be
necessary to make us believe that such a movement had really been
executed. But the case is different if we are dealing with the
conviction of an enthusiast that he rose aloft or even with the
conviction of his disciples, that they, being in an ecstasy, saw him do
so. There is no reason to doubt the subjective reality of
well-authenticated visions and as motives and stimuli to action they may
have real objective importance. Miracles of healing are not dissimilar.
A man's mind can affect his body, either directly through his conviction
that certain physical changes are about to take place or indirectly as
conveying the influence of some powerful external mind which may be
either calming or stimulating. That some persons have a special power of
healing nervous or mental diseases can hardly be doubted and I am not
disposed to reject any well-authenticated miraculous cure, believing
that sudden mental relief or acute joy can so affect the whole frame
that in the improved physical conditions thus caused even diseases not
usually considered as nervous may pass away. But though there is no
reason to discredit miracles of healing, it is clear that they are not
only exaggerated but also distorted by reporters who do not understand
their nature. Those who chronicle the cures supposed to be effected at
Lourdes at the present day keep within the bounds of what is explicable,
but a Hindu who had seen a cripple recover some power of movement might
be equally ready to believe that when a man's leg had been cut off the
stump could grow into a complete limb.

The miraculous events recorded in the Pitakas differ from those of later
works, whether Mahayanist literature or the Hindu Puranas and Epics,
chiefly in their moderation. They may be classified under several heads.
Many of them are mere embroidery or embellishment due to poetical
exuberance, esteemed appropriate in those generous climates though
repugnant to our chilly tastes. In every country poetry is allowed to
overstep the prosaic borders of fact without criticism. When an English
poet says that--

The red rose cries She is near, she is near:
And the white rose weeps She is late:
The larkspur listens, I hear, I hear:
And the lily whispers, I wait--

no one thinks of criticizing the lines as absurd because flowers cannot
talk or of trying to prove that they can. Poetry can take liberties with
facts provided it follows the lines of metaphors which the reader finds