IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 335 



happened; and, as such, must needs be exactly 

 those subjects about which evidence is appropriate 

 and legal proofs (which are such merely because 

 they afford adequate evidence) may be justly 

 demanded. The Gadarene miracle either hap- 

 pened, or it did not. Whether the Gadarene 

 " question " is moral or religious, or not, has 

 nothing to do with the fact that it is a purely 

 historical question whether the demons said what 

 they are declared to have said, and the devil- 

 possessed pigs did, or did not, rush over the heights 

 bounding the Lake of Gennesaret on a certain day 

 of a certain year, after A.D. 26 and before A.D. 36 : 

 for vague and uncertain as New Testament 

 chronology is, I suppose it may be assumed that 

 the event in question, if it happened at all, took 

 place during the procuratorship of Pilate. If that 

 is not a matter about which evidence ought to be 

 required, and not only legal, but strict scientific 

 proof demanded by sane men who are asked to 

 believe the story what is ? Is a reasonable 

 being to be seriously asked to credit statements, 

 which, to put the case gently, are not exactly 

 probable, and on the acceptance or rejection of 

 which his whole view of life may depend, without 

 asking for as much " legal " proof as would send 

 an alleged pickpocket to gaol, or as would suffice 

 to prove the validity of a disputed will ? 



" Infidel authors " (if, as I am assured, I may 

 answer for them) will decline to waste time on 

 137 



