providence, is that the former furnishes _proof_, while in the case of
the latter we have only surmise. Dissolve the element of doubt, and
the alleged fact passes from the one class of 'the preternatural into
the other. In other words, if a special providence could be proved to
be a special providence, it would cease to be a special providence and
become a miracle. There is not the least cloudiness about Mr.
Mozley's meaning here. A special providence is a doubtful miracle.
Why, then, not call it so? The term employed by Mr. Mozley conveys no
negative suggestion, whereas the negation of certainty is the peculiar
characteristic of the thing intended to be expressed. There is an
apparent unwillingness on the part of the lecturer to call a special
providence what his own definition makes it to be. Instead of
speaking of it as a doubtful miracle, he calls it 'an invisible
miracle.' He speaks of the point of contact of supernatural power with
the chain of causation being so high up as to be wholly, or in part,
out of sight, whereas the essence of a special providence is the
uncertainty whether there is any contact at all, either high or low.
By the use of an incorrect term, however, a grave danger is avoided.
For the idea of doubt, if kept systematically before the mind, would
soon be fatal to the special providence, considered as a means of
edification. The term employed, on the contrary, invites and
encourages the trust which is necessary to supplement the evidence.
This inner trust, though at first rejected by Mr. Mozley in favour of
external proof, is subsequently called upon to do momentous duty in
regard to miracles. Whenever the evidence of the miraculous seems
incommensurate with the fact which it has to establish, or rather
when the fact is so amazing that hardly any evidence is sufficient to
establish it, Mr. Mozley invokes 'the affections.' They must urge the
reason to accept the conclusion, from which unaided it recoils. The
affections and emotions are eminently the court of appeal in matters
of real religion, which is an affair of the heart; but they are not, I
submit, the court in which to weigh allegations regarding the
credibility of physical facts. These must be judged by the dry light
of the intellect alone, appeals to the affections being reserved for
cases where moral elevation, and not historic conviction, is the aim.
It is, moreover, because the result, in the case under consideration,
is deemed desirable that the affections are called upon to back it. If
undesirable, they would, with equal right, be called upon to act the
other way. Even to the disciplined scientific mind this would be a
dangerous doctrine. A favourite theory--the desire to establish or
avoid a certain n result--can so warp the mind as to destroy its
powers of estimating facts. I have known men to work for years under
a fascination of this kind, unable to extricate themselves from its
fatal influence. They had certain data, but not, as it happened,
enough. By a process exactly analogous to that invoked by Mr. Mozley,
they supplemented the data, and went wrong. From that hour their
intellects were so blinded to the perception of adverse phenomena that
they never reached truth. If, then, to the disciplined scientific
mind, this incongruous mixture of proof and trust be fraught with
danger, what must it be to the indiscriminate audience which. Mr.
Mozley addresses? In calling upon this agency he acts the part of
Frankenstein. It is a monster thus evoked that we see stalking
abroad, in the degrading spiritualistic phenomena of the present day.
Again, I say, where the aim is to elevate the mind, to quicken the
moral sense, to kindle the fire of religion in the soul, let the
affections by all means be invoked; but they must not be permitted to
colour our reports, or to influence our acceptance of reports of
occurrences in external nature. Testimony as to natural facts is
worthless when wrapped in this atmosphere of the affections; the most
earnest subjective truth being thus rendered perfectly compatible with
the most astounding objective error.
