We need make no apology for not having dealt with the question of the possibility of the Miraculous Birth from the standpoint of Science. We do not propose to consider the question at length even now. The objection that miracles are impossible has long been exploded. In a famous letter to the _Spectator_ (February 10, 1866) Huxley wrote: “... denying the possibility of miracles seems to me quite as unjustifiable as speculative Atheism”, and Atheism, he said, is “as absurd, logically speaking, as polytheism”. What we call a “miracle” may be no more than the divine operation within the domain of law itself. We have therefore no ground for saying that a virgin birth is impossible; while, in the case of One so unique as Jesus Christ, such an assertion would be utterly absurd. We do not really need any support which may be gained from the question of Parthenogenesis. The question is in the first place one of evidence. But if primarily the question is one of evidence, it does not stop there. The historical and the theological aspects of the problem overlap; we cannot determine the question by weighing evidence alone. If we attempt to confine ourselves to a purely historical inquiry, the verdict must be “Not proven”.(108) It is true, on the one hand, that the late appearance of the tradition is not an insuperable difficulty. The theory of a long‐treasured secret has a logic of its own. On the other hand, by the conditions of the case, we are unable to interrogate the witnesses. We cannot ask them whence they derived what they tell us. We cannot demonstrate that the story they relate has the ultimate authority of Mary. All that we can reach is a primitive belief, generally accepted within New Testament times, which presumably implies an earlier private tradition. Beyond that point we cannot travel—within the limits of the evidence alone. Substantially this position is recognized by Dr. Gore in _Dissertations_. While affirming his belief that the historical evidence is “in itself strong and cogent”, he says frankly that “it is not such as to compel belief”. “There are ways to dissolve its force”, he continues. The last sentence is not very happily phrased, but it need not detain us. The point that is of greatest importance is expressed by Dr. Gore as follows: “... to produce belief there is needed—in this as in almost all other questions of historical fact—besides cogent evidence, also a perception of the meaning and naturalness, under the circumstances, of the event to which evidence is borne. To clinch the historical evidence for our Lord’s Virgin Birth there is needed the sense that, being what He was, His human birth could hardly have been otherwise than is implied in the Virginity of His mother” (ib., p. 64).