The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
History
The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Literature -- History and criticism
To stretch out my arm is a miracle, unless the materialists should be
more cunning than they have proved themselves hitherto. To reanimate a
dead man by an act of the will, no intermediate agency employed, not
only is, but is called, a miracle. A scripture miracle, therefore, must
be so defined, as to express, not only its miracular essence, but
likewise the condition of its appearing miraculous; add therefore to the
preceding, the words 'praeter omnem prior em experientiam'.
It might be defined likewise an effect, not having its cause in any
thing congenerous. That thought calls up thought is no more miraculous
than that a billiard ball moves a billiard ball; but that a billiard
ball should excite a thought, that is, be perceived, is a miracle, and,
were it strange, would be called such. For take the converse, that a
thought should call up a billiard ball! Yet where is the difference, but
that the one is a common experience, the other never yet experienced?
It is not strictly accurate to affirm, that every thing would appear a
miracle, if we were wholly uninfluenced by custom, and saw things as
they are:--for then the very ground of all miracles would probably
vanish, namely, the heterogeneity of spirit and matter. For the 'quid
ulterius?' of wonder, we should have the 'ne plus ultra' of adoration.
Again--the word miracle has an objective, a subjective, and a popular
meaning;--as objective,--the essence of a miracle consists in the
heterogeneity of the consequent and its causative antecedent;--as
subjective,--in the assumption of the heterogeneity. Add the wonder and
surprise excited, when the consequent is out of the course of
experience, and we know the popular sense and ordinary use of the word.
DEATH, AND GROUNDS OF BELIEF IN A FUTURE STATE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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