IN COEEOBORATION OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY 87 



Professor Huxley, in his " Nineteenth Century " 

 articles referred to, applies the scientific method of 

 inquiry to certain alleged occurrences in the New 

 Testament — occurrences which must rest upon 

 objective evidence, Lf upon any, and in which the 

 appeal of credibility is made, not to our faculty of 

 spiritual insight, but to our reason and understand- 

 ing. Is the story of the Gadarene swine probable ? 

 is it reasonable ? does it agree with the rest of our 

 knowledge ? " The Gadarene miracle either hap- 

 pened, or it did not. Whether the Gadarene ' ques- 

 tion ' is moral or religious or not has nothing to do 

 with the fact that it is a purely historical ques- 

 tion whether the demons said what they are de- 

 clared to have said, and the devil-possessed pigs did 

 or did not rush over the cliffs of the Lake of Gen- 

 nesaret on a certain day of a certain year," etc. 

 " If that is not a matter about which evidence ought 

 to be required, and not only legal but strict scien- 

 tific proof demanded by sane men who are asked to 

 believe the story — what is it ? " Professor Huxley 

 thinks a man who believes such a story without 

 logical evidence is guilty of an immoral act. And 

 so generally with the miracles recorded in the New 

 Testament, and with demonology and possessions. 

 These things are alleged occurrences in the outward 

 physical world, and they are not supported by ade- 

 quate objective evidence. 



Men reason upon the subject of the soul's immor- 

 tality, but the answer which reason gives is mainly 

 in the negative. There is nothing that could be 