There are questions in judging of which the affections or sympathies
are often our best guides, the estimation of moral goodness being one
of these. But at this precise point, where they are really of use,
Mr. Mozley excludes the affections and demands a miracle as a
certificate of character. He will not accept any other evidence of
the perfect goodness of Christ. 'No outward life and conduct,' he
says, 'however irreproachable, could prove His perfect sinlessness,
because goodness depends upon the inward motive, and the perfection of
the inward motive is not proved by the outward act.' But surely the
miracle is an outward act, and to pass from it to the inner motive
imposes a greater strain upon logic than that involved in our
ordinary methods of estimating men. There is, at least, moral
congruity between the outward goodness and the inner life, but there
is no such congruity between the miracle and the life within. The
test of moral goodness laid down by Mr. Mozley is not the test of
John, who says, 'He that doeth righteousness is righteous; 'nor is it
the test of Jesus: 'By their fruits ye shall know them: do men gather
grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?' But it is the test of
another: 'If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be
made bread.' For my own part, I prefer the attitude of Fichte to that
of Mr. Mozley. The Jesus of John,' says this noble and mighty
thinker, knows no other God than the True God, in whom we all are, and
live, and may be blessed, and out of whom there is only Death and
Nothingness. And,' continues Fichte, 'he appeals, and rightly
appeals, in support of this truth, not to reasoning, but to the inward
practical sense of truth in man, not even knowing any other proof than
this inward testimony, "If any man will do the will of Him who sent
Me, he shall know of the doe-trine whether it be of God."'
Accepting Mr. Mozley's test, with which alone I am now dealing, it is
evident that, in the demonstration of moral goodness, the _quantity_ of
the miraculous comes into play. Had Christ, for example, limited
himself to the conversion of water into wine, He would have fallen
short of the performance of Jannes and Jambres; for it is a smaller
thing to convert one liquid into another than to convert a dead rod
into a living serpent. But Jannes and Jambres, we are informed, were
not good. Hence, if Mr. Mozley's test be a true one, a point must
exist, on the one side of which miraculous power demonstrates
goodness, while on the other side it does not. How is this 'point of
contrary flexure' to be determined? It must lie somewhere between the
magicians and Moses, for within this space the power passed from the
diabolical to the Divine. But how to mark the point of passage--how,
out of a purely _quantitative_ difference in the visible manifestation
of power, we are to infer a total inversion of quality--it is
extremely difficult to see. Moses, we are informed, produced a large
reptile; Jannes and Jambres produced a small one. I do not possess
the intellectual faculty which would enable me to infer, from those
data, either the goodness of the one or the badness of the other; and
in the highest recorded manifestations of the miraculous I am equally
at a loss. Let us not play fast and loose with the miraculous; either
it is a demonstration of goodness in all cases or in none. If Mr.
Mozley accepts Christ's goodness as transcendent, because He did such
works as no other man did, he ought, logically speaking, to accept the
works of those who, in His name, had cast out devils, as demonstrating
a proportionate goodness on their part. But it is people of this
class who are consigned to ever-lasting fire prepared for the devil
and his angels. Such zeal as that of Mr. Mozley for miracles tends, I
fear, to eat his religion up. The logical threatens to stifles the
spiritual. The truly religious soul needs no miraculous proof of the
goodness of Christ. The words addressed to Matthew at the receipt of
custom required no miracle to produce obedience. It was by no stroke
of the supernatural that Jesus caused those sent to seize Him to go
backward and fall to the ground. It was the sublime and holy
effluence from within, which needed no prodigy to commend it to the
reverence even of his foes.
As regards the function of miracles in the founding of a religion, Mr.
Mozley institutes a comparison between the religion of Christ and that
of Mahomet; and he derides the latter as 'irrational' because it does
not profess to adduce miracles in proof of its supernatural origin.
But the religion of Mahomet, notwithstanding this drawback, has
thriven in the world, and at one time it held sway over larger
populations than Christianity itself. The spread and influence of
Christianity are, however, brought forward by Mr. Mozley as 'a
permanent, enormous, and incalculable practical result' of Christian
miracles; and he makes use of this result to strengthen his plea for
the miraculous. His logical warrant for this proceeding is not clear.
