Читать книгу The Churches and Modern Thought - Vivian Phelips - Страница 17

Professor Huxley once made the following remark: “The miracles of the Church are child’s play to the miracles I see in nature.” This has been hailed by the apologist as a satisfactory admission that science concedes the possibility of miracles. It is continually being quoted in apologetic works and from the pulpit, and is apparently considered as a conclusive piece of evidence that science has nothing to say against miracles. But, Professor Huxley went on to explain: “On the strength of an undeniable improbability, however, we not only have a right to demand, but are morally bound to require, strong evidence in favour of a miracle before we even take it into serious consideration. But when, instead of such evidence, nothing is produced but stories originating nobody knows how or when, among persons who could firmly believe in devils which enter pigs, I confess that my feeling is one of astonishment that anyone should expect a reasonable man to take such testimony seriously.”1 We never hear of this from the pulpit! Possibly Professor Huxley would not have been thus misrepresented—or shall we say misunderstood?—if he had spoken of the wonders of nature, and had not used a word popularly understood to signify that break in nature’s laws which it has yet to be proved has ever occurred, or can ever occur. The wonders of nature take place in accordance with natural laws; miracles do not.