anging water into wine by molecular
recomposition. He tells us that, "if carbon can be got out
of hydrogen or oxygen, the conversion of water into wine
comes within range of scientific possibility." But in
maintaining that miracles (so-called) have a _prospective_
possibility, Professor Huxley loses sight--at least, so it
appears to me--of the question of their _retrospective_
possibility. For, if it requires a certain degree of
knowledge and experience, yet far from having been attained,
to perform those acts which have been called miraculous, it
is not only improbable, but impossible likewise, that they
should have been done by men whose knowledge and experience
were considerably less than our own. It has seemed to me, in
fact, that this question of the retrospective possibility of
miracles is more important to us Rationalists, and, for the
matter of that, to Christians also, than the question of
their prospective possibility, with which Professor Huxley's
article mainly deals. Perhaps the Professor himself could
help those of us who think so, by giving us his opinion.

I am not sure that I fully appreciate the point raised by
"Agnosco," nor the distinction between the prospective and
the retrospective "possibility" of such a miracle as the
conversion of water into wine. If we may contemplate such an
event as "possible" in London in the year 1900, it must, in
the same sense, have been "possible" in the year 30 (or
thereabouts) at Cana in Galilee. If I should live so long, I
shall take great interest in the announcement of the
performance of this operation, say, nine years hence; and,
if there is no objection raised by chemical experts, I shall
accept the fact that the feat has been performed, without
hesitation. But I shall have no more ground for believing
the Cana story than I had before; simply because the
evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly where it
is. Possible or impossible, that evidence is worth nothing.
To leave the safe ground of "no evidence" for speculations
about impossibilities, consequent upon the want of
scientific knowledge of the supposed workers of miracles,
appears to me to be a mistake; especially in view of the
orthodox contention that they possessed supernatural power
and supernatural