to arguments for facts derived from men's hopes and beliefs; it ceases to be science if it refuses to listen to arguments which profess to rely upon facts also. Were there to happen now an event purporting to resemble the Resurrection, it would be necessary to examine the evidence exactly as men are commissioned to investigate any unusual occurrence, say, for instance, the supposed discovery of fertile land at the North Pole. All this is plain enough, and leads to no very important conclusions, but it is, nevertheless, necessary that it should be stated clearly, and distinctly apprehended.
Two other propositions may also be laid down as to the nature of the evidence for the Resurrection, both of them once more sufficiently obvious, but still not without their value in leading to a fair and reasonable estimation of the exact state of the case, and tending also, as we shall see presently, in one direction. It may be taken for granted, in the first place, that nothing can be alleged against the moral character of the witnesses, or against the morality which accompanied and was founded upon the preaching of the Resurrection. Mistaken they may have been, but not dishonest; enthusiasts, but not impostors. Furthermore, the deeper insight into character, which is one of the results of the modern critical spirit, enables us to see that they numbered among their ranks men of singular gifts, both moral and intellectual, who combined in a wonderful degree the faculty of receiving what was, of what they thought to be, a miraculous revelation, and the power of setting it forth in a sober and measured manner. All this is candidly admitted by the best representatives of modern thought.
Again, it may safely be asserted that, judged by the critical standards of historical science, the evidence is abundantly sufficient to prove any event not claiming to be miraculous. Let us suppose such an event as an extraordinary escape from prison related in the same way, though I admit that it requires a considerable intellectual tour de force to eliminate, even in imagination, the supernatural from the narrative. It is not going too far to say that no real question as to its truth would in that case ever be raised at the bar of history, even though a powerful party were interested in maintaining the contrary. A strictly scientific investigation, for instance, has brought out in our own days the absolute accuracy and consequent evidential value of the account of St. Paul's voyage to Malta. On the whole, then, we may conclude that the testimony is really evidence in the case, that it proceeds from honest and capable men, and that no one, apart from the existence of the supernatural element, would care to deny its truthfulness, except upon grounds that would turn all history into a mass of fables and confusion.
There remains, then, the old argument, that it is more easy to believe the witnesses to be mistaken than the fact itself to be true, and that we cannot believe a miracle unless it be more miraculous to
