14 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



ployed by Mr. Mozley conveys no negative suggestion, 

 whereas the negation of certainty is the peculiar char- 

 acteristic of the thing intended to be expressed. There 

 is an apparent unwillingness on the part of the lec- 

 turer to call a special providence what his own defini- 

 tion 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 wholly, or in part, out of sight, whereas the 

 essence of a special providence is the uncertainty 

 whether there is any contact at all, either high or low. 

 By the use of an incorrect term, however, a grave dan- 

 ger is avoided. For the idea of doubt, if kept systema- 

 tically before the mind, would soon be fatal to the 

 special providence, considered as a means of edifica- 

 tion. 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 favour of external proof, is subsequently 

 called upon to do momentous duty in regard to mira- 

 cles. Whenever the evidence of the miraculous seems 

 incommensurate with the fact which it has to estab- 

 lish, or rather when the fact is so amazing that hardly 

 any evidence is sufficient to establish it, Mr. Mozley in- 

 vokes ' 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 intellect alone, appeals to the affections being 

 reserved for cases where moral elevation, and not his- 



