nt he was the
most fractious, quarrelsome, discontented, and covetous wretch alive'
(p. 220).

Dr. Charcot, if he had been acquainted with this case, would probably have
said that it 'is of the nature of those which Professor Russell Reynolds
has classified under the head of "paralysis dependent on idea."'[7]
Unluckily, Hearne does not tell us how his hunter, an untutored Indian,
became 'paralysed by idea.'

Dr. Charcot adds: 'In every case, science is a foe to systematic negation,
which the morrow may cause to melt away in the light of its new triumphs.'
The present 'new triumph' is a mere coincidence with the dicta of our
Lord, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole.... I have not found so great faith,
no, not in Israel.' There are cures, as there are maladies, caused 'by
idea.' So, in fact, we had always understood. But the point is that
science, wherever it agrees with David Hume, is not a foe, but a friend to
'systematic negation.'

A parallel case of a 'miracle,' the stigmata of St. Francis, was, of
course, regarded by science as a fable or a fraud. But, now that blisters
and other lesions can be produced by suggestion, the fable has become a
probable fact, and, therefore, not a miracle at all.[8] Mr. James remarks:
'As so often happens, a fact is denied till a welcome interpretation
comes with it. Then it is admitted readily enough, and evidence quite
insufficient to back a claim, so long as the Church had an interest
in making it, proves to be quite sufficient for modern scientific
enlightenment the moment it appears that a reputed saint can thereby be
claimed as a case of "hystero-epilepsy."'[9]

But the Church continues to have an interest in the matter. As the class
of facts which Hume declined to examine begins to be gradually admitted by
science, the thing becomes clear. The evidence which could safely convey
these now admittedly possible facts, say from the time of Christ, is so
far proved to be not necessarily mythical--proved to be not incapable of
carrying statements probably correct, which once seemed absolutely
false. If so, where, precisely, ends its power of carrying facts? Thus
considered, the kinds of marvellous events recorded in the Gospels,
for example, are no longer to be dismissed on _a priori_ grounds as
'mythical.' We cannot now discard evidence as necessarily false because
it clashes with our present ideas of the possible, when we have to
acknowledge that the very same evidence may safely con