260 NATURE AND MAN. 



bear on the study of the Gospel narratives, the same principles of 

 criticism as guided the early Fathers in their construction of the 

 Canon, with all the enlightenment which we derive from the 

 subsequent history of Christianity, aided by that of other forms of 

 religious belief. The early Christian Fathers were troubled with 

 no doubts as to the reality of miracles in themselves ; and they 

 testified to the healing of the sick, the casting out of devils, and 

 even the raising of the dead, as well-known facts of their own 

 time. But they rejected some current narratives of the miraculous 

 which they did not regard as adequately authenticated, and others 

 as considering them puerile. Looking at it not only as our right, 

 but as our duty, to bring the higher critical enlightenment of the 

 present day to bear upon the study of the Gospel records, I ask 

 whether both past and contemporary history do not afford such a 

 body of evidence of a prevalent tendency to exaggeration and 

 distortion, in the representation of actual occurrences in which 

 &quot; supernatural &quot; agencies are supposed to have been concerned, as 

 entitles us, without attempting any detailed analysis, to believe 

 that if we could know what really did happen, it would often prove 

 to be something very different from what is narrated. 



By such a general admission, we may remove the serious diffi 

 culties to which I alluded at the outset difficulties which must, I 

 think, have been present to the mind of Locke, when he recorded, 

 in the Common-place Book published by Lord King, the remark 

 able aphorism that &quot; the dot-trine proves the miracles, rather than 

 &quot; the miracles the doctrine.&quot; 



