The Tyrannies of Opinion and the Fixities of Belief :
Unscientific Guesses from a Non-Expert to Non-Experts. By " Zero." (Digby,. Long, and Co.)—This is an extremely interesting and thoughtful pamphlet by a thinker who has read a good deal on comparative religions, the higher criticism, and the philosophy of miracle, though he calls himself, and in some sense truly no doubt, a non- expert, that is, we suppose, not a master in the technicalities of the higher criticism. Especially good is the section on Christianity versus Rationalism, and the remarks there made on miracle and on the difference between "signs" of higher power and the so called "reversal" of nature's laws, when we know so little about the ultimate laws of the universe, that we are quite unable to distinguish between the manifestation of new laws and the reversal of old laws. " Who, in these days of Electricity,. Telepathy, Hypnotism, and Spiritualism, has not seen occurrences that look so like a reversal of these laws, that had not Science- confided to us its higher secrets, and Physics revealed its occult powers, we should inevitably have considered such occurrences miracles ? " That is a very pithy sentence which strikes at the heart of the scientific objections to miracle. No doubt it also strikes at the heart of the so-called miraculous demonstration of a truth announced by the worker of such signs. And we must take the latter with the former inference, and let the truths of revelation shine by their own light. But we cannot too heartily recommend the study of this admirable little pamphlet, though it may not quite carry out all the promise of its title-page, and discriminate adequately between " the tyrannies of opinion and the fixities of belief."
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