of nature, or the intervention of the first cause in certain
particular cases, I could not concede it. In this negation physical and
logical reasons are secondary; the true reason--let no one be
surprised--is entirely religious; the miracle is immoral. The equality
of all before God is one of the postulates of the religious
consciousness, and the miracle, that good pleasure of God, only degrades
him to the level of the capricious tyrants of the earth.

The existing churches, making, as nearly all of them do, this notion of
miracle the very essence of religion and the basis of all positive
faith, involuntarily render themselves guilty of that emasculation of
manliness and morality of which they so passionately complain. If God
intervenes thus irregularly in the affairs of men, the latter can
hardly do otherwise than seek to become courtiers who expect all things
of the sovereign's _favor_.

The question changes its aspect, if we call miracle, as we most
generally do, all that goes beyond ordinary experience.

Many apologists delight in showing that the unheard of, the
inexplicable, are met with all through life. They are right and I agree
with them, on condition that they do not at the close of their
explanation replace this new notion of the supernatural by the former
one.

It is thus that I have come to conclude the reality of the stigmata.
They may have been a unique fact without being more miraculous than
other phenomena; for example, the mathematical powers or the musical
ability of an infant prodigy.

There are in the human creature almost indefinite powers, marvellous
energies; in the great majority of men these lie in torpid slumber, but
awaking to life in a few, they make of them prophets, men of genius, and
saints who show humanity its true nature.

We have caught but fleeting glimpses into the domain of mental
pathology, so vast is it and unexplored; the learned men of the future
will perhaps make, in the realms of psychology and physiology, such
discoveries as will bring about a complete revolution in our laws and
customs.

It remains to examine the stigmata from the point of view of history.
And though in this field there is no lack of difficulties, small and
great, the testimony appears to me to be at once too abundant and too
precise not to command conviction.

We may at the outset set aside the system of those who hold that Brother
Elias helped on their appearance by a pious fraud. Such a claim