38 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



Mr. Mozley concedes that it would be no great result 

 if miracles were only accepted by the ignorant and super- 

 stitious, " because it is easy to satisfy those who do not 

 inquire." But he does consider it "a great result" that 

 they have been accepted by the educated. In what sense 

 educated? Like those statesmen, jurists and church dig- 

 nitaries whose education was unable to save them from 

 the frightful errors glanced at above? Not even in this 

 sense; for the great mass of Mr. Mozley 's educated people 

 had no legal training, and must have been absolutely de- 

 fenceless against delusions which could set even that train- 

 ing at naught. Like nine-tenths of our clergy at the pres- 

 ent day, they were versed in the literature of Greece, 

 Eome and Judea; but as regards a knowledge of nature, 

 which is here the one thing needful, they were "noble 

 savages," and nothing more. In the case of miracles, 

 then, it behooves us to understand the weight of the nega- 

 tive, before we assign a value to the positive ; to compre- 

 hend the depositions of nature, before we attempt to meas- 

 ure, with them, the evidence of men. We have only to 

 open our eyes to see what honest and even intellectual 

 men and women are capable of, as to judging evidence, 

 in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, and in lati- 

 tude fifty-two degrees north. The experience thus gained 

 ought, I imagine, to influence our opinion regarding the 

 testimony of people inhabiting a sunnier clime, with a 

 richer imagination, and without a particle of that restraint 

 which the discoveries of physical science have imposed 

 upon mankind. 



Having thus submitted Mr. Mozley's views to the ex- 

 amination which they challenged at the hands of a student 



