cannot always be one
and the same thing. Miracle must therefore be defined as being what our
whole course of thought has suggested that it is: in general, an elastic
word; in particular, a provisional word,--a word whose application
narrows with the enlarging range of human knowledge[32] and power which
for the time it transcends; a word whose history, in its record of
ranges already transcended, prompts expectation that ranges still beyond
may be transcended in the illimitable progress of mankind. Professor Le
Conte says that miracle is "an occurrence or a phenomenon according to a
law higher than any yet known." Thus it is a case of human ignorance,
not of divine interference.

On the other hand, we must believe that the goal of progress is a flying
goal; that human attainment can never reach finality unless men cease to
be. And so all widening of human knowledge and power must ever disclose
further limitations to be transcended. There will always be a _Beyond_,
in which dwells the secret of laws still undiscovered, that underlie
mysteries unrevealed and marvels unexplained. This will have to be
admitted, especially, by those to whom the marvellous is synonymous
with the incredible. We have not been able to eviscerate even these
prosaic and matter-of-fact modern times of marvels whose secret lies in
the yet uncatalogued or indefinable powers of the mysterious agent that
we name _life_: witness many well verified facts recorded by the Society
for Psychical Research.[33] How, then, is it consistent to affirm that
no such marvels in ancient records are historical realities? Nay, may it
not be true that the ancient days of seers and prophets, the days of
Jesus, days of the sublime strivings of great and lonely souls for
closer converse with the Infinite Spirit behind his mask of Nature,
offered better conditions for marvellous experiences and deeds than
these days of scientific laboratories and factories, and world-markets
and world-politics?

FOOTNOTES:

[27] "Early and mediaeval theologians agree in conceiving the miraculous
as being above, not contrary to, nature. The question entered on a new
phase when Hume defined a miracle as a violation of nature, and asserted
the impossibility of substantiating its actual occurrence. The modern
discussion has proceeded largely in view of Hume's destructive
criticism. Assuming the possibility of a miracle, the questions of fact
and of definition remain."--_Dictionary of Psyc