SECT. 24.] Credibility of Extraordinary Stories. 431 



different from each other in their character, origin, and 

 direction, as can well be conceived. As this enquiry is only 

 a digression, we may confine ourselves to stating briefly what 

 seem to be the characteristics of each, without attempting to 

 give the arguments which might be used in their support. 



(I.) On the one hand, we may assume that this principle 

 of causation is the ultimate one. By so terming it, we do 

 not mean that it is one from which we consciously start in 

 our investigations, as we do from the axioms of geometry, 

 but rather that it is the final result towards which we find 

 ourselves drawn by a study of nature. Finding that, 

 throughout the scope of our enquiries, event follows event in 

 never-failing uniformity, and finding moreover (some might 

 add) that this experience is supported or even demanded by 

 a tendency or law of our nature (it does not matter here how 

 we describe it), we may come to regard this as the one 

 fundamental principle on which all our enquiries should rest. 



(II.) Or, on the other hand, we may admit a class of 

 principles of a very different kind. Allowing that there is 

 this uniformity so far as our experience extends, we may yet 

 admit what can hardly be otherwise described than by 

 calling it a Superintending Providence, that is, a Scheme or 

 Order, in reference to which Design may be predicated 

 without using merely metaphorical language. To adopt an 

 aptly chosen distinction, it is not to be understood as over 

 ruling events, but rather as underlying them. 



24. Now it is quite clear that according as we come to 

 the discussion of any particular miracle or extraordinary 

 story under one or other of these prepossessions, the ques 

 tion of its credibility will assume a very different aspect. It 

 is sometimes overlooked that although a difference about 

 facts is one of the conditions of a bond fide argument, a dif 

 ference which reaches to ultimate principles is fatal to all 



