see what they thought they saw;
but in all this there is found a psychic and subjective factor in
operation--a factor whose potency is very difficult to define and to
mark its boundaries. It would have been a fact of a wonderful nature if
the souls of the disciples, from within, became suddenly and without
intermediary convinced of the continuation of the life and the presence
of the Master: all this would have been no sensuous miracle--no break in
the course of Nature. But we have to bear in mind how times of strong
religious agitation and [p.192] convulsion are so little qualified to
judge concerning external phenomena, and how easily a psychic state
solidifies into a supposed percept! Within and without Christianity
there are numerous examples of the sensuous appearance of a dead person
being considered to be fully authenticated by the narrower circle of
friends. Savonarola appeared more than a hundred times after his death,
but always to those whose hearts clung to him; and to fifteen nuns of
the convent of St Lucia he gave the consecrated wafer through the
opening in their _grille_."[64]

Eucken shows that an inability to accept the miraculous element in the
Gospels need not prevent anyone from being the possessor of the
Spiritual Substance. The spiritual content of Christianity is a content
which lies beyond the region of physical phenomena, whether those
phenomena are natural or are supposed to be supernatural. Christianity
is dragged down to a lower level by confusing its mode of existence with
its spiritual kernel. Religion is able to subsist without such aids
simply because it has discovered the true wonder within the spiritual
life itself. We do not know what future investigations may reveal from
the scientific side. It may be that Nature will appear more and more
mechanical in many of its manifestations; but even if this should prove
to be the case, it can produce no injury whatever to the nature [p.193]
and content of spiritual life. It may be, on the other hand, that the
scientific movement now proceeding in the direction of neo-Vitalism will
produce results which will modify and even overthrow the mechanical
conceptions of life, and thus enable the future to construct a
Metaphysic of Nature.[65] The battle between these two schools of
science is proceeding to-day. But even if the final issue should be a
decision in favour of mechanism, the destiny of Christianity or of the
human soul does not depend upon