208 POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi 



a prospective possibility, Professor Huxley loses sight at least, 

 so it appears to me of the question of their retrospective possi- 

 bility. For, if it requires a certain degree of knowledge and 

 experience, yet far from having been attained, to perform those 

 acts which have been called miraculous, it is not only improb- 

 able, but impossible likewise, that they should have been done 

 by men whose knowledge and experience were considerably 

 less than our own. It has seemed to me, in fact, that this 

 question of the retrospective possibility of miracles is more im- 

 portant to us Rationalists, and, for the matter of that, to 

 Christians also, than the question of their prospective possibility, 

 with which Professor Huxley's article mainly deals. Perhaps 

 the Professor himself could help those of us who think so, by 

 giving us his opinion. 



I AM not sure that I fully appreciate the point raised by 

 " Agnosco," nor the distinction between the prospective and the 

 retrospective "possibility" of such a miracle as the conversion 

 of water into wine. If we may contemplate such an event as 

 "possible" in London in the year 1900, it must, in the same 

 sense, have been "possible" in the year 30 (or thereabouts) at 

 Cana in Galilee. If I should live so long, I shall take great 

 interest in the announcement of the performance of this opera- 

 tion, say, nine years hence ; and, if there is no objection raised 

 by chemical experts, I shall accept the fact that the feat has 

 been performed, without hesitation. But I shall have no more 

 ground for believing the Cana story than I had before ; simply 

 because the evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly 

 where it is. Possible or impossible, that evidence is worth 

 nothing. To leave the safe ground of " no evidence" for specu- 

 lations about impossibilities, consequent upon the want of 

 scientific knowledge of the supposed workers of miracles, appears 

 to me to be a mistake ; especially in view of the orthodox con- 

 tention that they possessed supernatural power and supernatural 

 knowledge. T. H. HUXLEY. 



