MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 367 



ment was to be relied on; but in all cases between man 

 and nature, they were blind leaders of the blind.* 



Mr. Moziey concedes that it would be no great result if 

 miracles were only accepted by the ignorant and super- 

 stitious, " because it is easy to satisfy those who do not 

 inquire." But he does consider it "a great result" that 

 they have been accepted by the educated. In what sense 

 educated? Like those statesmen, jurists, and church 

 dignitaries whose education was unable to save them from 

 the frightful errors glanced at above? Not even in this 

 sense; for the great mass of Mr. Mozley's educated people 

 had no legal training, and must have been absolutely 

 defenseless against delusions which could set even that 

 training at naught. Like nine-tenths of our clergy at the 

 present day, they were versed in the literature of Greece, 

 Borne, and Judea; but as regards a knowledge of nature, 

 which is here the one thing needful, they were " noble 

 savages," and nothing more. In the case of miracles, then, 

 it behoves us to understand the weight of the negative, 

 before we assign a value to the positive; to comprehend 

 the depositions of nature, before we attempt to measure, 

 with them, the evidence of men. We have only to open 

 our eyes to see what honest and even intellectual men and 

 women are capable of, as to judging evidence, in this nine- 

 teenth century of the Christian era, and in latitude fifty- 

 two degrees north. The experience thus gained ought, I 

 imagine, to influence our opinion regarding the testimony 

 of people inhabiting a sunnier clime, with a richer imagi- 

 nation, and without a particle of that restraint which the 

 discoveries of physical science have imposed upon man- 

 kind. 



Having thus submitted Mr. Mozley's views to the exam- 

 ination which they challenged at the hands of a student of 

 nature, I am unwilling to quit his book without expressing 



* " In 1664 two -women were hung in Suffolk, under a sentence of 

 Sir Matthew Hale, who took the opportunity of declaring that the 

 reality of witchcraft was unquestionable; ' for first, the Scrip- 

 tures had affirmed so much; and secondly, the wisdom of all nations 

 had provided laws against such persons, which is an argument of 

 their confidence of such a crime.' Sir Thomas Browne, who was a 

 great physician as well as a great writer, was called as a witness, 

 and swore ' that he was clearly of opinion that the persons were, 

 bewitched.' " Lecky's Hintory of Rationalism, vol. L, p. 120. 



