1875.] Human Levitation. 35 
nothing.” As his definition does not quite satisfy us, we would 
define a miracle to be “‘a predicted occurrence, so impro- 
bable when predicted, that when accomplished it convinces 
men of a superhuman* presence.” The time between pre- 
diction and verification may be half a minute, or fifty cen- 
turies ; it may be “ Peace, be still,” or ‘* They shall afflict 
them 400 years,”+ or ‘‘ Be thou clean,” or ‘‘Go and wash 
”? 
in Jordan seven times;” but prediction there must be. 
Voltaire alone, that we are aware, points this out, that 
prediction is the prime essential. Without it there is no 
proper miracle, for all value lies in the event’s relation to 
some antecedent utterance—not quite always in its veri- 
fication, but, occasionally, when it is a king’s, in its falsifi- 
cation: as when Nebuchadnezzar’s prediction that he would 
burn the three Jews was falsified; or that of the Arian 
powers that they would instal Arius; or that of Julian that 
he would restore the Jews their temple. 
Now to take a notorious case or two: If Peter made the 
prediction ascribed to him in Acts, v., 9, and Sapphira fell as 
* «* Superhuman,” or superkingly, does not of course imply “divine;’’ but 
Locke showed that when a miracle is set forth as divine, nothing can be 
simpler than the test of this claim. It will be divine if carrying ‘‘ the marks 
of a greater power than appears in opposition to it.’’ Professor Tyndall says 
he is asked to infer, from Aaron’s rod or snake being larger than those of 
Jannes and Jambres, that these men were “not good.” On the contrary, it is 
nowhere implied that they were less good than Moses. As far as appears, 
they faultlessly performed their duty, a most important one, similar to that 
on which the late emperor sent Houdin to Algeria, and for which we have 
here daily more pressing need. Houdin, by outdoing the Arab jugglers, 
arrested their mischievous authority. Pharaoh’s magicians, tried their thaums. 
(not juggling, apparently, but spirit sorceries), and made to their master an 
honest report, that, if credited, would have saved him and his army.. 
From the snake experiments, as well as later, they logically inferred, 
‘« This is the finger of a god,” or, rather, of the Supreme. If Aaron’s serpent 
swallows ours, and we cannot produce one to swallow Aaron’s, it is safe to 
infer that he is right. There can be no power greater than Aaron’s God; be- 
cause the Supreme (if there be any) would not allow an advantage over him- 
self to be claimed and shown. This would be abdicating, and he would no. 
longer be supreme. That. ‘‘as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses,” so did 
certain bad men resist truth, nowise implies the former were bad. What they 
did, we maintain, ought always to be done in like cases. 
t+ Longer periods might be instanced by travelling out of the legends in 
every child’s hands. E.g., Sir Isaac Newton deduced from Rev..xii., 6, that the 
corporate holders, in his day, of the ruins of ancient Rome, would hold pos- 
session thereof altogether 1260 years. He did not undertake to ascertain or 
state exactly when this possession had begun; but it is easily found, in 
Baronius, &c., that their first holding any of those buildings (namely, the 
only one in Europe that, “ prepared” in antiquity, continues unruined and in 
use) dated from bequest of Phocas, who was deposed and killed ir Sept.-O@., 
610. Moreover, whenever this class of facts come to be examined, it will be 
found that every date-prediction in the Old Testament has been verified, and, 
if observed, would have ended religiaus strife; and that the very longest, 
extending to 2300 years, had its consummation in this, our generation, not 
merely to the year, but the month and day. 
