SUPEENATUEAL IN NATURE. 143 



broken. Sublimate the molecular attraction of the waters of a lake, and what is to prevent 

 a man from walking on their wavy bosom ? 



We shall take one last example to illustrate the adaptability of our theory to explain, 

 without doing violence to the laws of nature, how events that are miraculous might be 

 caused. A book venerable to all by its antiquity, and sacred to very many by a belief in 

 its inspired origin, tells us how Josue, the leader after Moses of the Jewish people, fearing 

 that the sun should set ere he had completed the rout of his enemies, spoke to the Lord and 

 said: "Move not, ! Sun, toward Gabaon, nor thou, ! Moon, toward the valley of Ajalon." 

 And the sun and the moon stood still, till the people revenged themselves of their enemies.' 

 Some laugh at this as a poetic fancy ; others seek to explain it nietaiihorically, or mystically ; 

 others again, and they are the self-reputed learned, denounce it as an impudent imposition of 

 crafty sacerdotalism on an ignorant people, in a credulous age. Countless thousands, how; 

 ever, have believed, and l^elieve in its truth. They require no scientific basis for their belief - 

 the authorship of the book is suflScient guarantee for the accuracy of its statements, how 

 much soever they may appear at variance with the dicta of science. There are still others 

 who hold to the reality of the miracle, yet are sorely perplexed when the}' are reminded of 

 the innumerable complications affecting our whole planetary system, which would follow a 

 suspension of the diurnal motion of the earth. 



It is altogether outside the sphere of this paper to treat of the authority of the Scrip- 

 tures. "We take the iiarrative as it lies, and proceed to show that daylight might have been 

 prolonged for many hours over the valley of Ajalon, without disturbing the rotation of the 

 earth or causing the slightest jar in the solar system. As a matter of fact, on every evening 

 that the western sky is cloudless we see the sun for a time, after it has really sunk below the 

 horizon. As is well known, this is owing to the refraction of the rays of light in their 

 passage through the denser atmosphere of our earth. Now, in order that the sun should 

 appear, not for minutes, but tor hours after it had set, we need only suppose that the refrac- 

 tive properties of the atmosphere, over and around the valley of Ajalon, had been intensified 

 or sublimated to a certain degree. The world would move on in its course ; the spheres would 

 roll in unbroken harmony ; physical laws would continue their work with tireless activity ; 

 some of them made more perfect by intensification, would as naturally prolong the sunlight 

 for hours, as they had on former days prolonged it by minutes. The act of sublimation is 

 the miraculous element ; it is the touch of the master hand on the unseen key ; the lengthened 

 day is, relatively to its immediate cause, a natural effect. 



"We shall now consider a second point. Is a miracle susceptible of proof? ( >r, granted 

 the intrinsic possibility of a divine intervention, can human testimony generate in a reason- 

 able mind a certainty that an alleged event is due to such intervention, and is, therefore, 

 miraculous. There are not wanting men of considerable parts who maintain that miracles 

 cannot l)e iiroved; for, say they, if they really take place, they are caused by an occult force, 

 of which we, and much less the average crowd, can form no judgment. They may be, and 

 in fact so they argue, all these alleged miraculous events are only marvels, worked by one 

 skilled in the hidden forces of nature, or versed in the juggler's legerdemain. The unre- 

 flecting masses, prepared alread}- to idolize a leader who had charmed by his personal 



' Josue X, 12-13. 



