REMARKS ON MIRACLES. 421 



stop the rotation of the earth, or to take the form of a 

 burning bush, there is nothing to prevent him from doing 

 so, I am not prepared to contradict you. I neither agree 

 with you nor differ from you, for it is a subject of which I 

 know nothing. But I observe that in such questions re 

 garding Almighty power, your inquiries relate, not to that 

 power as it is actually displayed in the universe, but to the 

 power of your own imagination. Your question is, not has 

 the Omnipotent done so and so ? or is it in the least likely 

 that the Omnipotent should do so and so ? but, is my imagi 

 nation competent to picture a being able and willing to do 

 so and so ? I am not prepared to deny your competence. 

 To the human mind belongs the faculty of enlarging and 

 diminishing, of distorting and combining indefinitely the 

 objects revealed by the senses, or by its own consciousness. 

 It can imagine a mouse as large as an elephant, an elephant 

 as large as a mountain, and a mountain as high as the stars. 

 It can separate congruities and unite incongruities. We 

 see a fish and we see a woman ; we can drop one half of 

 each, and unite in idea the other two halves to a mermaid. 

 We see a horse and we see a man ; we are able to drop one 

 half of each, and unite the other two halves to a centaur. 

 Thus also the pictorial representations of the Deity, the 

 bodies and wings of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs, horns, 

 and tail of the Evil One, the joys of the blessed, and the 

 torments of the damned, have been elaborated from mate 

 rials furnished to the imagination by the senses. And it 

 behooves you and me to take care that our notions of the 

 Power which rules the universe are not mere fanciful or ig 

 norant enlargements of human power. The capabilities of 

 what you call your reason are not denied. By the exercise 

 of the power here adverted to, and which may be called 

 the mytliologic imagination^ you can picture to yourself a 

 being able and willing to do any and every conceivable 

 thing. You are right in saying that in opposition to this 



