THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES
The sacred historians themselves recognize the existence
and the power of the magic which boldly rivalled that of Moses.
The Bible tells us that Jannes and Jambres, Pharaoh’s
magicians, at first performed the same miracles as Moses, and
that they declared those which they could not imitate im-
possible to human science. It is in fact more flattering to the
self-love of a charlatan to deem that a miracle has taken place,
than to declare himself conquered by the science or skill of a
fellow-magician—above all, when he is a political enemy or a
religious adversary.
When does the possible in magical miracles begin and end ?
Here is a serious and important question. What is certain is
the existence of the facts which one habitually describes as
miracles. _Magnetizers and sleep-wakers do them every day ;
Sister Rose Tamisier did them; the “ illuminated” Vintras
does them still; more than fifteen thousand witnesses recently
attested those of the American mediums; ten thousand peasants
of Berry and Sologne would attest, if need were, those of the
god Cheneau (a retired button-merchant who believes himself
inspired by God). Are all these people hallucinated or knaves?
Hallucinated, yes, perhaps, but the very fact that their halluci-
nation is identical, whether separately or collectively, is it not
a sufficiently great miracle on the part of him who produces it,
always, at will, and at a stated time and place?
To do miracles, and to persuade the multitude that one does
them, are very nearly the same thing, above all in a century as
frivolous and scoffing as ours. Now, the world is full of
wonder-makers, and science is often reduced to denying their
works or refusing to see them, in order not to be reduced to
examining them, or assigning a cause to them.
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