Paley, arguing for the truth of Christian miracles, _and of these only_, endeavours to lay down canons which shall exclude all others. Thus, he excludes: "I. Such accounts of supernatural events as are found only in histories by some ages posterior to the transaction.... II. Accounts published in one country of what passed in a distant country, without any proof that such accounts were known or received at home.... III. _Transient_ rumours.... IV. _Naked_ history (fragments, unconnected with subsequent events dependent on the miracles).... V. In a certain way, and to a certain degree, _particularity_, in names, dates, places, circumstances, and in the order of events preceding or following.... VI. Stories on which nothing depends, in which no interest is involved, nothing is to be done or changed in consequence of believing them.... VII. Accounts which come merely _in affirmance_ of opinions already formed.... It is not necessary to admit as a miracle, what can be resolved into a _false perception_ (such miracles as healing the blind, lame, etc., cannot be reduced under this head), ... or _imposture_ ... or _tentative_ miracles (where, out of many attempts, one succeeds) ... or _doubtful_ (possibly explainable as coincidence, or effect of imagination) ... or exaggeration" ("Evidences," pp. 199-218). Paley then criticises some miracles alleged by Hume, and argues against them. He very fairly criticises and disposes of them, but fails to see that the same style of argument would dispose of his Gospel ones. The Cardinal de Retz sees, at a church in Saragossa, a man who lighted the lamps, and the canons told him "that he had been several years at the gate with one leg only. I saw him with two." Paley urges that "it nowhere appears that he (the Cardinal) either examined the limb, or asked the patient, or indeed any one, a single question about the matter" ("Evidences," page 224). Well argued, Dr. Paley; and in the man who sat outside the beautiful gate of the Temple, who examined the limb, or questioned the patient? Canons I. and II. exclude the Gospel miracles, unless the Gospels are proved to be written by those whose names they bear, and even then there is no proof that either Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, published their Gospels in Judæa, or that their accounts were "received at home." The doubt and obscurity hanging over the origin of the Gospels themselves, throws the like doubt and obscurity on all that they relate. "Transient rumours," "false perception," "imposture," "doubtful," and "exaggeration"--there is a door open to all these things in the slow and gradual putting together of the collection of legends now known as "the Gospels." We argue that the witness of the Gospels to the miracles cannot be accepted until the Gospels themselves are authenticated, and that the evidence in support of the miracles is, therefore, insufficient. Strauss shows us very clearly how the miracles recorded in the Gospels became ascribed to Jesus.