434 Credibility of Extraordinary Stories. [CHAP. xvil. 



treating the question as though the Christian Revelation 

 could be adequately regarded as a succession of such events. 

 As well might one consider the living body to be represented 

 by the aggregate of the limbs which compose it. What is to 

 be complained of in so many popular discussions on the sub 

 ject is the entire absence of any recognition of the different 

 ground on which the attackers and defenders of miracles are 

 so often really standing. Proofs and illustrations are pro 

 duced in endless number, which involving, as they almost all 

 do in the mind of the disputants on one side at least, that 

 very principle of causation, the absence of which in the case 

 in question they are intended to establish, they fail in the 

 single essential point. To attempt to induce any one to dis 

 believe in the existence of physical causation, in a given 

 instance, by means of illustrations which to him seem only 

 additional examples of the principle in question, is like try 

 ing to make a dam, in order to stop the flow of a river, by 

 shovelling in snow. Such illustrations are plentiful in times 

 of controversy, but being in reality only modified forms of 

 that which they are applied to counteract, they change their 

 shape at their first contact with the disbeliever s mind, and 

 only help to swell the flood which they were intended to 

 check. 



