242 TUE TWO FLORAS, 



Place, and Playfair had all promnlgated their peculiar views 

 regarding it ; and he also was a believer. And in none of 

 llie truly distinguished men of the present day, though all 

 intimately acquainted with the anti-miracle argument, is this 

 flaw or imperfection found to exist : on the contrary, they 

 all hold, as becomes the philosophic intellect and character, 

 that whatever is possible may occur, and that whatever occurs 

 ought, on the proper evidence, to be believed. 



But though the experience argument is of no real force, 

 and, as shown by the beliefs of the higher order of minds, of 

 no real effect, when brought to bear against miracles sup- 

 ported by the proper testimony, it is of great force and effect 

 when brought to bear, not against miracles, but agaivust some 

 presumed law. It is experience, and experience only, that 

 determines what is or is not law ; and it is law, and law only, 

 that constitutes the subject-matter of ordinary experience. 

 Experience, in determining what is really miracle, does so 

 simply through its positive knowledge of law : by knowing 

 law, it knows also what would be a violation of it. And so 

 miracle cannot possibly form the subject-matter of experience 

 in the sense of Hume. For did miracle constitute the sub- 

 ject-matter of experience, the law of which the miracle wa;* 

 a violation could not : most emphatically, in this case, were 

 there " no law" there could be " no transgression ;" and so 

 experience would be unable to recognise, not only the exist- 

 ence of the law transgressed, but also of the miracle, in its 

 character as such, which was a transgression of the law. We 

 determine from experience that there exists a certain fixed 

 law, known among men as the law of gravitation ; and that, 

 in consequence of this law, if a human creature attempt stand- 

 ing upon the sea, he will sink into it ; or if he attempt rising 

 from the earth into the heavens, he will remain fixed to the 

 spot on which the attempt is made. Such, in these cases,, 

 would be the direct effects of thi? gravitation law ; and any 



