impossibility of miracles in general; and that not merely because if theists at all, they will see the absurdity of the assertion, while they admit that the present order of things had a beginning; and, if Christians at all, the equal absurdity of the assertion, while they admit that it will have an end;—­not only because the geologist will have familiarised the world with the idea of successive interventions, and, in fact, distinct creative acts, having all the nature of miracles;—­not only, we say, for these special reasons, but for a more general one.  The true philosopher will see that, with his limited experience and that of all his contemporaries, he has no right to dogmatise about all that may have been permitted or will be permitted in the Divine administration of the universe; he will see that those who with one voice denied, about half a century ago, the existence of aerolites, and summarily dismissed all the alleged facts as a silly fable, because it contradicted their experience,—­that those who refused to admit the Copernican theory because, as they said, it manifestly contradicted their experience,—­that the schoolboy who refuses to admit the first law of motion because, as he says, it gives the lie to all his experience,—­that the Oriental prince (whose scepticism Hume vainly attempts, on his principle, to meet) who denied the possibility of ice because it contradicted his experience,—­and, in the same manner, that the men who, with Dr. Strauss, lay down the dictum that a miracle is impossible and a contradiction because it contradicts their experience,—­have all been alike contravening the first principles of the modest philosophy of Bacon, and have fallen into one of the most ordinary illusions against which he has warned us namely, that that cannot be true which seems in contradiction to our own experience.  We confidently predict that the day will come when the favourite argument of many so called philosopher in this matter will be felt to be the philosophy of the vulgar only; and that though many may, even then, deny that the testimony which supports the Scripture miracles is equal to the task, they will all alike abandon the axiom which supersedes the necessity of at all examining such evidence, by asserting that no evidence can establish them.

While on this subject, we may notice a certain fantastical tone of depreciation of miracles as an evidence of Christianity, which is occasionally adopted even by some who do not deny the possibility or probability, or even the fact, of their occurrence.  They affirm them to be of little moment, and represent them—­with an exquisite affectation of metaphysical propriety—­as totally incapable of convincing men of any moral truth; upon the ground that there is no natural relation between any displays of physical power and any such truth.  Now without denying that the nature of the doctrine is a criterion, and must be taken into account in judging of the reality of any alleged miracle, we have