14 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



images of historic facts ; and when a miracle rises to view, 

 they halt before the astounding occurrence, and, realizing 

 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 ques- 

 tion 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 re- 

 sult 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. Eegarding mir- 

 acles 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 "per- 

 sonal will"; and they commend 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 mir- 

 acles alone that the order of nature is, or may be, dis- 

 turbed. The material universe is also the arena of "spe- 

 cial providences.* 1 Tinder these two heads Mr. Mozley 

 distributes the total preternatural. One form of the pre- 

 ternatural may shade into the other, as one color passes 

 into another in the rainbow; but, while the line which 

 divides the specially providential from the miraculous can- 

 not be sharply drawn, their distinction broadly expressed 

 is this: that, while a special providence can only excite 

 surmise more or less probable, it is "the nature of a mir- 



