In the words of Dr. Oort: "Our increased knowledge of nature has gradually undermined the belief in the possibility of miracles, and the time is not far distant when in the mind of every man, of any culture, all accounts of miracles will be banished together to their proper region--_that of legend_." What had been said to have been done in _India_ was said by the "_half Jew_"[277:1] writers of the Gospels to have been done in Palestine. The change of names and places, with the mixing up of various sketches of _Egyptian_, _Phenician_, _Greek_ and _Roman_ mythology, was all that was necessary. They had an abundance of material, and with it they built. A long-continued habit of imposing upon others would in time subdue the minds of the impostors themselves, and cause them to become at length the dupes of their own deception. FOOTNOTES: [252:1] Dr. Conyers Middleton: Free Enquiry, p. 177. [252:2] Indian Antiquities, vol. iii. p. 46. [253:1] Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 237. [253:2] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 331. [253:3] Ibid. p. 319. [254:1] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 320. Vishnu Parana, bk. v. ch. xx. [254:2] Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 68. [254:3] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 269. [254:4] See Hardy's Buddhist Legends, and Eastern Monachism. Beal's Romantic Hist. Buddha. Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, and Huc's Travels, &c. [254:5] Hardy: Buddhist Legends, pp. xxi. xxii. [254:6] The Science of Religion, p. 27. [255:1] Beal: Hist. Buddha, pp. 246, 247. [255:2] Dhammapada, pp. 47, 50 and 90. Bigandet, pp. 186 and 192. Bournouf: Intro. p. 156. In Lillie's Buddhism, pp. 139, 140. [256:1] Hardy: Manual of Buddhism. [256:2] See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 229. [256:3] See Tylor: Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 135, and Hardy: Buddhist Legends, pp. 98, 126, 137. [256:4] See Tylor: Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 135. [256:5] Thornton: Hist. China, vol. i. p. 341. [256:6] See Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, p. 240, and Inman's Ancient Faiths, vol. ii. p. 460. [256:7] See Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 34. [256:8] See Lundy: Monumental Christianity, pp. 303-405. [256:9] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief. [257:1] Quoted by Baring-Gould: Orig. Relig. Belief, vol. i. p. 397. [257:2] See Prichard's Mythology, p. 347. [257:3] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 404. [257:4] See Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, 258, and Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 102. Compare John, ii. 7. A _Grecian_ festival called THYIA was observed by the Eleans _in honor of Bacchus_. The priests conveyed three empty vessels into a chapel, in the presence of a large assembly, after which the doors were shut and _sealed_. "On the morrow the company returned, and after every man had looked upon his own seal, and seen that it was unbroken, the doors being opened, the vessels were found full of wine." The god himself is said to have appeared in person and filled the vessels. (Bell's Pantheon.) [257:5] Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 295.