"What! so different that the phenomena in question shall be a total departure from that order of nature of which alone we and all about us are cognizant; in fact, all but the one man, who tells us the strange thing, we being at the same time totally incapable of testing his experience?"
"Yes," said Fellowes; "I must grant it."
"I see," said Harrington, "you are bent on the destruction of our criterion. Do you not perceive that, if our experience and that of the immense majority, or of all about us, be not a sufficient criterion of the laws of nature, our argument falls to the ground? 'Your principle,' our adversaries will say, 'is a fallacious one; Nature has her laws, no doubt, which apply to miracles as to every other phenomenon; but in assuming your experience to be a sufficient criterion of these laws, you have been, not interpreting her laws, but imposing upon her your own.' If unknown powers of nature may thus reverse our experience and the experience of all those whose experience, under the given conditions, we have opportunities of testing, we ought to abstain from saying that some unknown powers may not also have wrought miracles. Let us then affirm consistently the sufficiency of our criterion; and the prince aforesaid must do the same; and it warranted him, I say, in believing that there neither was nor could be such a thing as ice."
"But this seems ridiculous," said Fellowes; "for according to this, different and opposite experiences may, in different places give different or opposite measures of the laws of nature; which nevertheless are supposed to be invariably the same, or invariably the limits certified by that experience."
"I cannot help it; upon that same experience we must believe it true that there are no miracles, and our unbelieving prince, that there could be no such thing as ice; for to him it was a miracle. If we do not reason thus, may we not be compelled to admit that our uniform experience, with its limited variations, is no rule at all, and that there are cases for which it makes no provision? and may not the advocate for miracles say that miracles are amongst them? No, let us adhere to our principle, and adhering to it, I wish to know whether the prince in question was not quite right in saying that there neither was nor could be such a thing as ice; for the assertion that there was, was contrary to all his experience and to that of every soul about him."
"I must say, that, if we look only to the principle of this uniform experience, he was right."
"But he rejected the truth."
"He certainly did."
"And he was right in rejecting the truth?"
"Certainly, upon your principle."