304 



Senate^ and accepted by that body of practical men as true ; at 

 any rate they ordered them to be expiated at the public expense. 

 Some of them may be explaijied by the action of natural 

 causes, and the power of an excited imagination. Others cannot 

 be referred to these, as, for instance, when the Senate repeatedly 

 accepted as a fact, that a cow had brought forth a lamb. It seems 

 to me that it would be unjust to assume that every member of 

 the Roman Senate was a knave, when he professed to accept 

 such stories as true, although it is unquestionable that tlie 

 Roman religion was repeatedly worked for State purposes, just 

 as it would be equally so to make a similar charge against 

 Bishop Jewell and other eminent men, for accepting the stories 

 of witchcraft. Yet there is not a person in this room who 

 would hesitate to reject such a fact as untrue, without trou- 

 bling himself to inquire into the evidence on which it is alleged 

 to rest. One thing respecting all such stories is certain. Not 

 one of them was ever pretended to have been brought to attest a 

 revelation, and they all belong to a belief in occult and magical 

 powers in nature. Another class of prodigies was of frequent 

 occurrence in the ancient world ; and I think was not unknown 

 in the Middle Ages; as, for instance, the sudden bursting of a 

 brazen statue of a god into a profuse perspiration. Such an event 

 may possibly be explained by peculiar atmospherical phenomena ; 

 but to the general fact that brazen statues can burst into per- 

 spirations, every one of us will refuse to give credence, even 

 when reported to us as supernatural events. I feel justified in 

 rejecting in an equally summary manner the whole of the 

 miraculous stories attributed to St. Anthony, and the monkish 

 miracles. Nor does even the assertion of St. Bernard that he 

 performed miracles enable me to accept the fact that he really 

 did so. 



Is there any rational principle which we can establish for thus 

 dealing with historical testimony, or are we in such matters to sub- 

 rait to the sole guidance of caprice ? T\'hy do I refuse to accept 

 as a fact that a cow brought forth a lamb, although such an 

 event has been substantiated by numerous decrees of the Roman 

 Senate, and without hesitation accept as true an event of a very 

 extraordinary character resting on the same authority, that the 

 consul Yarro, whose recklessness occasioned the terrific and all 

 but fatal defeat at Cannse, instead of being executed, or even 

 censured, received public thanks for not having despaired of the 

 safety of the republic ? This latter event was as contrary to 

 prior experience as that a cow should bring forth a lamb. 



The following considerations will help us to the solution of 

 this difficulty. From whatever cause it may occur, mankind 

 are firm believers in the permanence of the natural order of 



