THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENCE TOWARDS MIRACLES. 95 
edition, p. 278) remarks that the alogist bars his own progress 
into truth, being self-committed to a foregone conclusion which 
he ought first to have established. 
Nothing is impossible with science that does not contradict 
some truth.* Huxley says “denying the possibility of miracles 
seems to me quite as unjustifiable as speculative atheism.” 
Stupid incredulity may disfigure some scientists who refuse to 
recognize truth outside their own little specialized fields of 
study, but this narrowness is in no sense an attribute of science. 
It is not the fault of the world if the villager has never 
travelled. We conclude, from fair and careful examination, 
that science affirms the possibility of miracles. 
(6) Are miracles probable? What does science tell us on 
this point? Certainly a phenomenon may be very rare or 
unusual, eg., an eclipse or a comet, and yet its occurrence may 
be probable. A miracle, however, is more than an unusual 
occurrence—it is produced by the action of the supernatural ; 
and it is contended that science does not reach to such action. 
It may be replied that, in the case contemplated, the action is 
expressed by some phenomenon in nature, and that science is 
competent to take note of and report upon the phenomenon. 
That miracles are improbable has been strongly urged by 
Hume, whom we have already seen denying their possibility. 
Hume argues that it is more probable that the evidence for the - 
occurrence of a miracle is false than that there has been any 
deviation from the course of nature, and that testimony to 
the miraculous should not be accepted unless it were more 
miraculous that the testimony be false than that the miraculous 
event be true. And he says that “even in that case there is a 
mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives 
us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains 
after deducting the inferior.” In another place, however, he 
gives a hypothetical case in which he allows that an event of 
very great improbability ought, if supported by very strong 
testimony, to be believed. Mill points out} that “many events 
are altogether improbable to us, before they have happened, or 
before we are informed of their happening, which are not in the 
least incredible when we are informed of them, because not 
contrary to any, even approximate, induction. In the cast of a 
perfectly fair die, the chances are five to one against throwing 
* Science does not reject anything simply because it is new. She 
investigates. 
t+ Logie, vol. ii, pp. 170-1. 
