Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/414

398 being. Dr. Johnson remarks:—"Inspiration is when an overpowering impression of any propositions is made upon the mind by God himself, that gives a convincing and indubitable evidence of the truth and divinity of it." Be it so; but then, as such, it is not revelation to any other human being. All others receive it from the statement of the person to whom the revelation was vouchsafed. To all others its truth depends entirely on human testimony. Now in a certain sense all our faculties being directly given to us by the Supreme Being might be said to be revelations. But this is clearly not the religious meaning of the word. In the latter sense it is a direct special communication of knowledge to one or more persons which is not given to the rest of the race.

Before any person can admit the truth of a revelation asserted by another, he must have clearly established in his own mind what evidence he would require to believe in a special revelation to himself.

But when he communicates this revelation to his fellow-creatures that which may truly be a revelation to him is not revelation to them. It is to them merely human testimony, which they are bound to examine more strictly from its abnormal nature.

Let us now suppose that this believer in his own special revelation offers to work a miracle in proof of the truth of his doctrine, and even, further, that he does perform a miracle. Those who witness it have now before them far higher evidence of inspiration than that of the prophet's testimony. They have the evidence of their own senses that an act contrary to the ordinary laws of nature has been performed.

But even here the amount of conviction will be influenced by the state of knowledge the spectator of the miracle