46 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



Other duties, however, interfered with the carrying out of 

 this intention, and what I wrote last summer I now pub- 

 lish, not hoping within any reasonable time to be able to 

 render my defence of scientific method more complete. 



Mr. Mozley refers at the outset of his task to the move- 

 ment against miracles which of late years has taken place, 

 and which determined his choice of a subject. He acquits 

 modern science of having had any great share in the pro- 

 duction of this movement. The objection against miracles, 

 he says, does not arise from any minute knowledge of the 

 laws of Nature, but simply because they are opposed to 

 that plain and obvious order of Nature which everybody 

 sees. The present movement is, he thinks, to be ascribed to 

 the greater earnestness and penetration of the present age. 

 Formerly miracles were accepted without question, because 

 without reflection ; but the exercise of what Mr. Mozley 

 calls the historic imagination is a characteristic of our own 

 time. Men are now accustomed to place before themselves 

 vivid images of historic facts, and when a miracle rises to 

 view, they halt before the astounding occurrence, and real- 

 izing it with the same clearness as if it were now passing 

 before their eyes, they ask themselves, " Can this have 

 taken place ? " In some instances the effort to answer this 

 question has led to a disbelief in miracles, in others to a 

 strengthening of belief. The end and aim of Mr. Mozley's 

 lectures is to show that the strengthening of belief is the 

 logical result which ought to follow from the examination 

 of the facts. 



Attempts have been made by religious men to bring 

 the Scripture miracles within the scope of the order of 

 Nature, but all such attempts are rejected by Mr. Mozley 

 as utterly futile and wide of the mark. Regarding mira- 

 cles as a necessary accompaniment of a revelation, their 

 evidential value in his eyes depends entirely upon their 

 deviation from the order of Nature. Thus deviating, they 



