§ 24. Now it is quite clear that according as we come to the discussion of any particular miracle or extraordinary story under one or other of these prepossessions, the question of its credibility will assume a very different aspect. It is sometimes overlooked that although a difference about facts is one of the conditions of a bonâ fide argument, a difference which reaches to ultimate principles is fatal to all
argument. The possibility of present conflict is banished in such a case as absolutely as that of future concord. A large amount of popular literature on the subject of miracles seems to labour under this defect. Arguments are stated and examined for and against the credibility of miraculous stories without the disputants appearing to have any adequate conception of the chasm which separates one side from the other.
§ 25. The following illustration may serve in some degree to show the sort of inconsistency of which we are speaking. A sailor reports that in some remote coral island of the Pacific, on which he had landed by himself, he had found a number of stones on the beach disposed in the exact form of a cross. Now if we conceive a debate to arise about the truth of his story, in which it is attempted to decide the matter simply by considerations about the validity of testimony, without introducing the question of the existence of inhabitants, and the nature of their customs, we shall have some notion of the unsatisfactory nature of many of the current arguments about miracles. All illustrations of this subject are imperfect, but a case like this, in which a supposed trace of human agency is detected interfering with the orderly sequence of other and non-intelligent natural causes, is as much to the point as any illustration can be. The thing omitted here from the discussion is clearly the one important thing. If we suppose that there is no inhabitant, we shall probably disbelieve the story, or consider it to be grossly exaggerated. If we suppose that there are inhabitants, the question is at once resolved into a different and somewhat more intricate one. The credibility of the witness is not the only element, but we should necessarily have to take into consideration the character of the supposed inhabitants, and the object of such an action on their part.
§ 26. Considerations of this character are doubtless often introduced into the discussion, but it appears to me that they are introduced to a very inadequate extent. It is often urged, after Paley, ‘Once believe in a God, and miracles are not incredible.’ Such an admission surely demands some modification and extension. It should rather be stated thus, Believe in a God whose working may be traced throughout the whole moral and physical world. It amounts, in fact, to this;—Admit that there may be a design which we can trace somehow or other in the course of things; admit that we are not wholly confined to tracing the connection of events, or following out their effects, but that we can form some idea, feeble and imperfect though it be, of a scheme.[10] Paley's advice sounds too much like saying, Admit that there are fairies, and we can account for our cups being cracked. The admission is not to be made in so off-hand a manner. To any one labouring under the difficulty we are speaking of, this belief in a God almost out of any constant relation to nature, whom we then imagine to occasionally manifest himself in a perhaps irregular manner, is altogether impossible. The only form under which belief in the Deity can gain entrance into his mind is as the controlling Spirit of an infinite and orderly system. In fact, it appears to me, paradoxical as the suggestion may appear, that it might even be more easy for a person thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Inductive science, though an atheist, to believe in a miracle which formed a part of a vast system, than for such a person, as a theist, to accept an isolated miracle.