cally, but soon returns to the main point, namely that the case is to be settled on the ground of antecedent probability. This is then at once resolved into the question of the doc- trine of the church. Newman, it is true, expresses himself as if what he was handling was the reality of Christianity. He warns us that scepticism here may, nay, must, be at bottom "disbelief in the grace committed to the church." He suggests that those who realize that the bodies of the saints in life are the Temples of the Highest ought not to feel offense if miracles are wrought by these bodies after death. Finally, he enunciates the proposition that "it may be taken as a general truth that, where there is an admission of Catholic doctrines, there no prejudice will exist against ecclesiastical miracles; while those who dis- believe in the existence among us of the hidden Power will eagerly avail themselves of every plea for explaining away its open manifestation." 48
This again is very skilfully put. But there is no reason why the judgment expressed should not be concurred in without debate. A Catholic, believing first in the divinity of the church as the organ of the Holy Ghost, in which He is made a deposit for the whole world, and from which alone He can be obtained ; and believing, next, in the truth of all the distinctive teachings of this church, as to monas- ticism and asceticism, relics and saints, transubstantiation, and the like, in honor of which the alleged miracles are performed — will naturally be predisposed to believe these miracles real. A Protestant, believing none of these things, but looking upon them as corruptions of the Gospel, will as naturally be predisposed to believe them spurious. In this sense, every Protestant must deny the existence of "the hidden Power among us" which Newman affirms, and hence cannot either expect or allow "open manifesta- tions" of it. We believe in a wonder-working God; but not in a wonder-working church. Thus the effect of New- man's argument, when once it is probed, is to uncover the
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root of the matter, and to make clear just what the pre- sumption against ecclesiastical miracles is. It matters not that he proceeds to cite the last twelve verses of Mark and to build an argument upon the promise included in them. The spuriousness of the passage evacuates the argument. It is a meaningless excrescence, however, upon his argu- ment in any case. That ultimately comes merely to the historical causa finita est: ecclesia locuta est.
The examination of the evidence for selected miracles which is presented at the end of the volume is an interest- ing piece of work, but is unconvincing for the main matter. That the conclusion in each case lacks cogency may be shown in one way or another ; but it is not necessary to do this. Newman himself allows that the general conclusion reached rests on the antecedent presumption ; and that that depends on our attitude to Roman doctrine. For its in- herent interest, however, we may glance for a moment at the last, and perhaps the most striking, of the instances of miracles the evidence for which Newman treats fully. It is the miracle of the continued speech of the African con- fessors deprived of their tongues by the cruelty of Hunneric in 484. The evidence, which is especially profuse and good, is detailed with great skill. We really cannot doubt the underlying fact. The tongues of these martyrs were cut out, cut out by the roots; and one or more of them were known at Constantinople as having still the power to speak. The miracle is inferred. The inference, however, is not stringent. It curiously emerges as a physiological fact that a man with half a tongue cannot speak, but a man with no tongue at all can. Newman knew this fact. Middle- ton had adduced two French cases — one of a girl born without a tongue who yet talked distinctly and easily, the other of a boy who had lost his tongue without losing his faculty of speech. Newman judged that these instances left his miracle untouched. But other evidence was soon adduced. It happens that the excision of the tongue is a
60 COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES
form of punishment repeatedly inflicted in the East, and a body of evidence has grown up there which puts it be- yond cavil that excision of the tongue, if thoroughly done, does not destroy the power of speech. In his later editions, while recording this evidence in an appendix, Newman is still unable frankly to allow that this is what happened to the African martyrs.49