This topic is so impressive, and indeed awful, in its relation to Christianity, that we shall not violate its majesty by doing more than simply stating the case. All the known or imagined miracles that ever were recorded as flowing from any Pagan origin, were miracles--1, of ostentation; 2, of ambition and rivalship; 3, expressions of power; or, 4, were blind accidents. Not even in pretence were any of them more than that. First and last came the Christian miracles, on behalf of a _moral_ purpose. The purpose was to change man's idea of his own nature; and to change his idea of God's nature. Many other purposes might be stated; but all were moral. Now to any other wielder of supernatural power, real or imaginary, it never had occurred by way of pretence even, that in working miracles he had a moral object. And here, indeed, comes in the argument of Christ with tremendous effect--that, whilst all other miracles might be liable to the suspicion of having been effected by alliance with darker agencies, his only (as sublime moral agencies for working the only revolution that ever was worked in man's nature) could not be liable to such a suspicion; since, if an evil spirit would lend himself to the propagation of good in its most transcendent form, in that case the kingdom of darkness would be 'divided against itself.' Here, then, is an _a posteriori_ reason, derived from the whole subsequent life and death of the miracle-worker, for diminishing the value of _x_ according to the _Lemma_. SECTION VI. ON THE ARGUMENT OF HUME AS AFFECTED BY MATTERS OF FACT. It is a very important axiom of the schoolmen in this case--that, _a posse ad esse non valet consequentia_, you can draw no inference from the possibility of a thing to its reality, but that, in the reverse order, _ab esse ad posse_, the inference is inevitable: if it is, or if it ever has been--then of necessity it can be. Hume himself would have admitted, that the proof of any one miracle, beyond all possibility of doubt, at once lowered the--_x_ of his argument (_i.e._ the value of the resistance to our faith) so as to affect the whole force of that argument, as applying to all other miracles whatever having a rational and an adequate purpose. Now it happens that we have two cases of miracles which can be urged in this view: one _a posteriori_, derived from our historical experience, and the other _a priori_. We will take them separately.