t neither are they
miracles. One of the Mahdi's followers was astonished by an English
officer, who pulled out his false eye, tossed it in the air, caught it,
and replaced it; after which he asked the flabbergasted Arab whether his
miraculous Mahdi could do that. It was a greater wonder than the Mahdi
could perform; still it was not a miracle. Ice was so great a wonder to
the King of Siam that he refused to credit its existence. Yet it was
not miraculous, but a natural product, existing in practically unlimited
quantities in the polar regions. We might multiply these illustrations
_ad infinitum_, but what we have given will suffice. If not, let the
reader spend an evening at Maskelyne and Cooke's, where he will see
plenty of startling wonders and not a miracle amongst them.

Hume's definition of a miracle as a violation of a law of nature, is the
best ever given, and it really is as perfect as such a definition can
be. It has been carped at by Christian scribblers, and criticised by
superior theologians like Mozley. But, to use Mr. Gladstone's phrase, it
keeps the field. Even the criticisms of Mill and Huxley leave its merit
unimpaired. The ground taken by these is, that to say a miracle is a
violation of a law of nature is to prejudge the question, and to rule
out all future facts in the interest of a prepossession. Mill, however,
allows that a miracle is a violation of a valid induction, and as a law
of nature means nothing more it is difficult to understand why he takes
any exception to Hume's statement of the case. It is perfectly obvious
that Hume's argument is not metaphysical, but practical. He does not
discuss the _possibility_ but the _probability_ of miracles. He reduces
the dispute to a single point, namely, whether the person who relates
a miracle (for to the world at large the question is necessarily one of
testimony) is deceived or deceiving, or whether the otherwise universal
experience of mankind is to be disbelieved; in other words, whether he
or the rest of the world is mistaken. One man may, of course, be right,
and all the human race opposed to him wrong, but time will settle the
difference between them. That _time_, however, simply means general
experience through long ages; and that is precisely the tribunal which
Hume s argument appeals to.

Quarrelling with Hume's definition is really giving up miracles
altogether, for, except as supernatural evidence, they are no more
important than shooting st