315 



to say so, it strikes me that Dr. Currey is far more in accord with Mr. 

 Eow than he himself imagines. Mr. Eow, as I conceive, does not object 

 in toto to a reasonable amount of conjecture. 

 Mr. Kow. — I have expressly said so. 



Mr. TiTCOMB. — What Mr. Row objects to is that excessive amount of con- 

 jecture which hardly belongs to the regions of truth. Then, if I caught 

 Dr. Currey's observations aright, it strikes me that he has to some extent 

 substituted the genius of interpretation for the genius of conjecture — the 

 defence he has taken up is rather the defence of the genius of interpret- 

 ation than the defence of the genius of conjecture. For example, in refer- 

 ence to Ewald's celebrated book, the remarks which Dr. Currey made about 

 the feelings which the author of that work gives expression to, — however 

 brilliant, however truthful, however full of genius,— seem to belong not 

 to the genius of conjecture, but to the genius of interpretation, and I take 

 it that that is the function of the historian in the most prominent degree. 

 But that, unfortunately, was not the function of Niebuhr ; his was, first, 

 the destructive principle, and then the constructive, based upon conjec- 

 ture and not upon interpretation. Then I think Dr. Currey was scarcely 

 fair to Mr. Row in reference to the comparison drawn between extra- 

 ordinary facts and miracles. If Dr. Currey will look at the third division 

 of the paper, he will see that no such comparison is really instituted ; 

 Mr. Row simply goes upon this basis, that Hume, having said that no 

 amount of evidence would justify a belief in a miracle because it 

 was too extraordinary, such a course would lead to the rejection of any 

 extraordinary fact hitherto unknown, for it would be utterly incredible, 

 simply because, not having been seen before, it could not be credited. 

 Mr. Row then goes on to show, in answer to Hume, that extraordinary facts, 

 such as the one mentioned in Mr. Warington's book, with reference to the 

 formation of ice near the most intense heat, upset Hume's reasoning, inas- 

 much as their truth can be clearly proved, notwithstandiug that they are 

 entirely outside all previous experience. That is not a comparison instituted 

 between extraordinary facts and miracles, as if they were parallel, but the 

 observations are introductory to a more general and philosophic consideration 

 of the miraculous element in history. But though I have thus far defended 

 Mr. Row, I must venture to qualify my remarks by differing strongly from 

 what he says three pages further on : — 



" Whenever, therefore, I read of a supernatural event which contradicts my 

 conceptions of the Divine character, I at once reject it, and assume that it is 

 either a misrepresented natural phenomenon or a fiction. According to my 

 own conception of that character, I apprehend that all interferences with the 

 existing order of nature must be of a very rare occurrence, as, if it were other- 

 wise, it would nullify the purposes of the Divine government. 



" We reject the great mass of supernatural occurrences with which certain 

 portions of history are flooded, because, in the great majority of cases, they 

 have no adequate attestation ; but where the evidence for them is as strong 



