50 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



words, if a special providence could be proved to be a spe- 

 cial providence, it would cease to be a special providence 

 and become a miracle. There is not the least cloudiness 

 about Mr. Mozley's meaning here. A special providence is 

 a doubtful miracle. Why, then, not use the correct phra- 

 seology ? The term employed conveys no negative sug- 

 gestion, whereas the negation of certainty is the peculiar 

 characteristic of the thing intended to be expressed. There 

 is an apparent unwillingness on the part of Mr. Mozley to 

 call a special providence what his own definition makes it 

 to be. Instead of speaking of it as a doubtful miracle, he 

 calls it " an invisible miracle." He speaks of the point of 

 contact of supernatural power with the chain of causation 

 being so high up as to be wiiolly, or in part, out of sight, 

 whereas the essence of a special providence is the uncer- 

 tainty whether there is any contact at all, either high or 

 low. By the use of an incorrect term, however, a grave 

 danger is avoided. For the idea of doubt, if kept system- 

 atically before the mind, would soon be fatal to the special 

 providence as a means of edification. The term employed, 

 on the contrary, invites and encourages the trust which is 

 necessary to supplement the evidence. 



This inner trust, though at first rejected by Mr. Mozley 

 in favor of external proof, is subsequently called upon to 

 do momentous duty with regard to miracles. Whenever 

 the evidence of the miraculous seems incommensurate with 

 the fact which it has to establish, or rather when the fact 

 is so amazing that hardly any evidence is sufficient to estab- 

 lish it, Mr. Mozley invokes "the affections." They must 

 urge the reason to accept the conclusion from which unaided 

 it recoils. The affections and emotions are eminently the 

 court of appeal in matters of real religion, which is an affair 

 of the heart, but they are not, I submit, the court in which 

 to weigh allegations regarding the credibility of physical 

 facts. These must be judged by the dry light of the intel- 



