VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 201 



their mathematical sense, but with concrete 

 things, many of which are known to possess the 

 power of growing, or increasing in magnitude. 

 They thus furnish us with a conception of growth 

 which we may, in imagination, apply to loaves 

 and fishes ; just as we may, in imagination, apply 

 the idea of wings to the idea of a man. It must be 

 admitted that a number of sheep might be fed on 

 a pasture, and yet there might be more grass on 

 the pasture, when the sheep left it, than there was 

 at first. We may generalise this and other 

 such facts into a perfectly definite conception of the 

 increase of food in excess of consumption ; which 

 thus becomes a possibility, the limitations of 

 which are to be discovered only by experience. 

 Therefore, if it is asserted that cooked food has 

 been made to grow in excess of rapid consumption, 

 that statement cannot logically be rejected as an 

 a priori impossibility, however improbable experi- 

 ence of the capabilities of cooked food may justify 

 us in holding it to be. 



On the strength of this undeniable improba- 

 bility, however, we not only have a right to 

 demand, but are morally bound to require, strong 

 evidence in its favour before we even take it into 

 serious consideration. But what is the evidence 

 in this case ? It is merely that of those three 

 books, 1 which also concur in testifying to the truth 



1 The story in John vi. 5-14 is obviously derived from the 

 " five thousand" narrative of the Synoptics. 



