So if we should find in the records of the Indians that a celebrated medicine-man of their tribe used to induce devils to leave crazy people and take up their abode in wild swine, very few people would believe the story.
I believe it is true that the priest of one religion has never had the slightest confidence in the priest of any other religion.
My own opinion is, that nature is just as wonderful one time as another; that that which occurs to-day is just as miraculous as anything that ever happened; that nothing is more wonderful than that we live—that we think—that we convey our thoughts by speech, by gestures, by pictures.
Nothing is more wonderful than the growth of grass—the production of seed—the bud, the blossom and the fruit. In other words, we are surrounded by the inexplicable.
All that happens in conformity with what we know, we call natural; and that which is said to have happened, not in conformity with what we know, we say is wonderful; and that which we believe to have happened contrary to what we know, we call the miraculous.
I think the truth is, that nothing ever happened except in a natural way; that behind every effect has been an efficient cause, and that this wondrous procession of causes and effects has never been, and never will be, broken. In other words, there is nothing superior to the universe—nothing that can interfere with this procession of causes and effects. I believe in no miracles in the theological sense. My opinion is that the universe is, forever has been, and forever will be, perfectly natural.
Whenever a religion has been founded among barbarians and ignorant people, the founder has appealed to miracle as a kind of credential —as an evidence that he is in partnership with some higher power. The credulity of savagery made this easy. But at last we have discovered that there is no necessary relation between the miraculous and the moral. Whenever a man's reason is developed to that point that he sees the reasonableness of a thing, he needs no miracle to convince him. It is only ignorance or cunning that appeals to the miraculous.
There is another thing, and that is this: Truth relies upon itself —that is to say, upon the perceived relation between itself and all other truths. If you tell the facts, you need not appeal to a miracle. It is only a mistake or a falsehood, that needs to be propped and buttressed by wonders and miracles.
Question. What is your explanation of the miracles referred to in the Old and New Testaments?
Answer. In the first place, a miracle cannot be explained. If it is a real miracle, there is no explanation. If it can be explained, then the miracle disappears, and the thing was done in accordance with the facts and forces of nature.