The second point to which I desire to refer is a statement which has frequently been made that, in the second and third parts, I endeavour to prove that the four canonical Gospels were not written until the end of the second century.  This error is of course closely connected with that which has just been discussed, but it is difficult to understand how anyone who had taken the slightest trouble to ascertain the nature of the argument, and to state it fairly, could have fallen into it.  The fact is that no attempt is made to prove anything with regard to the Gospels.  The evidence for them is merely examined, and it is found that, so far from their affording sufficient testimony to warrant belief in the actual occurrence of miracles declared to be antecedently incredible, there is not a certain trace even of the existence of the Gospels for a century and a half after those miracles are alleged to have occurred, and nothing whatever to attest their authenticity and truth.  This is a very different thing from an endeavour to establish some special theory of my own, and it is because this line of argument has not been understood, that some critics have expressed surprise at the decisive rejection of mere conjectures and possibilities as evidence.  In a case of such importance, no testimony which is not clear and indubitable could be of any value, but the evidence producible for the canonical Gospels falls very far short even of ordinary requirements, and in relation to miracles it is scarcely deserving of serious consideration.

It has been argued that, even if there be no evidence for our special gospels, I admit that gospels very similar must early have been in existence, and that these equally represent the same prevailing belief as the canonical Gospels:  consequently that I merely change, without shaking, the witnesses.  Those who advance this argument, however, totally overlook the fact that it is not the reality of the superstitious belief which is in question, but the reality of the miracles, and the sufficiency of the witnesses to establish them.  What such objectors urge practically amounts to this:  that we should believe in the actual occurrence of certain miracles contradictory to all experience, out of a mass of false miracles which are reported but never really took place, because some unknown persons in an ignorant and superstitious age, who give no evidence of personal knowledge, or of careful investigation, have written an account of them, and other persons, equally ignorant and superstitious, have believed them.  I venture to say that no one who advances the argument to which I am referring can have realised the nature of the question at issue, and the relation of miracles to the order of nature.