"We have seen that a divine revelation is such only by virtue of communicating to us something which we could not know without it, and which is in fact undiscoverable by human reason; and that miraculous evidence is absolutely requisite to establish its reality. It is admitted that no other testimony could justify our believing the specific revelation which we are considering, the very substance of which is supernatural and beyond the criterion of reason, and that its astounding announcements, if not demonstrated to be miraculous truths, must inevitably be pronounced 'the wildest delusions.' On examining the supposed miraculous evidence, however, we find that not only is it upon general grounds antecedently incredible, but that the testimony by which its realty is supported, so far from establishing the inferences drawn from the supposed supernatural phenomena, is totally insufficient even to certify the actual occurrence of the events narrated. "Even if the reality of miracles could be substantiated, their value as evidence for the divine revelation is destroyed by the necessary admission that miracles are not limited to one source, but that there are miracles satanic which are to be disbelieved, as well as divine and evidential ones to be believed. "Similar miracles to those which are supposed to attest it are reported long antecedent to the promulgation of Christianity, and continued to be performed for centuries after it. "A stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has entered days of enlightenment. "The true character of miracles is at once betrayed by the fact that their supposed occurrence has been confined to ages of ignorance and superstition, and that they are absolutely unknown in any time or place where science has provided witnesses fitted to appreciate and ascertain the nature of such exhibitions of supernatural power. "There is no uncertainty as to the origin of belief in supernatural interference with nature. The assertion that spurious miracles have sprung up round a few instances of genuine miraculous power has not a single valid argument to support it.