on themes like these, of a more than judicial calmness.'

[To the argument regarding the quantity of the miraculous, introduced
at page 17, Mr. Mozley has done me the honour of publishing a Reply in
the seventh volume of the 'Contemporary Review.'--J. T.]

ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON MIRACLES.

AMONG the scraps of manuscript, written at the time when Mr. Mozley's
work occupied my attention, I find the following reflections:

With regard to the influence of modern science which Mr. Mozley rates
so low, one obvious effect of it is to enhance the magnitude of many
of the recorded miracles, and to increase proportionably the
difficulties of belief. The ancients knew but little of the vastness
of the universe. The Rev. Mr. Kirkman, for example, has shown what
inadequate notions the Jews entertained regarding the 'firmament of
heaven;' and Sir George Airy refers to the case of a Greek philosopher
who was persecuted for hazarding the assertion, then deemed monstrous,
that the sun might be as large as the whole country of Greece. The
concerns of a universe, regarded from this point of view, were much
more commensurate with man and his concerns than those of the universe
which science now reveals to us; and hence that to suit man's
purposes, or that in compliance with his prayers, changes should occur
in the order of the universe, was more easy of belief in the ancient
world than it can be now. In the very magnitude which it assigns to
natural phenomena, science has augmented the distance between them and
man, and increased the popular belief in their orderly progression.

As a natural consequence the demand for evidence is more exacting than
it used to be, whenever it is affirmed that the order of nature has
been disturbed. Let us take as an illustration the miracle by which
the victory of Joshua over the Amorites was rendered complete. In
this case the sun is reported to have stood still for 'about a whole
day' upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. An Englishman
of average education at the present day would naturally demand a
greater amount of evidence to prove that this occurrence took place,
than would have satisfied an Israelite in the age succeeding that of
Joshua. For to the one, the miracle probably consisted in the
stoppage of a fiery ball less than a yard in diameter, while to the
other it would be the stoppage of an orb fourteen hundred thousand
times the earth in size. And even accepting the inte