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DE. LUDWIG VOX GEEDTELL.. OX 



pheiiomena. and to ascribe to such laws a somewhat which does not 

 belong to them. Laws can never be reasons for actual happenings, 

 they can only ex]Dress the manner in which practical things con- 

 stantly behave." 



When our opponents, therefore, aver in relation to the 

 miracles of early Christianity that they contradict all general, 

 natural, and scientifically historical experience, they do not 

 thereby in the least disprove their possibility. They do 

 naught else by their objection than establish the true con- 

 ception of a mii^acle. For what is a miracle ? Answer : An 

 occuiTence that forms an absolute exception to all general 

 expeiience. 



The first objection, consequently, stripped of its elegant 

 phraseology, simply states the following absurdity — an occur- 

 rence which has never been experienced, never can be. The 

 scientific sentiment lying within this objection of our opponents 

 would, if consistently practised, lead to the decline of all exact 

 research. It would throw us back into the position of a 

 Thomas Acjuinas. It is the negation of the spirit of modern 

 science, which spirit we strenuously follow. And we have as 

 moderns an int-erest in the radical and complete disproof of 

 the first objection. 



Summarizing we add : 



Oiu' opponents in their first two objections commit the 

 following mistakes. They take a scientific working hypothesis, 

 which should remain intact in its own sphere as a practical 

 guide for the investigator, Lift it out of its own place and con- 

 fidently elevate it into a dogma of natural philosophy ; that is 

 to say, from the hypothetical supposition of the investigator 

 that every cause has an effect, and that the same cause pro- 

 duces the same effect, they unconsciously evolve a dogma, 

 which is to overmaster all experience, the dogma of the Law 

 of Causation, all-controlling and absolutely unalterable. 



Considered logically, it is within the power of our opponents 

 to raise the doubt as to whether the miracles of early 

 Christianity were observed and reported with sufficient 

 care to warrant their acceptance as facts. But our opponents 

 liave no right to play oft' against us, the adherents of Cluis- 

 tianity, who have examined these questions, and find oiu^selves 

 compelled to accept the miracles of the apostolic age as facts, 

 the Causal principle or any special law of nature ; for thus to 

 oppose a hypothesis to a fact is a mediaeval farce. If the 

 miracles oi early Christianity — brilliantly, scientifically, his- 

 torically attested as they are — really do form exceptions to the 



