tten until the end of
the second century. This error is of course closely connected with that
which has just been discussed, but it is difficult to understand how
anyone who had taken the slightest trouble to ascertain the nature of
the argument, and to state it fairly, could have fallen into it. The
fact is that no attempt is made to prove anything with regard to the
Gospels. The evidence for them is merely examined, and it is found that,
so far from their affording sufficient testimony to warrant belief in
the actual occurrence of miracles declared to be antecedently
incredible, there is not a certain trace even of the existence of the
Gospels for a century and a half after those miracles are alleged to
have occurred, and nothing whatever to attest their authenticity and
truth. This is a very different thing from an endeavour to establish
some special theory of my own, and it is because this line of argument
has not been understood, that some critics have expressed surprise at
the decisive rejection of mere conjectures and possibilities as
evidence. In a case of such importance, no testimony which is not clear
and indubitable could be of any value, but the evidence producible for
the canonical Gospels falls very far short even of ordinary
requirements, and in relation to miracles it is scarcely deserving of
serious consideration.

It has been argued that, even if there be no evidence for our special
gospels, I admit that gospels very similar must early have been in
existence, and that these equally represent the same prevailing belief
as the canonical Gospels: consequently that I merely change, without
shaking, the witnesses. Those who advance this argument, however,
totally overlook the fact that it is not the reality of the superstitious
belief which is in question, but the reality of the miracles, and the
sufficiency of the witnesses to establish them. What such objectors
urge practically amounts to this: that we should believe in the actual
occurrence of certain miracles contradictory to all experience, out
of a mass of false miracles which are reported but never really took
place, because some unknown persons in an ignorant and superstitious
age, who give no evidence of personal knowledge, or of careful
investigation, have written an account of them, and other persons,
equally ignorant and superstitious, have believed them. I venture
to say that no one who advances the argument to which I am referring
can have r