In our days have we not seen almost all respectable people dupes of the grossest frauds or of puerile illusions?
Marvellous facts, attested by the whole population of small towns, have, thanks to a severer scrutiny, been exploded.[1] If it is proved that no contemporary miracle will bear inquiry, is it not probable that the miracles of the past, which have all been performed in popular gatherings, would equally present their share of illusion, if it were possible to criticise them in detail?
[Footnote 1: See the _Gazette des Tribunaux_, 10th Sept.

and 11th Nov., 1851, 28th May, 1857.] It is not, then, in the name of this or that philosophy, but in the name of universal experience, that we banish miracle from history.

We do not say, "Miracles are impossible." We say, "Up to this time a miracle has never been proved." If to-morrow a thaumaturgus present himself with credentials sufficiently important to be discussed, and announce himself as able, say, to raise the dead, what would be done?
A commission, composed of physiologists, physicists, chemists, persons accustomed to historical criticism, would be named.

This commission would choose a corpse, would assure itself that the death was real, would select the room in which the experiment should be made, would arrange the whole system of precautions, so as to leave no chance of doubt.

If, under such conditions, the resurrection were effected, a probability almost equal to certainty would be established.