its credit and rules itself out of free and equal commercial relations with other nations.

Speaking, as I do, in the city of Milwaukee, let me say before. I close, that I have been well situated to observe the commercial development of our state, and especially of this city, almost from the beginning. It has been, in the main, a healthy, prosperous development. Our credit has been stable and unquestioned, not convulsed and bankrupted, as has been the case with states on either side of us. Milwaukee, I believe, has stood the severe test of the recent financial revulsion in the commercial world, better than any other western city. Comparatively few failures have occurred. This favorable condition, it seems to me, is due in no small degree to the steadying influence of an institution early established here, almost by an evasion of law, as an agency of credit to meet the ever pressing need of industrial enterprise. When in the phrensied hostility to a paper currency, caused by fraudulent operations of wild speculation, banks were in disrepute and almost entirely disallowed through all this western country, the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company, issued its certificates of deposits, and they went into general circulation, because they met an absolute pressing necessity. The institution performed all the functions of a bank without the name. The public confidence had nothing to rest on but the honor and integ rity of the managers, who put some real capital into the venture and sought profit for themselves only in identification with the advantage of the community. But there was a basis of solid capital and a great deal of Scotch honesty and thrift in the management, and so the operations were sound, the promises were made good, and the institution greatly aided the rapid unfolding of wealth in our state and in the whole region. It was subjected to more than one fiery ordeal under the efforts of enemies to break it down, but it triumphantly withstood all assaults, and stands to-day in strength and honor, the leading banking institution of our state, identified through all its history, with every branch of vigorous productive industry. If it has brought wealth to its proprietors, it is but a fit reward for what it has done to increase the wealth of the whole community.

I refer to this institution only as an illustration of what sound banking is, and of what it does for the common weal. Banking is simply the chief agency of credit, and its true function is at the same time to facilitate and to regulate all operations of credit, so as to draw out to the utmost the resources and energies of a people in fruitful industry. Rightfully managed, on a sound basis, it is an agency for unspeakable good; on an unstable basis, abused for purposes of greed and fraud, it is an instrument of unspeakable mischief.

5

NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL.

J. J. ELMENDORF, S. T. D.

I am somewhat afraid that the subject of my paper may lead some to suppose that I am introducing theological discussion into the transactions of the Academy. If I should fall into this error it will be unintentional on my part, and I beg pardon in advance. Concerning my own views of the truth and meaning of certain wonderful events recorded in documents which profess to be historical, there need be no question. But I do not see that my views on these points need affect the philosophical and scientific problem which I submit for investigation. I propose it in the same spirit as far as is possible, as if the question concerned the history of India, and a narrative of Buddha. Philosophy and science cannot ignore what is immediately around them, viz: a very general reception of certain extraordinary narratives of various kinds; and it is a question to be considered whether there is any case to come before the bar of philosophy or science, or whether these must relegate the matter to another tribunal, since they are incompetent to decide it.

The problem, briefly stated, is this: Inasmuch as nature with its rigid mechanical laws is not inconsistent with the freedom of man, does the admission of the supernatural as an element in the facts which come under our notice conflict with scientific laws, so that it must be rejected at once? or is the sphere of the supernatural, so called, a different one, like that of man's will and reason, so that inductive science may pursue its work undisturbed in its own sphere, leaving the other to its own special students, but accepting conclusions in the moral sphere, as mankind in general accept those of the scientific expert.

From the oldest historical records down to the contemporary witness of some leaders in natural science, concerning wonderful events occurring in England or the United States, we find a series of such marvels recorded, some having a very high degree of

attestation in their favor, and some little, if any; the latter chiefly showing a predisposition on the part of many or all to accept the truth of such narratives, which predisposition is itself a psycholog. ical fact and demands investigation. But all these narratives have the common ground that they are referable to no well established rules of the phenomenal world which surrounds us, and some of them are so different from ordinary experience as to excite our wonder and tax our powers of belief in the highest degree, even if they are not at once dismissed as unworthy of a rational man's attention.

Some of these facts, so called, are denominated "miracles," and are viewed with reference to moral purposes and treated as evidences of a Divine revelation or of some moral truth. But the events recorded have their scientific relations, because phenomena. of nature are said to have been presented to human senses; and they have their philosophical relations, because the asserted facts, whether true or mere inventions of fancy, call for rational explanation. Now my proposition is, that neither science nor philosophy give any antecedent reasons, any a priori ground, for rejecting facts of this nature. The question is simply one of their historical evidence, and must be referred to that bar for judgment. When criticism has sifted the evidence and given its verdict, if that verdict be favorable, science may examine the facts so far as the experience of others can be examined; science, if the antecedents can be repeated, may verify the results (if the antecedents do. not admit of repetition the results cannot be verified); and philosophy will try to explain the facts. If the testimony is rejected as insufficient, there will be no case to come before this court, but the claimant will not have been pre-judged.

And furthermore, that the historical facts should be reconcilable with philosophy and science, it will not be necessary that my view of the case be demonstrated to be correct. If only it be a possible one, then also the reconciliation will be possible, and my end will be attained.

Let me repeat then, more fully, what I wish to exclude from our discussion: (1) the credibility of the asserted facts; (2) their value, if true, as evidences of any moral or religious truth;

(3) I wish also to exclude any question whether some or many narratives of wonderful events found in ancient and Oriental sources may be presumed to be poetic and allegorical presentations of moral truth, e. g., the story of the tempting of man by a being in the form of a serpent, or that of the Hebrew, Jonah. One single narrative found in the Christian New Testament, and narrated as an actual occurrence, or one of the marvelous experiences of a distinguished English naturalist, is sufficient to determine the question before us.

For the purpose of our discussion, then, it will be expedient to admit, hypothetically, the narrative as a statement of facts which actually occurred, i. e., of sensible phenomena stated, not scientifically, which statement would assign the facts to a known law, but as they would naturally be reported by honest and intelligent eye-witnesses, telling what their eyes saw, their ears heard or their hands handled. It is, of course, at once open to remark from the scientific point of view, that the subjective impression of the phenomenon, together with the ordinary and accepted interpretation of it, is all that any man can report, and for all practical purposes it is sufficient. Philosophy and science proceed further, to some explanation, partial at least, of the marvelous occurrence. For example: if, as one narrative states, the commander of an army made a prayer that the sun might stand still, and the narrative be not poetical imagination,' but a historical statement, the phenomenon which followed is all that can be attested. There is not, necessarily, declared to have been a suspension of the sun's daily motion around the earth or any other scientific explanation of what the eyes saw.

I.

This being premised concerning historical modes of narration, I must assume some propositions as postulates, without attempting any proof of them; for some are needed, otherwise we could never find a beginning for our investigation.

(1) The world of nature is known to us as phenomena, infinite in number, and, potentially, infinite in variety; phenomena empi

As in the Chanson de Roland.