[179]
Professor Powell objects to them because they bear no analogy to the
harmony of God's dealings in the material world; and insists that they
are not to be credited, since they are a violation of the laws of matter
or an interruption of the course of physical causes. The orthodox
portion of the Church are laboring under the egregious error of making
them an essential doctrine, when they are really a mere external
accessory. Reason, and not "our desires" must come to our aid in all
examination of them. The key-note to Professor Powell's opposition is
contained in the following statement: "From the nature of our antecedent
convictions, the probability of _some_ kind of mistake or deception
somewhere, though we know not _where_, is greater than the probability
of the event really happening in _the way_ and from the _causes_
assigned."[180] The inductive philosophy, for which great respect must
be paid, is enlisted against miracles. If we once know all about those
alleged and held as such, we would find them resolved into natural
phenomena, just as "the angel at Milan was the aerial reflection of an
image on a church; the balls of fire at Plausac were electrical; the
sea-serpent was a basking shark on a stem of sea-weed.
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