Page:ASystematicStudyOfTheCatholicReligion.djvu/28

 tist Huxley writes: "No one is entitled to say a priori that any given so-called miraculous event is impossible" (Science and the Bishops, XIX Cent., Nov. 1887). 2. The occasional working of miracles does not interfere with scientific knowledge; thus the fact that Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, does not affect the science of medicine, nor throw doubt upon the truths of any other science. 3. The famous argument of Hume against the cognoscibility of miracles, when it is logically examined, is seen to be a wretched fallacy. He claims that we have physical certainty that the dead do not rise, and only moral certainty that Lazarus rose from the dead; but physical, he says, is stronger than moral certainty. Now we have no physical, nor any other certainty that the dead can never rise, but only that the dead do not rise by the powers or laws of nature; and we have metaphysical certainty that God is powerful enough to raise them to life, if he chooses to do so. The witnesses on the occasion had physical certainty that Lazarus did rise from the dead, and we have moral certainty that their testimony is reliable, for they testified what was against their own wish in the matter.

14. Yet the extraordinary importance of the claim to be a messenger from God, makes it necessary, when this claim is presented, that .the credentials, and whatever regards the person and the circumstances of the claimant, and his very message itself, be most carefully examined. The tests, or criteria; to be applied are chiefly these: 1. Does the message coutain anything contradictory to truths which are already known by reason or by a former well-ascertained revelation? If so, the new message cannot be true, for one truth cannot contradict another. Such are the pretended revelations of Spiritists; for they