14 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



whereas the negation of certainty is the peculiar charac- 

 teristic of the thing intended to be expressed. There 

 is an apparent unwillingness on the part of the 

 lecturer to call a special providence what his own 

 definition makes it to be. Instead of speaking of it as 

 a doubtful miracle, he calls it ' an invisible miracle.' 

 He speaks of the point of contact of supernatural 

 power with the chain of causation being so high up as 

 to be wholly, or in part, out of sight, whereas the 

 essence of a special providence is the uncertainty 

 whether there is any contact at all, either high or low. 

 By the use of an incorrect term, however, a grave dan- 

 ger is avoided. For the idea of doubt, if kept systema- 

 tically before the mind, would soon be fatal to the 

 special providence, considered as a means of edifica- 

 tion. The term employed, on the contrary, invites and 

 encourages the trust which is necessary to supplement 

 the evidence. 



This inner trust, though at first rejected by Mr. 

 Mozley in favour of external proof, is subsequently called 

 upon to do momentous duty in regard to miracles. 

 Whenever the evidence of the miraculous seems incom- 

 mensurate with the fact which it has to establish, or 

 rather when the fact is so amazing that hardly any 

 evidence is sufficient to establish it, Mr. Mozley in- 

 vokes ' the affections.' They must urge the reason to 

 accept the conclusion, from which unaided it recoils. 

 The affections and emotions are eminently the court of 

 appeal in matters of real religion, which is an affair of 

 the heart ; but they are not, I submit, the court in 

 which to weigh allegations regarding the credibility of 

 physical facts. These must be judged by the dry light 

 of the intellect alone, appeals to the affections being 

 reserved for cases where moral elevation, and not his- 

 toric conviction, is the aim. It is, moreover, because 



