF TESTIMONY. 585 



under the rigorous test of a searching examination, I ask whether we 

 are not equally justified in the assumption that a similar scrutiny, if 

 we had the power to apply it, would in like manner dispose of many 

 of the narratives of old time, either as distortions of real occurrences 

 or as altogether legendary. 



In regard to the New Testament miracles generally, while failing 

 to see in what i-espect the external testimony in their behalf is stronger 

 than it is for the reality of the miracles attributed to St. Columba, I 

 limit myself for the present to the following questions : 



1. Whether the " miracles of healing " may not have had a founda- 

 tion of reality in "natural" agencies perfectly well known to such as 

 have scientifically studied the action of the mind upon the body. In 

 regard to one form of these supposed miracles the casting out of 

 Jevils I suppose that I need not in these days adduce any argument 

 to disprove the old notion of " demoniacal possession," in the face of 

 the fact that the belief in such " possession " in the case of lunatics, 

 epileptics, etc., and the belief in the powers of " exorcists " to get rid of 

 it, are still as prevalent among Eastern nations as they were in the time 

 of Christ. And I suppose, too, that, since travelers have found that 

 the pool of Bethesda is fed by an intermittent spring, few now seri- 

 ously believe in the occasional appearance of an " angel " who moved 

 its water ; or in the cure of the first among the expectant sick who 

 got himself placed in it, by any other agency than his "faith" in the 

 efficacy of the means. I simply claim the right to a more extended 

 application of the same critical method. 



2. Whether we have not a similar right to bring to bear on the 

 study of the Gospel narratives the same 'principles of criticism as 

 guided the early fathers in their construction of the canon, with all 

 the enlightenment which we derive from the subsequent history of 

 Christianity, aided by that of other forms of religious belief. The 

 early Christian fathers were troubled with no doubts as to the reality 

 of miracles in themselves ; and they testified to the healing of the 

 sick, the casting out of devils, and even the raising of the dead, as 

 well-known facts of their own time. But they rejected some current 

 narratives of the miraculous which they did not regard as adequately 

 authenticated, and others as considering them puerile. Looking at it 

 not only as our right, but as our duty, to bring the higher critical 

 enlightenment of the present day to bear upon the study of the Gospel 

 records, I ask whether both past and contemporary history do not 

 afford such a body of evidence of a prevalent tendency to exaggera- 

 tion and distortion, in the representation of actual occun-ences in 

 which "supernatural" agencies are supposed to have been concerned, 

 as entitles us, without attempting any detailed analysis, to believe 

 that, if we could know what really did happen^ it would often prove to 

 be something very different from what is narrated. 



By such a general admission, we may remove the serious difficul- 



