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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 explained 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 Homan Senate was a knave, when he professed to accept 
such stories as true, although it is unquestionable that the 
Homan 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- 
mit to the sole guidance of caprice ? Why 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 Homan 
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 Cannae, 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 
