While on this subject, we may notice a certain fantastical tone of depreciation of miracles as an evidence of Christianity, which is occasionally adopted even by some who do not deny the possibility or probability, or even the fact, of their occurrence. They affirm them to be of little moment, and represent them--with an exquisite affectation of metaphysical propriety--as totally incapable of convincing men of any moral truth; upon the ground that there is no natural relation between any displays of physical power and any such truth. Now without denying that the nature of the doctrine is a criterion, and must be taken into account in judging of the reality of any alleged miracle, we have but two things to reply to this: first, that, as Paley says in relation to the question whether any accumulation of testimony can establish a miraculous fact, we are content 'to try the theorem upon a simple case,' and affirm that man is so constituted that if he himself sees the blind restored to sight and the dead raised, under such circumstances as exclude all doubt of fraud on the part of others and all mistake on his own, he will uniformly associate authority with such displays of superhuman power; and, secondly, that the notion in question is in direct contravention of the language and spirit of Christ himself, who expressly suspends his claims to men's belief and the authority of his doctrine on the fact of his miracles. 'The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.' 'If ye believe not me, believe my works.' 'If I had not come among them, and done the works that none other man did, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin.'