10 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



merly miracles were accepted without question, because 

 without reflection; but the exercise of 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, 

 realising 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 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. Ee- 

 garding miracles 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 suggest and illustrate a power 

 higher than nature, a ' personal will; ' and they com- 

 mend the person in whom this power is vested as a 

 messenger from on high. Without these credentials 

 such a messenger would have no right to demand belief, 

 even were his assertions regarding his Divine mission 

 backed by a holy life. Nor is it by miracles alone that 

 the order of nature is, or may be, disturbed. The 

 material universe is also the arena of ' special provi- 

 dences/ Under these two heads Mr. Mozley distributes 

 the total preternatural. One form of the preternatural 

 may shade into the other, as one colour passes into 

 another in the rainbow; but, while the line which 

 divides the specially providential from the miraculous 



