THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENCE TOWARDS MIRACLES. igs: 
accretions, with which pious disciples enshrined His memory, as 
a present source of weakness rather than a support to true religion. 
The lecturer has laboured, I think, very needlessly over the point 
that miracles are possible, which I believe modern scientists do nct 
attempt to deny. Science is confined to the co-ordination of 
phenomena, and the sciences of psychology and history (including 
that of comparative religions) do not disprove but explain alleged 
miracles, and make it quite clear that a real miracle would have 
occurred if alleged miracles had not been interwoven into the 
Christian tradition. Ethnology has demonstrated that primitive 
folk everywhere and always remain unconscious of the invariable 
sequence of phenomena, which has only been thoroughly realised 
during the last few generations of the scientifically educated. All 
natural phenomena were thought of as regulated by spirits, 
influenced by magic, flattery, sacrifice, spells and ceremonies ; 
and the large mass of the uninstructed and many of the so-called 
educated whose knowledge is largely confined to the study of the 
prejudices of past generations, hold this fetish form of religion in 
a modified form at the present time, in civilised countries such as 
Spain, Portugal, Russia, and the country districts of Italy and 
France. Patient impartial scientific investigation has rejected the 
alleged miracles of to-day, and open-minded historians have 
explained the like misconceptions of past ages. It is a well- 
established psychological law that miracles are seen by those and 
those only who expect to see them. Strongly as I differ from the 
general conclusions of Cardinals Newman and Manning, I, together 
with many “ broad ” Christians, consider that their contention that 
modern, medizval, and Biblical miracles form an unbroken chain, 
and stand or fall together, is proved up to the hilt. The Virgin 
Mary is still believed to be walking about in the country districts 
of France and Belgium, and recently to have raised from the dead 
a pilgrim youth hung in error with a highwayman. Christian 
miracles were accepted by a population in a still lower state of 
credulity, and the cultured rejected them, as is clearly stated by 
New Testament writers, the Fathers and their opponents, and they 
did not receive general acceptance until the Barbarian had destroyed 
the old civilisation, and the dark ages had set in. The lecturer’s 
definition, “Science is the investigation and study of things and 
phenomena in nature, with a view to their explanation and 
