22 EVOLUTION AND NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



themselves of laws which are, under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances, more or less beyond human control. 

 The antecedent probability of an alleged 

 miracle must depend partly on its scientific 

 credibility, and partly on the evidence in its 

 favour. In the Apocryphal Gospels,* Jesus is 

 represented as making birds of clay, and then 

 giving them life. Such a miracle (though 

 analogous to the account of the creation of 

 Adam, in Genesis, if taken literally) is obviously 

 incapable of any rational explanation ; but the 

 New Testament miracles are usually of quite a 

 different class.f Some few, such as that of the 

 loaves and fishes are very difficult to explain ; 

 but even in this case, the incredible part of the 

 miracle is confined to the modus operandi. 

 Several miracles, identical in kind with that of 



t On the -whole, the divines to whose lot it fell to fix the canon of the 

 New Testament, appear to have made a very judicious selection. Any- 

 one who looks into the Apocryphal Gospels, cannot fail to be struck 

 with their great inferiority, both in style, contents, and appearance of 

 historical probability to the Four Evangelists. It is something like 

 comparing the Sermon on the Mount with the Athanasian Creed. 



f All the instances of raising the dead in the Old and New Testaments 

 (except the Eesurrection of Christ which seems to have been a case of 

 long-sustained materialisation) appear, taking the accounts as they stand, 

 to have been cases of suspended animation, or at most, of long continued 

 trance. It is strange that Paul's recovery after stoning (Acts xiv. 19, 

 20) has not also been magnified into a miracle. 



