338 ON MIRACLE 



Spinoza calls the appeal to the divine will in the ex-* 

 planation of phenomena, an afylum ignorantiae. — 



Second cafe. An act which, as is related, fomc 4 

 man has performed^ merely feems to furpafs the pro- 

 portion of power this man poffefTes. In this cafe the 

 tranfaclion is only a feeming miracle. Indeed if the 

 effect was here entirely proportionate to its eaufe, i. e, 

 to a finite or natural power, and our allonifhment at 

 the refult was merely founded on the extraordinarinefs 

 of the matter, and on our ignorance ; 



Then the miraculoufnefs might be defined in exact- 

 ly the fame terms as Baumgarten has defined magic t 

 Seientla, per minus cognita prsftandi quid extraor- 

 dinarii. — 



Miracles are either immediate operations of omnipo- 

 tence, or- they were wrought by men through the co- 

 operation of fuperior finite fpirits. 



Miracles, in the former fenfe, are not at all demon- 

 Arable, as an extramundane hyperphylical being can 

 be no object at all to human obfervation. 



Miracles which are wrought by the affiftance of fu- 

 perior finite fpirits, cannot be believed fo long as we 

 have no conviction of the infallibility of the eye-wit- 

 nefFes and relater of fuch a miraculous tranfaction. 



For: fo long as we muil prefuppofe — as is always 

 ■the cafe-*- that the pretended eye-witntffes or the re- 

 later may have erred, it is at all times prefumable, 

 when, they relate miraculous tranfactions # , that they 

 actually have erred, becaufe to err is human, but to 

 work miracles fu per human ; the exiftence of fuperior 



* Therefore facts which are deficient in human probability.. 



fpirits 



