Collected Essays Part 23

[115] "The Value of Witness to the Miraculous." _Nineteenth Century_, March 1889.

[116] I cannot ask the Editor of this Review to reprint pages of an old article,--but the following pa.s.sages sufficiently ill.u.s.trate the extent and the character of the discrepancy between the facts of the case and Mr.

Gladstone's account of them:--

"Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably sceptical if I say that the existence of demons who can be transferred from a man to a pig does thus contravene probability. Let me be perfectly candid. I admit I have no _a priori_ objection to offer.... I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am unable to show cause why these transferable devils should not exist." ... ("Agnosticism," _Nineteenth Century_, 1889, p. 177).

"What then do we know about the originator, or originators, of this groundwork--of that threefold tradition which all three witnesses (in Paley's phrase) agree upon--that we should allow their mere statements to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of common sense, of exact science, and to imperil the respect which all would be glad to be able to render to their Master?" (_ibid._ p. 175).

I then go on through a couple of pages to discuss the value of the evidence of the synoptics on critical and historical grounds. Mr. Gladstone cites the essay from which these pa.s.sages are taken, whence I suppose he has read it; though it may be that he shares the impatience of Cardinal Manning where my writings are concerned.

Such impatience will account for, though it will not excuse, his sixth proposition.

[117] The wicked, before being annihilated, returned to the world to disturb men; they entered into the body of unclean animals, "often that of a pig, as on the Sarcophagus of Seti I. in the Soane Museum."--Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic,_ p. 88, Editorial Note.

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