334 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix 



reader, that, in the mind of the writer, it is : None. 

 In fact, this conclusion is one which cannot be 

 resisted, if the argument in favour of the Scripture 

 miracles is based upon that which laymen, 

 whether lawyers, or men of science, or historians, 

 or ordinary men of affairs, call evidence. But 

 there is something really impressive in the 

 magnificent contempt with which, at times, Dr. 

 Newman sweeps aside alike those who offer and 

 those who demand such evidence. 



Some infidel authors advise us to accept no miracles which 

 would not have a verdict in their favour in a court of justice ; 

 that is, they employ against Scripture a weapon which Pro- 

 testants would confine to attacks upon the Church ; as if moral 

 and religious questions required legal proof, and evidence were 

 the test of truth J (p. cvii). 



" As if evidence were the test of truth " ! although 

 the truth in question is the occurrence, or the 

 non-occurrence, of certain phenomena at a certain 

 time and in a certain place. This sudden revelation 

 of the great gulf fixed between the ecclesiastical 

 and the scientific mind is enough to take away 

 the breath of any one unfamiliar with the clerical 

 organon. As if, one may retort, the assumption 

 that miracles may, or have, served a moral or a 

 religious end, in any way alters the fact that they 

 profess to be historical events, things that actually 



1 Yet, when it suits his purpose, as in the Introduction to the 

 Essay on Development, Dr. Newman can demand strict evidence 

 in religious questions as sharply as any "iniidel author"; and 

 he can even profess to yield to its force (JSssay on Mir odes, 1870 ; 

 note, p. 391). 



