On the other hand, we must believe that the goal of progress is a flying goal; that human attainment can never reach finality unless men cease to be. And so all widening of human knowledge and power must ever disclose further limitations to be transcended. There will always be a _Beyond_, in which dwells the secret of laws still undiscovered, that underlie mysteries unrevealed and marvels unexplained. This will have to be admitted, especially, by those to whom the marvellous is synonymous with the incredible. We have not been able to eviscerate even these prosaic and matter-of-fact modern times of marvels whose secret lies in the yet uncatalogued or indefinable powers of the mysterious agent that we name _life_: witness many well verified facts recorded by the Society for Psychical Research.[33] How, then, is it consistent to affirm that no such marvels in ancient records are historical realities? Nay, may it not be true that the ancient days of seers and prophets, the days of Jesus, days of the sublime strivings of great and lonely souls for closer converse with the Infinite Spirit behind his mask of Nature, offered better conditions for marvellous experiences and deeds than these days of scientific laboratories and factories, and world-markets and world-politics? FOOTNOTES: [27] "Early and mediaeval theologians agree in conceiving the miraculous as being above, not contrary to, nature. The question entered on a new phase when Hume defined a miracle as a violation of nature, and asserted the impossibility of substantiating its actual occurrence. The modern discussion has proceeded largely in view of Hume's destructive criticism. Assuming the possibility of a miracle, the questions of fact and of definition remain."--_Dictionary of Psychology._ "When we find the definition for which we are searching, the miraculous will no longer be a problem."--PROFESSOR W. SANDAY, at the Anglican Church Congress, 1902. [28] For exceptions see Matthew xxi. 19; Acts xiii. 10, 11. [29] _A Christian Apologetic_, p. 97. [30] John i. 47-50. [31] In the opinion of such psychologists as Professor William James, of Harvard, the late Professor Henry Sidgwick, of Cambridge, England, and others of like eminence. [32] A hint of this was given by Augustine: "Portentum non fit contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura."--_De Civitate Dei._ [33] Consult the late F. W. H. Myers's remarkable volumes on _Human Personality and Survival after Death_ (Longmans, Green & Co.). V V