And I have already admitted that
this evidence might conceivably have been such as to make the exception
equally certain with the rule." [38:1] Mr. Mill's opinion of the
evidence actually produced is not flattering, and may be compared with
my results:
"But the evidence of miracles, at least to Protestant Christians, is
not, in our day, of this cogent description. It is not the evidence
of our senses, but of witnesses, and even this not at first hand,
but resting on the attestation of books and traditions. And even in
the case of the original eye-witnesses, the supernatural facts
asserted on their alleged testimony are not of the transcendent
character supposed in our example, about the nature of which, or the
impossibility of their having had a natural origin, there could be
little room for doubt. On the contrary, the recorded miracles are,
in the first place, generally such as it would have been extremely
difficult to verify as matters of fact, and in the next place, are
hardly ever beyond the possibility of having been brought about by
human means or by the spontaneous agencies of nature." [38:2]
It is to substantiate the statements made here, and, in fact, to
confirm the philosophical conclusion by the historical proof, that I
enter into an examination of the four Gospels, as the chief witnesses
for miracles.
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