356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



where, a finite being, or beings, who can play willi tbe solar system as 

 a child plays with a toy ; and that such being may be willing to do 

 anything which he is properly supplicated to do, For we are not jus- 

 tified in saying that it is impossible for beings having the nature of 

 men, only vastly more powerful, to exist ; and if they do exist, they 

 may act as and when we ask them to do so, just as our brother men 

 act. As a matter of fact, the great mass of the human race has be- 

 lieved, and still believes, in such beings, under the various names of 

 fairies, gnomes, angels, and demons. Certainly I do not lack faith in 

 the constancy of natural order. But I am not less convinced that if 

 I were to ask the Bishop of Manchester to do me a kindness which 

 lay within his power, he would do it. And I am unable to see that 

 his action on my request involves any violation of the order of Nature. 

 On the contrary, as I have not the honor to know the bishop person- 

 ally, my action would be based upon my faith in that " law of Na- 

 ture," or generalization from experience, which tells me that, as a rule, 

 men who occupy the bishop's position are kindly and courteous. How 

 is the case altered if my request is preferred to some imaginary supe- 

 rior being, or to the Most High Being, who, by the supposition, is able 

 to arrest disease, or make the sun stand still in the heavens, just as 

 easily as I can stop my watch, or make it indicate any hour that 

 pleases me ? 



I repeat that it is not uj^on any a x^'riori considerations that objec- 

 tions, either to the supposed efficacy of prayer in modifying the course 

 of events, or to the supposed occurrence of miracles, can be scientific- 

 ally based. The real objection, and, to my mind, the fatal objection, 

 to both these suppositions, is the inadequacy of the evidence to prove 

 any given case of such occurrences which has been adduced. It is a 

 canon of common sense, to say nothing of science, that the more im- 

 probable a supposed occurrence, the more cogent ought to be the evi- 

 dence in its favor. I have looked somewhat carefully into the subject, 

 and I am unable to find in the records of any miraculous event evidence 

 which even approximates to the fulfilment of this requirement. 



But, in the case of prayer, the bishop points out a most just and 

 necessary distinction between its effect on the course of Nature outside 

 ourselves and its effect within the region of the supplicator's mind. 



It is a " law of Nature," verifiable by everyday experience, that 

 our already-formed convictions, our strong desires, our intent occupa- 

 tion with particular ideas, modify our mental operations to a most 

 marvelous extent, and produce enduring changes in the direction and 

 in the intensity of our intellectual and moral activities. 



Men can intoxicate themselves with ideas as effectually as with 

 alcohol or with bang, and produce, by dint of intense thinking, men- 

 tal conditions hardly distinguishable from monomania. Demoniac 

 possession is mythical ; but the faculty of being possessed, more or 

 less completely, by an idea is probably the fundamental condition of 



