73 
I think it needless to comment on this passage : its tendency 
is obvious. 
62. I have carefully abstained from bringing to your notice 
either the theological illustrations, or the two chapters in this 
work which form an application of his scientific principles to 
certain questions of the day. I have endeavoured to keep 
myself strictly within the regions of science. If Dr. Newman 
is scientifically right let us accept the consequences, be they 
what they may; if not, let us fearlessly reject his philosophy. 
I now therefore add my final opinion that, however much I 
admire some detached portions of his work, its fundamental 
principles are thoroughly unsound, and present us only with 
the alternative of credulity or scepticism. 
63. When I composed this paper I was not aware that Dr. 
Newman had reprinted his Essays on Miracles with notes, a 
short time after the publication of the Grammar of Assent. I 
have recently read these Essays, and in one of the notes, the 
Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent is directly referred . 
to. I think, therefore, that I am justified in arriving at the 
conclusion that these two works are intended by their 
author to be closely related one to the other, and that the 
Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent is designed to supply 
something like a scientific basis on which to rest the two 
Essays on Miracles. Had I been aware of the republication 
of these latter in such close connection with “ the Grammar,” 
I should certainly have subjected those portions of it directly 
bearing on the subject-matter of the two Essays to a most 
rigid scrutiny. The first Essay on Miracles is a weak defence 
of those in the Bible, and was written at an early period of 
Dr. Newman's career. The second, which is of a much later 
date, is a laboured effort to exalt the so-called Ecclesiastical 
Miracles, and to give them the appearance of credibility. While 
there is a kind of acknowledgment of an indefinite kind of 
superiority in the miracles of the Bible, the author has done 
his utmost to adduce every argument which has a tendency to 
exhibit them on the same level as the ecclesiastical ones. If 
I wished to attack the biblical miracles, I think that my most 
effective means of doing so would be to employ much of the 
line of argument made use of in this Essay. I am satisfied 
that it can only exercise one result on minds who use their 
reason as a guide to truth. Instead of inducing them to accept 
the ecclesiastical miracles, it will throw great difficulties in the 
way of their accepting the biblical ones. Many writers of 
Dr. Newman's school make free use of the kill-or-cure remedy. 
They seem utterly unconscious that killing is the rule, and 
curing the rare exception. In the mean time, the hard- 