It is the method of science, when a phenomenon presents itself,
towards the production of which several elements may contribute, to
exclude them one by one, so as to arrive at length at the truly
effective cause. Heat, for example, is associated with a phenomenon;
we exclude heat, but the phenomenon remains: hence, heat is not its
cause. Magnetism is associated with a phenomenon; we exclude
magnetism, but the phenomenon remains: hence, magnetism is not its
cause. Thus, also, when we seek the cause of a diffusion of a
religion--whether it be due to miracles, or to the spiritual force of
its founders--we exclude the miracles, and, finding the result
unchanged, we infer that miracles are not the effective cause. This
important experiment Mahometanism has made for us. It has lived and
spread without miracles; and to assert, in the face of this, that
Christianity has spread _because_ of miracles, is, I submit, opposed
both to the spirit of science and the common sense of mankind.
The incongruity of inferring moral goodness from miraculous power has
been dwelt upon above; in another particular also the strain put by
Mr. Mozley upon miracles is, I think, more than they can bear. In
consistency with his principles, it is difficult to see how he is to
draw from the miracles of Christ any certain conclusion as to His
Divine nature. He dwells very forcibly on what he calls 'the
argument from experience,' in the demolition of which he takes obvious
delight. He destroys the argument, and repeats it, for the mere
Pleasure of again and again knocking the breath out of it. Experience,
he urges, can only deal with the past; and the moment we attempt to
project experience a hair's-breadth beyond the point it has at any
moment reached, we are condemned by reason. It appears to me that
when he infers from Christ's miracles a Divine and altogether
superhuman energy, Mr. Mozley places himself precisely under this
condemnation. For what is his logical ground for concluding that the
miracles of the New Testament illustrate Divine power? May they not
be the result of expanded human power? A miracle he defines as
something impossible to man. But how does he know that the miracles
of the New Testament are impossible to man? Seek as he may, he has
absolutely no reason to adduce save this--that man has never hitherto
accomplished such things. But does the fact that man _has_ never raised
the dead prove that he _can_ never raise the dead? 'Assuredly not,'
must be Mr. Mozley's reply; 'for this would be pushing experience
beyond the limit it has now reached--which I pronounce unlawful.' Then
a period may come when man will be able to raise the dead. If this be
conceded--and I do not see how Mr. Mozley can avoid the concession--it
destroys the necessity of inferring Christ's Divinity from His
miracles. He, it may be contended, antedated the humanity of the
future; as a mighty tidal wave leaves high upon the beach a mark which
by-and-by becomes the general level of the ocean. Turn the matter as
you will, no other warrant will be found for the all-important
conclusion that Christ's miracles demonstrate Divine power, than an
argument which has been stigmatised by Mr. Mozley as a 'rope of
sand'--the argument from experience.
The learned Bampton Lecturer would be in this position, even had he
seen with his own eyes every miracle recorded in the New Testament.
But he has, not seen these miracles; and his intellectual plight is
therefore worse. He accepts these miracles on testimony. Why does he
believe that testimony? How does he know that it is not delusion; how
is he sure that it is not even fraud? He will answer, that the
writing bears the marks of sobriety and truth; and that in many cases
the bearers of this message to mankind sealed it with their blood.
Granted with all my heart; but whence the value of all this? Is it
not solely derived from the fact that men, _as we know them_, do not
sacrifice their lives in the attestation of that which they know to be
untrue? Does not the entire value of the testimony of the Apostles
depend ultimately upon our experience of human nature? It appears,
then, that those said to have seen the miracles, based their
inferences from what they saw on the argument from experience; and
that Mr. Mozley bases his belief in their testimony on the same
argument. The weakness of his conclusion is quadrupled by this double
insertion of a principle of belief, to which he flatly denies
rationality. His reasoning, in fact, cuts two ways--if it destroys
our trust in the order of nature, it far more effectually abolishes
the basis on which Mr. Mozley seeks to found the Christian religion.
