Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/351

 implies that no great value is to be put on them. The main thing, however, is that Christ Himself says, “Many will come who will do miracles in My name, but I know them not.” Here He Himself rejects miracles as a true criterion of truth. This is the essential point of view in regard to this question, and we must hold fast to the principle that the verification of religion by means of miracles, as well as the attacking of miracles, belong to a sphere which has no interest for us. The Witness of the Spirit is the true witness.

This witness may take various forms; it may be indefinite, general, something which is, broadly speaking, in harmony with Spirit, and which awakens a deeper response within it. In history all that is noble, lofty, moral, and divine, appeals to us; our spirit bears witness to it. The witness may not be more than this general response, this assent of the inner life, this sympathy. But it may also be united to intellectual grasp, to thought; and this intellectual grasp, inasmuch as it has no element of sense in it, belongs directly to the sphere of thought. It appears in the form of reasons, distinctions, and such like; in the form of mental activity, exercised along with and according to the specific forms of thought, the categories. It may appear in a more matured form or in a less matured form. It may have the character of something which constitutes the necessary basis of a man’s inner heart-life, of his spiritual life in general, the presupposition of general fundamental principles which have authoritative value for him and accompany him through life. These maxims don’t require to be consciously followed; rather, they represent the mode and manner in which his character is formed, the universal element which has got a firm footing in his spirit, and which accordingly is something permanent within his mind and governs him.

Starting from a firm foundation or presupposition of this sort, he can begin to reason logically, to define or