THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENCE TOWARDS MIRACLES. 105 
Resurrection meets and satisfies man’s aspirations after God and. 
a future life, and responds to the religious intuition. 
An objector has propounded the curious argument that “One 
or other alternative must be adupted:—If Jesus possessed His 
own body after His resurrection, and could eat and be handled, 
He could not vanish; if He vanished, He could not have been 
thus corporeal” (Supernatural Religion, i, 462). The 
argument is an interesting instance of the logical fallacy petitio 
principit. As Westcott points out, “the very point of the 
revelation lies in the reconciliation of these two aspects,” and 
it should be borne in mind that a permanent memorial of the 
event was established from the very first—a memorial so 
striking as to involve the commemoration of the Death upon 
the day of the commemoration of the Resurrection. 
Not less miraculous than His Resurrection is the Redeemer’s 
Character—a Character unique, and impossible to human inven- 
tion, the impress of God upon humanity. If the existence of 
the Christian Church finds its explanation in the Lord’s 
Resurrection,* so in His character lies the explanation of the 
Christian character produced by the Spirit of Christ in every 
disciple. The Resurrection and the Character both pre-suppose 
the Incarnation—“ God manifest in the flesh,’ and these miracles 
explain what is otherwise inexplicable. Therefore, science 
affirms their occurrence. The perturbations of Uranus were 
explained by the existence of the unknown planet Neptune, 
and nothing else explained them; therefore science aftirmed 
that existence. The phenomena of light are explained by the 
existence of a luminiferous ether, and by nothing else; there- 
fore science affirms the existence of this ether. On the same 
principles, science affirms the existence of the Bible miracles 
which we have been considering; she tells us that they have 
actually occurred. 
The character of Bible miracles is always in accordance with 
their origin and purpose, they are evidential, being credentials 
of the truth of the teaching and the authority of the teacher. 
Christ’s miracles were not tentative. “They bear the impress 
of His own holiness, and He ever uses them as the means of 
winning to the cause of goodness and truth those who witnessed 
them.” 
Christ’s mission is verified in the experience of Christianity, 
* Ebrard has pointed out that such an ordinance as the Lord’s Supper 
could not have grown up accidentally and gradually. 
t Origen’s reply to Celsus. 
H 2 
