The "Conclusions" have been almost entirely rewritten. This was essential to the finished work; but it was further necessary in order more adequately to convey my own views, and to withdraw expressions regarding the Unknowable, hitherto used from consideration for prevalent ideas and feelings, which I now recognize to have been too definite and calculated to mislead.
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.
This work has scarcely yet been twelve months before the public, but both in this country, and in America and elsewhere, it has been subjected to such wide and searching criticism by writers of all shades of opinion, that I may perhaps be permitted to make a few remarks, and to review some of my Reviewers. I must first, however, beg leave to express my gratitude to that large majority of my critics who have bestowed generous commendation upon the work, and liberally encouraged its completion. I have to thank others, who, differing totally from my conclusions, have nevertheless temperately argued against them, for the courtesy with which they have treated an opponent whose views must necessarily have offended them, and I can only say that, whilst such a course has commanded my unfeigned respect, it has certainly not diminished the attention with which I have followed their arguments.
There are two serious misapprehensions of the purpose and line of argument of this work which I desire to correct. Some critics have objected that, if I had succeeded in establishing the proposition advanced in the first part, the second and third parts need not have been written: in fact, that the historical argument against miracles is only necessary in consequence of the failure of the philosophical. Now I contend that the historical is the necessary complement of the
philosophical argument, and that both are equally requisite to completeness in dealing with the subject. The preliminary affirmation is not that miracles are impossible, but that they are antecedently incredible. The counter allegation is that, although miracles may be antecedently incredible, they nevertheless actually took place. It is, therefore, necessary, not only to establish the antecedent incredibility, but to examine the validity of the allegation that certain miracles occurred, and this involves the historical inquiry into the evidence for the Gospels which occupies the second and third parts. Indeed, many will not acknowledge the case to be complete until other witnesses are questioned in a succeeding volume.
The view I have taken is clearly supported by Mr. Mill. In his recently published "Essays on Religion," he directly replies to the question whether any evidence can suffice to prove a Divine Revelation, and defines what the nature and amount of that evidence must be. He shows that internal evidences, that is to say, the indications which the Revelation itself is thought to furnish of its divine origin, can only be negative. The bad moral character of the doctrines of an alleged Revelation, he considers, may be good reason for rejecting it, "but the excellence of their morality can never entitle us to ascribe to them a supernatural origin: for we cannot have conclusive reason for believing that the human faculties were incompetent to find out moral doctrines of which the human faculties can perceive and recognise the excellence. A Revelation, therefore," he decides, "cannot be proved divine unless by external evidence; that is, by the exhibition of supernatural facts."(1)
He maintains that it is possible to prove the reality of a supernatural fact if it actually occurred; and after showing the great preponderance of evidence against miracles, or their antecedent incredibility, he proceeds: "Against this weight of negative evidence we have to set such positive evidence as is produced in attestation of exceptions; in other words, the positive evidences of miracles"(2) This is precisely what I have done. In order to show that Mr. Mill's estimate of the nature of this positive evidence for miracles does not essentially differ from the results of this work, the following lines may be quoted:—