"
"We don't reason on impossibilities," replied my friend. "We have a
maxim that it is more probable that any number of witnesses should
lie, that the senses of any number of persons should be deluded, than
that a miracle should be true; and by a miracle we mean an
interruption or violation of the known laws of nature."
"One eminent terrestrial sceptic," I rejoined, "has said the same
thing, and masters of the science of probabilities have supported his
assertion. But a miracle should be a violation not merely of the known
but of all the laws of nature, and until you know all those laws, how
can you tell what is a miracle? The lifting of iron by a magnet--I
suppose you have iron and loadstones here as we have on Earth--was, to
the first man who witnessed it, just as complete a violation of the
law of gravity as now appears my voyage through space, accomplished by
a force bearing some relation to that which acts through the magnet."
"Our philosophers," he answered, "are probably satisfied that they
know nearly all that is to be known of natural laws and forces; and to
delusion or illusion human sense is undeniably liable.
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