I am not sure that I fully appreciate the point raised by “Agnosco,” nor the distinction between the prospective and the retrospective “possibility” of such a miracle as the conversion of water into wine.  If we may contemplate such an event as “possible” in London in the year 1900, it must, in the same sense, have been “possible” in the year 30 (or thereabouts) at Cana in Galilee.  If I should live so long, I shall take great interest in the announcement of the performance of this operation, say, nine years hence; and, if there is no objection raised by chemical experts, I shall accept the fact that the feat has been performed, without hesitation.  But I shall have no more ground for believing the Cana story than I had before; simply because the evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly where it is.  Possible or impossible, that evidence is worth nothing.  To leave the safe ground of “no evidence” for speculations about impossibilities, consequent upon the want of scientific knowledge of the supposed workers of miracles, appears to me to be a mistake; especially in view of the orthodox contention that they possessed supernatural power and supernatural knowledge.  T.H.  HUXLEY.

FOOTNOTES: 

     [46] 1889-1891.  See the next Essay (VII) and those which
          follow it.

     [47] Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding, p. 5;
          1748.  The passage is cited and discussed in my
          Hume, pp. 132, 133.

     [48] The story in John vi. 5-14 is obviously derived from
          the “five thousand” narrative of the Synoptics.

     [49] Matthew xvi. 5-12; Mark viii. 14-21.

     [50] Hume, Inquiry, sec.  X., part ii.

VII:  AGNOSTICISM

[1889]

Within the last few months, the public has received much and varied information on the subject of agnostics, their tenets, and even their future.  Agnosticism exercised the orators of the Church Congress at Manchester.[51] It has been furnished with a set of “articles” fewer, but not less rigid, and certainly not less consistent than the thirty-nine; its nature has been analysed, and its future severely predicted by the most eloquent of that prophetical school whose Samuel is Auguste Comte.  It may still be a question, however, whether the public is as much the wiser as might be expected, considering all the trouble that has been taken to enlighten it.  Not only are the three accounts of the agnostic position sadly out of harmony with one another, but I propose to show cause for my belief that all three must be seriously questioned by any one who employs the term “agnostic” in the sense in which it was originally used.  The learned Principal of King’s College, who brought the topic of Agnosticism before the Church Congress, took a short and easy way of settling the business:—­