MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL. 243 



presumed law antagonistic in its character could not be other 

 than a law contrary to that invariable experience by which 

 the existence of the real law in the case is determined. But 

 certain it is, — for the evidence regarding the facts cannot be 

 resisted, and by the greater minds has not been resisted, — 

 that a man did once walk upon the sea without sinking into 

 it, and did once ascend from the earth into the sky ; and 

 these miracles ought not to be tested — and by earnest inquir- 

 ers after truth really never have been tested — by an experi- 

 ence of the uniformity of the law of which they were professed 

 transgressions, seeing it was essentially and obviously neces- 

 sary that, in order to serve the great moral purpose which 

 God intended by them, the law which they violated should 

 have been a uniform law, and that they should have been palp- 

 able violations of it But while the experience argument 

 is thus of no value when directed against well-attested miracle, 

 it is, as I have said, all-potent when directed against presumed 

 law. Of law we know nothing, I repeat, except when ex- 

 perience tells us. A miracle contrary to experience in the 

 sense of Hume is simply a miracle ; a presumed law contrary 

 to experience is no law at all. For it is from experience, 

 and experience only, that we know anything of natural law. 

 The argument of Hume and La Place is perfect, as such, 

 when directed against the development visions of the Ija- 

 marckian. 