*****
Over this argument from experience, which at bottom is _his_ argument,
Mr. Mozley rides rough-shod. There is a dash of scorn in the energy
with which he tramples on it. Probably some previous writer had made
too much of it, and thus invited his powerful assault. Finding the
difficulty of belief in miracles to rise from their being in
contradiction to the order of nature, he sets himself to examine the
grounds of our belief in that order. With a vigour of logic rarely
equalled, and with a confidence in its conclusions never surpassed, he
disposes of this belief in a manner calculated to startle those who,
without due examination, had come to the conclusion that the order of
nature was secure. What we mean, he says, by our belief in the order
of nature, is the belief that the future will be like the past. There
is not, according to Mr. Mozley, the slightest rational basis for this
belief.
That any cause in nature is more permanent than its existing and known
effects, extending further, and about to produce other and more
instances besides what it has produced already, we have no evidence.
Let us imagine,' he continues, 'the occurrence of a particular
physical phenomenon for the first time. Upon that single occurrence
we should have but the very faintest expectation of another. If it
did occur again, once or twice, so far from counting on another
occurrence, a cessation would occur as the most natural event to us.
But let it continue one hundred times, and we should find no
hesitation in inviting persons from a distance to see it; and if it
occurred every day for years, its occurrence would be a certainty to
us, its cessation a marvel... What ground of reason can we assign for
an expectation that any part of the course of nature will be the next
moment what it has been up to this moment, i.e. for our belief in the
uniformity of nature? None. No demonstrative reason can be given,
for the contrary to the recurrence of a fact of nature is no
contradiction. No probable reason can be given; for all probable
reasoning respecting the course of nature is founded _upon_ this
presumption of likeness, and therefore cannot be the foundation of it.
No reason can be given for this belief. It is without a reason. It
rests upon no rational grounds, and can be traced to no rational
principle.'
*****
'Everything,' Mr. Mozley, however, adds, 'depends upon this belief,
every provision we make for the future, every safeguard and caution we
employ against it, all calculation, all adjustment of means to ends,
supposes this belief; and yet this belief has no more producible
reason for it than a speculation of fancy. It is necessary,
all-important for the purposes of life, but solely practical, and
possesses no intellectual character.
'... The proper function,' continues Mr. Mozley, 'of the inductive
principle, the argument from experience, the belief in the order of
nature--by whatever phrase we designate the same instinct--is to
operate as a practical basis for the affairs of life and the carrying
on of human society.' To sum up, the belief in the order of nature is
general, but it is 'an unintelligent impulse, of which we can give no
rational account.' It is inserted into our constitution solely to
induce us to till our fields, to raise our winter fuel, and thus to
meet the future on the perfectly gratuitous supposition that it will
be like the past.
'Thus, step by step,' says Mr. Mozley, with the emphasis of a man who
feels his position to be a strong one, 'has philosophy loosened the
connection of the order of nature with the ground of reason,
befriending in exact proportion as it has done this the principle of
miracles.' For 'this belief not having itself a foundation in reason,
the ground is gone upon which it could be maintained that miracles, as
opposed to the order of nature, are opposed to reason.' When we regard
this belief in connection with science, 'in which connection it
receives a more imposing name, and is called the inductive principle,'
the result is the same. 'The inductive principle is only this
unreasoning impulse applied to a scientifically ascertained fact...
Science has led up to the fact; but there it stops, and for converting
this fact into a law, a totally unscientific principle comes into
play, the same as that which generalises the commonest observation of
nature.'
The eloquent pleader of the cause of miracles passes over without a
word the _results_ of scientific investigation, as proving anything
rational regarding the principles or method by which such results have
been achieved. Here, as elsewhere, he declines the test, 'By their
fruits shall ye know them.' Perhaps our best way of proceeding will be
to give one or two examples of the mode in which men of science apply
the unintelligent impulse with which Mr. Mozley credits them, and
which shall show, by illustration, the surreptitious method whereby
they climb from the region of facts to that of laws.
