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it is impossible to connect with any natural process. But 

 these shade off by insensible stages into others, which have 

 a close resemblance to extraordinary occurrences in nature. I 

 feel, therefore, unable to dispute Butler's general position, that 

 to a higher order of intelligences all supernatural occurrences 

 may seem natural. It is unquestionable that extraordinary 

 occurrences not unfrequently happen, which lie quite as much 

 outside past experience as strictly supernatural events. Of 

 these one mentioned by Mr. Warington, the production of ice 

 within an inch of a most intense heat, is a striking illustration. 

 Such an event would have been unquestionably pronounced 

 incredible in past times. It is evident, therefore, that any 

 canon of criticism which would render the whole class of extra- 

 ordinary events and fresh experiences incredible, cannot be 

 maintained, and would render all enlargement of our experience 

 impossible. 



Still, however, as a fact we do summarily reject the great 

 mass of the supernatural events recorded in history, without 

 troubling ourselves to inquire into the attestation on which they 

 rest. We also all feel that the evidence which we should require 

 to accept an extraordinary event, whether it be supernatural or 

 natural, is far greater than that which we should require for 

 an ordinary fact. Thus I should at once credit a person 

 who told me that he had seen a man walk across London 

 Bridge; but if one hundred persons were to assert that they 

 had seen one walk across the Thames, I should receive the 

 statement, if meant to be the assertion of a literal fact, with no 

 inconsiderable incredulity. 



Let us take a few instances of the manner in which we 

 summarily reject miraculous stories, without inquiring into the 

 degree of their attestation. Probably every one in the room 

 has thus rejected the recent miracles in France, or has referred 

 them to mental phenomena. I would not spend an hour 

 to inquire into the alleged miracles of spiritualism (of 

 course, I am aware that the spiritualist would not allow that 

 they were miracles), except from a desire to expose a great 

 delusion. Most of us treat with similar contempt the narra- 

 tives of the great witch mania, though thousands of people were 

 sentenced to death on evidence which satisfied both judges 

 and juries. I cannot help treating in a similar manner the 

 innumerable miraculous stories of the Middle Ages, though 

 a few of them rest on an attestation on which I would believe 

 an ordinary fact. To go to an earlier period. There can be no 

 doubt that Livy's History of the Punic Wars is in the main 

 historically true ; yet, year by year, in the midst of his historical 

 narratives, we have reports of a set of prodigies made to the 



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