18 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



providence is a doubtful miracle. Why, then, not call it 

 go ? The term employed by Mr. Mozley conveys no nega- 

 tive suggestion, whereas the negation of certainty is the 

 peculiar characteristic of the thing intended to be ex- 

 pressed. There is an apparent unwillingness on the part 

 of the lecturer 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 wholly, 

 or in part, out of sight, whereas the essence of a special 

 providence is the uncertainty whether there is any con- 

 tact at all, either high or low. By the use of an incor- 

 rect term, however, a grave danger is avoided. For the 

 idea of doubt, if kept systematically before the mind, 

 would soon be fatal to the special providence, considered 

 as a means of edification. The term employed, on the 

 contrary, invites and encourages the trust which is neces- 

 sary 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 in 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 es- 

 tablish 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 emi- 

 nently the court of appeal in matters of real religion, 

 which is an affair of the heart; but they are not, I sub- 

 mit, the court in which to weigh allegations regarding the 

 credibility of physical facts. These must be judged by 



