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stigmatized by some unwise defenders of revelation, as destroying the essence 
of a miracle. It is against the hasty adoption of such theories that I was 
desirous of uttering a caution. All that I intended to assert is, not that I 
adopt these positions as indubitably established truths, but that I am 
unable to dispute the general position, that to a higher order of intelligence 
all supernatural occurrences may seem natural. Any one may see from the 
context that by the word “supernatural” I mean miraculous. When I 
speak of the difficulty of discriminating between certain supernatural events 
and some events deemed miraculous, I mean that there are certain events 
where it is very difficult, if not impossible, to draw a line accurately dis- 
criminating to which order they belong. We all know that wonderful cures 
have been effected in certain classes of nervous complaints. Many of these 
have been pronounced miraculous. But in many cases they are now known 
to have resulted from purely natural causes. We are as yet profoundly 
ignorant of the power and action of the mind on the nervous system, and its 
influence on the body. But while there is a numerous class of events of this 
description, which it is impossible, with only our present knowledge, to say 
whether they belong to the miraculous or the natural, there is another class 
of events, such as the resurrection of a body unquestionably dead, the 
restoring of a man born blind by a word, or of an amputated limb, &c., which 
can only belong to an order which is unquestionably miraculous. These 
latter are the only ones which I conceive capable of affording an adequate 
attestation to a revelation. The others may be miraculous, but from the defi- 
ciency of our knowledge as to whether they are so or not, they are inadequate 
to furnish us with a sufficient attestation ; I think it most important that we 
should keep this distinction steadily in view. Dr. Currey’s remarks relate to 
a question quite different from the one I was considering. With respect to 
those points in the first portion of the paper, on which I am at issue with 
Dr. Currey, the only question is, — what is the degree of evidence which 
entitles a fact to be esteemed as resting on a secure historical foundation ? 
What I contend for is, that “ the philosophic imagination ” cannot convert 
events, whose attestation is imperfect, into historical facts ; or, where a large 
number of facts have perished, that it is unable to erect a substantial bridge 
over the empty space. If any large number of the received facts of history are of 
this description, I am very sorry for it ; but all I can say is, “ so much the worse 
for them.” I by no means intended to assert that the principle of historical 
conjecture has no place in history or criticism. All that I am desirous of 
doing is to reduce it to its proper level. But at present, to borrow language 
from a celebrated resolution of the House of Commons, “ Its influence is ton 
great, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.” I am far from wishing to 
undervalue the labours of Niebuhr, whose writings I have read with the pro- 
foundest interest. I once as firmly believed in them as Dr. Currey. But I 
have renounced a belief in a large portion of his reconstructive conjectures, for 
the simple and obvious reason that they lack evidence, and the vacant spaces 
of history may be bridged over by other conjectures equally plausible. When 
two, three, or four theories will equally account for the same fact, we cannot 
