But the Church continues to have an interest in the matter. As the class
of facts which Hume declined to examine begins to be gradually admitted by
science, the thing becomes clear. The evidence which could safely convey
these now admittedly possible facts, say from the time of Christ, is so
far proved to be not necessarily mythical--proved to be not incapable of
carrying statements probably correct, which once seemed absolutely
false. If so, where, precisely, ends its power of carrying facts? Thus
considered, the kinds of marvellous events recorded in the Gospels,
for example, are no longer to be dismissed on _a priori_ grounds as
'mythical.' We cannot now discard evidence as necessarily false because
it clashes with our present ideas of the possible, when we have to
acknowledge that the very same evidence may safely convey to us facts
which clashed with our fathers' notions of what is possible, but which
are now accepted. Our notions of the possible cease to be a criterion of
truth or falsehood, and our contempt for the Gospels as myths must
slowly die, as 'miracle' after 'miracle' is brought within the realm of
acknowledged law. With each such admission the hypothesis that the Gospel
evidence is mythical must grow weaker, and weaker must grow the negative
certainty of popular science.

The occurrences which took place at and near the tomb of Paris were
attested, as Hume truly avers, by a great body of excellent evidence. But
the wisdom which declined to make a judicial examination has deprived us
of the best kind of record. Analogous if not exactly similar events now
confessedly take place, and are no longer looked upon as miraculous. But
as long as they were held to be miraculous, not to examine the evidence,
said Hume, was the policy of 'all reasonable people.' The result was to
deprive Science of the best sort of record of facts which she welcomes as
soon as she thinks she can explain them.[10] Examples of the folly of
_a priori_ negation are common. The British Association refused to hear