803 
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, how r ever, 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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