80 Wisconsi7i Academy of Sciences, Aiis, and Letters. 



lY. 



But it may be said that these are natural events, while others 

 which are narrated in the same manner are unnatural and there- 

 fore impossible. Such, e. g., it may be said, are some of the 

 "spiritualist" wonders, or the "miracles" at Knock, in Ireland, 

 or, again, the story that the touch of a man's hand, or even his 

 shadow, cured the sick. Here, it may be said, is no "natural" 

 connection of antecedent and consequent. But it would be well 

 to define precisely what we mean by " unnatural." (1) It cannot 

 very well mean what is incapable of explanation. For no one 

 explains how quinine cures malarial fever; yet one does not, on 

 that account, call the cure unnatural. (2) It cannot mean an 

 effect which is without any physical antecedent, for physical ante- 

 cedents, such as a shadow or a touch, may chance to have been 

 observed in very marvelous cases, like those just referred to. 

 (3) It ought not to mean a violation of nature's laws, for that 

 would be begging the question which is the very subject of our 

 discussion. " Unnatural," therefore, can only mean very unfa- 

 miliar, and that the particular antecedent mentioned, if we see it 

 repeated under other circumstances, is not followed by the same 

 effect. A most unscientific mode of thought, even if the best of 

 scientists fall into it. A scientific treatise, indeed, ought to give 

 all the antecedents ; an unscientific observer mentions only what 

 he happens to see, though his narrative may imply many other 

 antecedents, as the ordinary stories of spiritualists, and those 

 which I have just referred to actually do imply. I suppose that 

 shadows are not ordinarily followed by marvelous cures ; and so, 

 without any reference to scientific principles, there is an inward 

 persuasion that there was no connection between the- antecedent 

 and the consequent, and the alleged event is pronounced " unnat- 

 ural," or else the attempt is made to refer it to some known law, 

 as if the measure of our knowledge were the measure of all 

 existing laws. But let an impartial inquirer supply, if he can, 

 all the antecedents, not only physical, but moral and spiritual, 

 before he decides that such a narrative is a priori impossible. 



And he ought not to object to the introduction of moral and 



