20 



FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



pronounce unlawful.' Then a period may come whei 

 man will be able to raise the dead. If this be conced< 

 and I do not see how Mr. Mozley can avoid the con- 

 cession it destroys the necessity of inferring Christ's 

 Divinity from His miracles. He, it may be contended, 

 antedated the humanity of the future ; as a mighty tid* 

 wave leaves high upon the beach a mark which by-and- 

 by becomes the general level of the ocean. Turn th< 

 matter as you will, no other warrant will be found for tl 

 all-important conclusion that Christ's miracles demon- 

 strate Divine power, than an argument which has be( 

 stigmatised by Mr. Mozley as a 'rope of sand' 1 

 argument from experience. 



The learned Bampton Lecturer would be in this 

 position, even had he seen with his own eyes ev( 

 miracle recorded in the New Testament. But he In 

 not seen these miracles ; and his intellectual plight is 

 therefore worse. He accepts these miracles on testimony. 

 Why does he believe that testimony ? How does 

 know that it is not delusion ; how is he sure that it is 

 not even fraud ? He will answer, that the writing 

 the marks of sobriety and truth ; and that in many 

 the bearers of this message to mankind sealed it wil 

 their blood. Granted with all my heart ; but when< 

 the value of all this ? Is it not solely derived from thf 

 fact that men, as we Jcnoiu them, do not sacrifice thei] 

 lives in the attestation of that which they know to 

 untrue ? Does not the entire value of the testimony oi 

 the Apostles depend ultimately upon our experience oi 

 human nature ? It appears, then, that those said to hav( 

 seen the miracles, based their inferences from what the] 

 saw on the argument from experience ; and that 

 Mozley bases his belief in their testimony on the 

 argument. The weakness of his conclusion is qi 

 rupled by this double insertion of a principle of belie 



