104 



LECTURES AND ESSA YS 



whom there is only death and nothing- 

 ness. And," continues Fichte, " he 

 appeals, and rightly appeals, in support 

 of this truth, not to reasoning, but to 

 the inward practical sense of truth in 

 man, not even knowing any other proof 

 than this inward testimony : ' If any 

 man will do the will of Him who sent 

 Me, he shall know of the doctrine 

 whether it be of God.' " 



Accepting Mr. Mozley's test, with 

 which alone I am now dealing, it is 

 evident that, in the demonstration of 

 moral goodness, the quantity of the 

 miraculous comes into play. Had Christ, 

 for example, limited himself to the con- 

 version of water into wine, He would 

 have fallen short of the performance of 

 Jannes and Jambres ; for it is a smaller 

 thing to convert one liquid into another 

 than to convert a dead rod into a living 

 serpent. But Jannes and Jambres, we 

 are informed, were not good. Hence, 

 if Mr. Mozley's test be a true one, a 

 point must exist on the one side of 

 which miraculous power demonstrates 

 goodness, while on the other side it does 

 not. How is this "point of contrary 

 flexure " to be determined ? It must 

 lie somewhere between the magicians 

 and Moses, for within this space the 

 power passed from the diabolical to the 

 Divine. But how to mark the point of 

 passage how, out of a purely quantita- 

 tive difference in the visible manifestation 

 of power, we are to infer a total inversion 

 of quality it is extremely difficult to 

 see. Moses, we are informed, produced 

 a large reptile; Jannes and Jambres 

 produced a small one. I do not possess 

 the intellectual faculty which would 

 enable me to infer, from those data, either 

 the goodness of the one or the badness 

 of the other ; and in the highest recorded 

 manifestations of the miraculous I am 

 equally at a loss. Let us not play fast 

 and loose with the miraculous ; either it 

 is a demonstration of goodness in all 

 cases or in none. If Mr. Mozley accepts 

 Christ's goodness as transcendent be- 

 cause He did such works as no other 

 man did, he ought, logically speaking, to 



accept the works of those who, in His 

 name, had cast out devils, as demon- 

 strating a proportionate goodness on 

 their part. But it is people of this class 

 who are consigned to everlasting fire 

 prepared for the devil and his angels. 

 Such zeal as that of Mr. Mozley for 

 miracles tends, I fear, to eat his religion 

 up. The logical threatens to stifle the 

 spiritual. The truly religious soul needs 

 no miraculous proof of the goodness of 

 Christ. The words addressed to Matthew 

 at the receipt of custom required no 

 miracle to produce obedience. It was 

 by no stroke of the supernatural that 

 Jesus caused those sent to seize Him to 

 go backward and fall to the ground. It 

 was the sublime and holy effluence from 

 within, which needed no prodigy to 

 commend it to the reverence even of 

 his foes. 



As regards the function of miracles in 

 the founding of a religion, Mr. Mozley 

 institutes a comparison between the 

 religion of Christ and that of Mohammed; 

 and he derides the latter as "irrational" 

 because it does not profess to adduce 

 miracles in proof of its supernatural 

 origin. But the religion of Mohammed, 

 notwithstanding this drawback, has 

 thriven in the world, and at one time it 

 held sway over larger populations than 

 Christianity itself. The spread and 

 influence of Christianity are, however, 

 brought forward by Mr. Mozley as " a 

 permanent, enormous, and incalculable 

 practical result " of Christian miracles ; 

 and he makes use of this result to 

 strengthen his plea for the miraculous. 

 His logical warrant for this proceeding 

 is not clear. It is the method of science, 

 when a phenomenon presents itself to- 

 wards the production of which several 

 elements may contribute, to exclude 

 them one by one, so as to arrive at length 

 at the truly effective cause. Heat, for 

 example, is associated with a phenome- 

 non; we exclude heat, but the phenome- 

 non remains : hence, heat is not its cause. 

 Magnetism is associated with a pheno 

 menon ; we exclude magnetism, but the 

 phenomenon remains: hence, magnetism 



