"I cannot say I do: for though it is doubtless Strauss's principal object to get rid of these miracles, it is not as miracles, but as history, that his canons of historic criticism are applied to them. It is as history that he attacks the books in which they are contained. His weapons are directed against the miracles, indeed; but it is only by piercing the history, with which alone the supposed discrepancies had ally thing to do." "But I cannot conceive that the historic discrepancies occurring in connection with such topics must not have more weight attached to them than if they occurred in any other history." "This is because you have already resolved that miracles are impossible on totally different grounds. But you may see the fallacy in a moment. Talk with a man who does not believe miracles a priori impossible, and that, though of course improbable (otherwise they would be none, I suppose), the authentication of a divine revelation is a sufficient reason for their being wrought, and he evades your argument. You are then compelled, you see, to throw yourself exclusively upon the alleged historic discrepancies; they become your sole weapon; and if it pierces the New Testament history, I want to know whether it does not equally pierce all other remote history too? In truth, if, as you and Mr. Fellowes agree,--I only doubt,--a miracle is impossible, nothing can (as I think) be more strange, than that, instead of reposing in that simple fact, which you say is demonstrable, you should fly to historic proofs." "And do you not think that miracles are impossible and absurd?"