Chapter III

Arbitrary criticism of the Biblical narratives of the raising
of the "dead."--Facts which it ignores.--The subject
related to the phenomena of trance, and records of
premature burial.--The resuscitation in Elisha's tomb
probably historical.--Jesus' raising of the ruler's
daughter plainly such a case.--His raising of the widow's
son probably such.--The hypothesis that his raising of
Lazarus may also have been such critically examined.--The
record allows this supposition.--Further considerations
favoring it: 1. The supposition threatens no real interest
of Christianity.--2. Enhances the character of the act as a
work of mercy.--3. Is independent of the belief of the
witnesses of the act.--4. Is coherent with the general
conception of the healing works of Jesus as wrought by a
peculiar psychical power.--Other cases.--The resurrection
of Jesus an event in a wholly different order of
things.--The practical result of regarding these
resuscitations as in the order of nature. 47

IV

A clearer conception of miracle approached.--Works of Jesus
once reputed miraculous not so reputed now, since not now
transcending as once the existing range of knowledge and
power.--This transfer of the miraculous to the natural
likely to continue.--No hard and fast line between the
miraculous and the non-miraculous.--Miracle a provisional
word, its application narrowing in the enlarging mastery of
the secrets of Nature and of life. 75

V

Biblical miracles the effluence of extraordinary lives.--Life
the world's magician and miracle-worker; its miracles now
termed _prodigies_.--Miracle the natural product of an
extraordinary endowment of life.--Life the ultimate
reality.--What any man can achieve is conditioned by the
psychical quality of his life.--Nothing more natural, more
supernatural, than life.--The derived life of the world
filial to the self-existent life of God; "begotten, not
made."--Miracle as the product of life, the work of God. 85

VI

The question, old and new, now confronting
theologians.--Their recent retreat upon the minimum of
miracle.--The present conflict of opinion in the
Church.--Its turning-point reached in the antipodal
turn-about in the treatment of miracles from the old to the
new apologetics.--Revision of the traditional idea of the
supernatural required for theological readjustment. 95

VII

Account to be made of the law of atrophy through disuse.--The
virgin birth and the corporeal resurrection of Jesus, the
two miracles still insisted on as the irreducible minimum,
affected by this law.--The vital truths of the incarnation
and immortality independent of these miracles.--These
truths now placed on higher ground in a truer conception of
the supernatural.--The true supernatural is the spiritual,
not the miraculous.--Scepticism bred from the contrary
view.--The miracle-narratives, while less evidential for
religion, not unimportant for history.--Psychical research
a needed auxiliary for the scientific critic of these. 107