from the sky at his own feet, he would not have
believed it."

This was incredulity greater than that of St Thomas, who said: "Unless
I can touch I will not believe." Here were pieces of iron weighing ten
and forty kilogrammes, which could be touched, but the savant said:
"Even if I touch them, I will not believe."

It is, therefore, not enough _to see in order to believe_; we must
_believe in order to see_. It is faith which leads to sight, not sight
which produces faith. When the blind man in the gospel uttered the
anxious cry: "Make me to see," he asked for "faith," because he knew
that it is possible to have eyes and not to see.

The fact of being insensible to evidence is little considered in
psychology, much less is it taken into account in pedagogic laws. And
yet many similar facts, though of an inferior psychological order, are
notorious, as, for instance, that stimuli will appeal in vain to the
senses, if the internal cooperation of attention be lacking. A
thousand experiences of this kind enter in to make up the sum of
common knowledge. It is not enough that an object should be before our
eyes to make us see it; it is necessary that we should fix our
attention upon it; an internal process, preparing us to receive the
impression of the stimulus, is essential.

In a loftier and purely spiritual sphere something of the same kind
takes place: an idea cannot enter triumphantly into the consciousness,
if it is not accompanied by a preparation of faith. Lacking this, it
may knock violently and brutally, with clamorous insistence, without
being able to penetrate. It is necessary that the field of
consciousness should be not only free, but "expectant." He who is
bewildered by a chaos of ideas cannot accept a truth which arrives
unexpectedly in the unprepared field.

This fact is not only analogous to other psychical facts of less
importance, such as that of sensory perception in relation to
attention; it is also analogous to the spiritual facts which are so
well known in the field of religion. In vain will a fact, however
remarkable, be explained or even _demonstrated_ where there is no
_faith_; it is not evidence but faith which opens the mind to truth.
The very senses are useless as a medium if the internal activity does
not open the doors to receive it. When the most striking miracles of
Christ are related in the gospel, the narrative always concludes with:
"And _many_ of those who saw, believed." The parable