ON MIRACLES. 



43 



More of this hereafter. In the meantime, it may be in- 

 quired if Gotama possessed the power of working miracles? 



The possession of such a power is, as we shall explain 

 opposed to the first principles of Buddhism. " None of the 

 miracles with which the old histories are filled," says 

 Renan, " took place under scientific conditions. Obser- 

 vation, which has never once been falsified, teaches us 

 that miracles never happen but in times and countries in 

 which they are believed, and before persons disposed to 

 believe them. No miracle ever occurred in the presence 

 of men capable of testing its miraculous character. Nei- 

 ther common people nor men of the world are able to do 

 this. It requires great precautions and long habits of 

 scientific research. In our days, have we not seen almost 

 all respectable people dupes of the grossest frauds, or of 

 puerile illusions ? Marvellous facts, attested by the whole 

 population of small towns, have, thanks to a severer 

 scrutiny, been exploded.* If it is proved that no con« 

 temporary miracle will bear inquiry, is it not probable 

 that the miracles of the past, which have all been per- 

 formed in popular gatherings, would equally present their 

 share of illusion, if it were possible to criticise them in 

 detail ? It is not, then, in the name of this or that philoso- 

 phy, but in the name of universal experience, that we 

 banish miracles from history. We do not say, ' Miracles 

 are impossible.' We say ' up to this time a miracle has 

 never been proved." 



Miracles, like many other matters of History and 

 Physiology, may not admit of positive proof,and may there* 



* ** See the Gazette des Tribunaux, loth September and 11th 

 November, 1851, 28th-May ? XZSf'—Renan's Life of Jesus, p, 29, 



