Note 91 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

Thus in the nature of things there is nothing to prevent the admission, that Jesus cured many persons who suffered from supposed demoniacal insanity or nervous disorder, in a psychical manner, by the ascendancy of his manner and words (if indeed Venturini91 and Kaiser92 are not right in their conjecture, that patients of this class often believed themselves to be cured, when in fact the crisis only of their disorder had been broken by the influence of Jesus; and that the Evangelists state them to have been cured because they learned nothing further of them, and thus knew nothing of their probable relapse). But while granting the possibility of many cures, it is evident that in this field the legend has not been idle, but has confounded the easier cases, which alone could be cured psychologically, with the most difficult and complicated, to which such a treatment was totally inapplicable.93 Is the refusal of a sign on the part of Jesus reconcilable with such a manifestation of power as we have above defined,—or must even such cures as can be explained psychologically, but which in his age must have seemed miracles, be denied in order to make that refusal comprehensible? We will not here put this alternative otherwise than as a question.