Before the sixteenth century it was known that water rises in a pump;
the effect being then explained by the maxim that 'Nature abhors a
vacuum.' It was not known that there was any limit to the height to
which the water would ascend, until, on one occasion, the gardeners of
Florence, while attempting to raise water to a very great elevation,
found that the column ceased at a height of thirty-two feet. Beyond
this all the skill of the pump-maker could not get it to rise. The
fact was brought to the notice of Galileo, and he, soured by a world
which had not treated his science over kindly, is said to have twitted
the philosophy of the time by remarking that nature evidently abhorred
a vacuum only to a height of thirty-two feet. Galileo, however, did
not solve the problem. It was taken up by his pupil Torricelli, to
whom, after due pondering, the thought occurred, that the water might
be forced into the tube by a pressure applied to the surface of the
liquid outside. But where, under the actual circumstances, was such a
pressure to be found? After much reflection, it flashed upon
Torricelli that the atmosphere might possibly exert this pressure;
that the impalpable air might possess weight, and that a column of
water thirty-two feet high might be of the exact weight necessary to
hold the pressure of the atmosphere in equilibrium.
There is much in this process of pondering and its results which it is
impossible to analyse. It is by a kind of inspiration that we rise
from the wise and sedulous contemplation of facts to the principles on
which they depend. The mind is, as it were, a photographic plate,
which is gradually cleansed by the effort to think rightly, and which,
when so cleansed, and not before, receives impressions from the light
of truth. This passage from 'facts to principles is called induction;
and induction, in its highest form, is, as I have just stated, a kind
of inspiration. But, to make it sure, the inward sight must be shown
to be in accordance with outward fact. To prove or disprove the
induction, we must resort to deduction and experiment.
Torricelli reasoned thus: If a column of water thirty-two feet high
holds the pressure of the atmosphere in equilibrium, a shorter column
of a heavier liquid ought to do the same. Now, mercury is thirteen
times heavier than water; hence, if my induction be correct, the
atmosphere ought to be able to sustain only thirty inches of mercury.
Here, then, is a deduction which can be immediately submitted to
experiment. Torricelli took a glass tube a yard or so in length,
closed at one end and open at the other, and filling it with mercury,
he stopped the open end with his thumb, and inverted it into a basin
filled with the liquid metal. One can imagine the feeling with which
Torricelli removed his thumb, and the delight he experienced on
finding that his thought had forestalled a fact never before revealed
to human eyes. The column sank, but it ceased to sink at a height of
thirty inches, leaving the Torricellian vacuum over-head. From that
hour the theory of the pump was established.
The celebrated Pascal followed Torricelli with another deduction. He
reasoned thus: If the mercurial column be supported by the atmosphere,
the higher we ascend in the air, the lower the column ought to sink,
for the less will be the weight of the air overhead. He caused a
friend to ascend the Puy de Dôme, carrying with him a barometric
column; and it was found that during the ascent the column sank, and
that during the subsequent descent the column rose.
Between the time here referred to and the present, millions of
experiments have been made upon this subject. Every village pump is
an apparatus for such experiments. In thousands of instances,
moreover, pumps have refused to work; but on examination it has
infallibly been found that the well was dry, that the pump required
priming, or that some other defect in the apparatus accounted for the
anomalous action. In every case of the kind the skill of the
pump-maker has been found to be the true remedy. In no case has the
pressure of the atmosphere ceased; constancy, as regards the lifting
of pump-water, has been hitherto the demonstrated rule of nature. So
also as regards Pascal's experiment. His experience has been the
universal experience ever since. Men have climbed mountains, and gone
up in balloons; but no deviation from Pascal's result has ever been
observed. Barometers, like pumps, have refused to act; but instead of
indicating any suspension of the operations of nature, or any
interference on the part of its Author with atmospheric pressure,
examination has in every instance fixed the anomaly upon the
instruments themselves. It is this welding, then, of rigid logic to
verifying fact that Mr. Mozley refers to an 'unreasoning impulse.'