RUPKRNATUEAL IX NATURE. ISQ 



physical science than prevails at present, and not to a misconception of the miracle itself as 

 an historic event. In our definition we have called a miracle an outcome of the intervention 

 of the divine power in the order of created things. This intervention can take place without 

 violence being done to any force, and without destroying, suspending or changing any law. 

 The act of the Creator consists in intensifying, or sublimating, natural forces ; thus intensified 

 or sublimated, they produce efi:ects proportionate to their state, in perfect keeping with, 

 though far beyond and above those produced before their sublimation. This sublimation is 

 the supernatural and miraculous part, the physical effect which follows constitutes the 

 clothes of the miracle. 



That forces can be intensified and sublimated without interfering with nature's laws will 

 not be seriously questioned. It is well known that the attractive force of a magnet is inten- 

 sified whilst a current of electricity passes round it. Again, a thousand cubic feet of air 

 compressed into a cylinder with a capacity of one cube, has its expansive force enormously 

 increased ; and the genial life-giving rays of the sun, when focussed by a powerful lens, may 

 be converted into a means of destruction and devastation. In none of these instances have 

 natural laws been abrogated or suspended ; forces have either been intensified in themselves, 

 as in the case of the magnet, or they have been intensified by composition ; the effect pro- 

 duced being always eminently in keeping with their nature. 



Now let us carry this sublimation of forces beyond the merely mechanical ; let us venture 

 to go behind the phenomena of our environment, and reach with our intelligence the causes 

 which are veiled from human sight. In doing this we part company with the physicist and 

 travel under the guidance of the metaphysician. We are surrounded by the evidence of 

 action ; we are in perpetual contact with the results of forces. Whether we gaze placidly at 

 the wa\àng trees or nodding ears of whitening corn, or the unfolding petals of beauteous 

 flowers, whilst the zephyr's breath comes as a refreshing dew to our uncovered brow, and 

 the warm beams of an afternoon sun dance playfully around our arbour, and the grateful 

 sound of plashing brooks rejoices the ear ; or whether we delve in the yielding soil or blast 

 the stratified rocks to explore their secrets, or turn our wondering gaze heavenward when 

 the azure fields of space are strown with silvery planets cycling on their endless way, we are 

 confronted with, are in contact with, and form a part of, the diversified resultants of force, 

 action, motion. We readily perceive these resultants are not permanent ; they bear the word 

 transitory legibly stamped on their eveiy feature. Hence we conclude the contingent nature 

 of their lieing, and consecpiently, since they do not exist of or through any necessity of their 

 essence, they have been produced by some pre-existing cause. Here the votary of physical 

 science assents, saying they are the outcome of the laws of nature ever at work. Beyond 

 this point very many refuse to go ; even asserting that it is impossible for man in his present 

 state to penetrate any further. If metaphysicians had no other claim to gratitude, they 

 would merit it in an unstinted degree for having vindicated the power and dignity of the 

 human intellect by showing how it can transcend these limits, and cast a truth revealing ray 

 beyond the shadow of the visible. 



These laws of nature are wonderful and indefatigable workers ; yet we see, as in the 

 case of the moon, that they may wear themselves out. We know that on our earth they 

 are slowly but surely doing the same. Hence they, too, are only contingent, not necessary 

 forces, as their action shall certainly have an end, as it surely had a beginning. At some 

 period then, in the distant past — and you may put it distant as many billions of years as 



