Miracles are demanded by savages, and, consequently, the savage biographer attributes miracles to his hero. What would we think now of a man who, in writing the life of Charles Darwin, should attribute to him supernatural powers? What would we say of an admirer of Humboldt who should claim that the great German could cast out devils? We would feel that Darwin and Humboldt had been belittled; that the biographies were written for children and by men who had not outgrown the nursery.
If the reputation of "our Lord" is to be preserved—if he is to stand with the great and splendid of the earth—if he is to continue a constellation in the intellectual heavens, all claim to the miraculous, to the supernatural, must be abandoned.
No one can overestimate the evils that have been endured by the human race by reason of a departure from the standard of the natural. The world has been governed by jugglery, by sleight-of-hand. Miracles, wonders, tricks, have been regarded as of far greater importance than the steady, the sublime and unbroken march of cause and effect. The improbable has been established by the impossible. Falsehood has furnished the foundation for faith.
Is the human body at present the residence of evil spirits, or have these imps of darkness perished from the world? Where are they? If the New Testament establishes anything, it is the existence of innumerable devils, and that these satanic beings absolutely took possession of the human mind. Is this true? Can anything be more absurd? Does any intellectual man who has examined the question believe that depraved demons live in the bodies of men? Do they occupy space? Do they live upon some kind of food? Of what shape are they? Could they be classified by a naturalist? Do they run or float or fly? If to deny the existence of these supposed beings is to be an infidel, how can the word infidel "carry an unpleasant significance"?
Of course it is the business of the principals of most colleges, as well as of bishops, cardinals, popes, priests, and clergymen to insist upon the existence of evil spirits. All these gentlemen are employeed to counteract the influence of these supposed demons. Why should they take the bread out of their own mouths? Is it to be expected that they will unfrock themselves?
The church, like any other corporation, has the instinct of self-preservation. It will defend itself; it will fight as long as it has the power to change a hand into a fist.
The Agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of morality. Consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels, or who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. In his scheme of life these things are utterly unimportant. He is satisfied that "the miraculous" is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had possession of their minds, that "the miraculous" was expected, that it was their daily food.
All this is very clearly and delightfully stated by Professor Huxley, and it hardly seems possible that any intelligent man can read what he says without feeling that the foundation of all superstition has been weakened. The article is as remarkable for its candor as for its clearness. Nothing is avoided—everything is met. No excuses are given.. He has left all apologies for the other side. When you have finished what Professor Huxley has written, you feel that your mind has been in actual contact with the mind of another, that nothing has been concealed; and not only so, but you feel that this mind is not only willing, but anxious, to know the actual truth.
To me, the highest uses of philosophy are, first, to free the mind of fear, and, second, to avert all the evil that can be averted, through intelligence—that is to say, through a knowledge of the conditions of well-being.
We are satisfied that the absolute is beyond our vision, beneath our touch, above our reach. We are now convinced that we can deal only with phenomena, with relations, with appearances, with things that impress the senses, that can be reached by reason, by the exercise of our faculties. We are satisfied that the reasonable road is "the straight road," the only "sacred way."