I should find no difficulty in adopting the theory of the eminent writers above named, that the demoniacal possessions mentioned in the New Testament, were nothing but forms of insanity, if it were not that our Lord has apparently recognised their reality. It has been urged that if possession was nothing but insanity, there is an end of the miracle. But this is not the case, for the cure of a madman is quite as much a supernatural act as the expulsion of a demon. Let me now assume for argument’s sake, that possession was simple madness. How does such a supposition affect the veracity of the authors of the Gospels, and their judgment as credible historians of the events of our Lord’s life? If we assume that possession was madness, it is evident from the language which the Evangelists have employed that they must have shared in the ignorance of the times in which they lived as to the true causes of the complaint. When however we speak of the ignorance of any particular period, it should be observed that the expression is an indefinite one. We have no right to impute to any body of authors opinions on particular subjects of which their writings contain no traces. It has been affirmed, as we have seen, that the Jews of the apostolic age held a number of opinions on the subject of possession of the most grotesque and monstrous description. I have already shown that to impute these opinions to them, when no trace of them can be found in their writings is a most unfair mode of reasoning. When, therefore, I use the expression that they must have shared in the ignorance of the age respecting the causes of this disease, I must guard against the danger of ascribing to them a greater degree of ignorance than that which they have actually shown. The expression, “ignorance of the age,” denotes no uniform quantity of ignorance shared in by every individual alike. In an ignorant or superstitious age, one person may be far more so than another. It is quite conceivable that two thousand years hence human improvement may have become so great, that those who live in the present century may be designated as ignorant. It may be hereafter asserted that such writers as Huxley, Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, and Mill shared in the ignorance of the age in which they lived on some important physical facts. But from this it would be absurd to draw the conclusion that they were believers in the alleged facts of spiritualism because large numbers of their contemporaries were known to have believed in them, and spiritualistic publications enjoy a large circulation both in Europe and America in this nineteenth century.