MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 353 



amazing that hardly any evidence is sufficient to establish 

 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 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 phys- 

 ical 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 historic conviction, is 

 the aim. It is, moreover, because the result, in the case 

 under consideration, is deemed desirable that the affections 

 are called upon to back it. If undesirable, they would, with 

 equal right, be called upon to act the other way. Even to 

 the disciplined scientific mind this would be a dangerous 

 doctrine. A favorite theory the desire to establish or 

 avoid a certain result can so warp the mind as to destroy 

 its powers of estimating facts. I have known men to work 

 for years under a fascination of this kind, unable to ex- 

 tricate themselves from its fatal influence. They had 

 certain data, but not, as it happened, enough. By a proc- 

 ess exactly analogous to that invoked by Mr. Mozley, they 

 supplemented the data, and went wrong. From that hour 

 their intellects were so blinded to the perception of adverse 

 phenomena that they never reached truth. If, then, to 

 the disciplined scientific mind, this incongruous mixture 

 of proof and trust be fraught with danger, what must it be 

 to the indiscriminate audience which Mr. Mozley addresses? 

 In calling upon this agency he acts the part of Franken- 

 stein. It is a monster thus evoked that we see stalking 

 abroad, in the degrading spiritualistic phenomena of the 

 present day. Again, I say, where the aim is to elevate the 

 mind, to quicken the moral sense, to kindle the fire of 

 religion in the soul, let the affections by all means be 

 invoked; but they must not be permitted to color our 

 reports, or to influence our acceptance of reports of occur- 

 rences in external nature. Testimony as to natural facts 

 is worthless when wrapped in this atmosphere of the 

 affections; the most earnest subjective truth being thus 

 rendered perfectly compatible with the most astounding 

 objective error. 



There are questions in judging of which the affections 

 or sympathies are often our best guides, the estimation of 



