As an essential part of our inquiry into the value of the evidence for miracles, we must endeavour to ascertain whether those who are said to have witnessed the supposed miraculous occurrences were either competent to appreciate them aright, or likely to report them without exaggeration. For this purpose, we must consider what was known of the order of nature in the age in which miracles are said to have taken place, and what was the intellectual character of the people amongst whom they are reported to have been performed. Nothing is more rare, even amongst intelligent and cultivated men, than accuracy of observation and correctness of report, even in matters of sufficient importance to attract vivid attention, and in which there is no special interest unconsciously to bias the observer. It will scarcely be denied, however, that in persons of fervid imagination, and with a strong natural love of the marvellous, whose minds are not only unrestrained by specific knowledge, but predisposed by superstition towards false conclusions, the probability of inaccuracy and exaggeration is enormously {97} increased. If we add to this such a disturbing element as religious excitement, inaccuracy, exaggeration, and extravagance are certain to occur. The effect of even one of these influences, religious feeling, in warping the judgment, is admitted by one of the most uncompromising supporters of miracles. "It is doubtless the tendency of religious minds," says Dr. Newman, "to imagine mysteries and wonders where there are none; and much more, where causes of awe really exist, will they unintentionally mis-state, exaggerate, and embellish, when they set themselves to relate what they have witnessed or have heard;" and he adds: "and further, the imagination, as is well known, is a fruitful cause of apparent miracles."(1) We need not offer any evidence that the miracles which we have to examine were witnessed and reported by persons exposed to the effects of the strongest possible religious feeling and excitement, and our attention may, therefore, be more freely directed to the inquiry how far this influence was modified by other circumstances. Did the Jews at the time of Jesus possess such calmness of judgment and sobriety of imagination as to inspire us with any confidence in accounts of marvellous occurrences, unwitnessed except by them, and limited to their time, which contradict all knowledge and all experience? Were their minds sufficiently enlightened and free from superstition to warrant our attaching weight to their report of events of such an astounding nature? and were they themselves sufficiently impressed with the exceptional character of {98} any apparent supernatural and miraculous interference with the order of nature?