Mr. Lecky, as we have before noticed, endeavors to apply to religious the more advanced method or secular history. He attempts to trace the subjective influence of religious opinions, the manner in which they mutually affected each other, and in which they acted or were reacted on by the other influences of their time. He does not pay much attention to the question of _evidence_, or to the arguments by which they were supported, except in so far as the use of particular arguments or lines of argument affords him some indication of the temper of the times of which he writes. The very idea of his work--a history of religious opinions--compelled him to attend to this rather than to the alleged evidence of particular doctrines: the latter being the proper province of the theologian as the former is of the historian. But from this necessary one-sidedness of his work Mr. Lecky seems to have been led into a corresponding one-sidedness of mind. Every one will grant that education, disposition, the opinions, and, still more, the tone of those around us make it exceedingly difficult to treat religious questions on the sole ground of evidence; and Catholics are continually urging this against the Protestants who, by their denial of the infallibility of the church, multiply indefinitely the number of questions which have to be thus decided; but Mr. Lecky goes further, and says that there really is not sufficient evidence for us, situated as we are, to come to a reliable conclusion at all. {79} It is natural, therefore, that he should now and then take occasion to sift supposititious evidence and fallacious arguments; and in several places he states with great force the nature and logical value of the reasons given against some or other of the old doctrines now denied by Protestants. An instance of this may be interesting to our readers; the subjoined passage is taken from his second chapter On the Miracles of the Church: "If we ask, what are the grounds on which the cessation the of miracles is commonly maintained; they may, I suppose, be summed up such as follows: