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teracting cause. “Now/* says Mill, 11 in the case of an alleged 
miracle the assertion is the exact opposite of this .... A 
miracle is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect ; it is 
a new effect supposed to be produced by the introduction of a 
new cause.” He adds, truly enough, “ That if we do not 
already believe in supernatural agencies no miracle can prove to 
us their existence.” And we may freely admit with him, that 
“ there is an antecedent improbability in every miracle, which 
in order to outweigh it, requires an extraordinary strength of 
antecedent probability derived from the special circumstances 
of the case.” I shall have occasion to allude to the subject of 
miracles again hereafter. 
History, from the Greek 'IctTopia, properly signifies (( investi- 
gation” or “ research,” and implies, therefore, etymologically, 
a narrative based upon inquiry about facts. 
Few persons consider what the evidence is of the genuine- 
ness of books attributed to authors who lived before the inven- 
tion of printing, most of which are derived from manuscripts 
which themselves were only copies, the originals haying been 
utterly destroyed or lost. This includes all the histories of 
Greece and Rome written by classic authors. I have dealt 
with this subject in a lecture I delivered in 1872, in the Hall 
of the Inner Temple, which has since been published under the 
title of History of Ancient Manuscripts. I have not time to 
enter upon it here, but it is a very interesting subject of 
inquiry. I will only mention what Tischendorf, the great 
German Biblical scholar says, about the manuscripts of the 
New Testament : “ Providence has ordained for the New Testa- 
ment more sources of the greatest antiquity than are possessed 
by all the old Greek literature put together.” 
In one of his essays Lord Macaulay says of history 
“ Perfectly and absolutely true it cannot be : for to be per- 
fectly and absolutely true, it ought to record all the slightest 
particulars of the slightest transactions — all the things done, 
and all the words uttered during the time of which it 
treats. The omission of any circumstance, however insignifi- 
cant, would be a defect. If history were written thus, 
the Bodleian library would not contain the occurrences of a 
week.” And Lord Macaulay might have added that no 
one would care to have such a mass of useless verbiage in 
existence. He is surely wrong in saying that history is not 
absolutely true simply because it does not give us all the par- 
ticulars of the slightest transactions. Even in a court of 
justice we do not think that a witness is not telling the 
absolute truth because he does not relate every particular, 
however insignificant, of the fact or conversation to which he 
