IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 251 



all the common operations of the physical world were going 

 on in their usual simplicity^ obeying that order which we still 

 see governing them ; while the supposed extraordinary causes 

 were in requisition for the development of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. There surely hence arises a strong pre- 

 sumption against any such causes. It becomes much more 

 likely that the latter phenomena were evolved in the manner 

 of law also, and that we only dream of extraordinary causes 

 here, as men once dreamt of a special action of Deity in 

 every change of wind, and the results of each season, merely 

 because they did not know the laws by which the events in 

 question were evolved." 



How, let us suppose, would David Hume, — ^the greatest 

 thinker of which infidelity can boast, — ^have greeted the auxi- 

 liary who could have brought him such an argument as a 

 contribution to the cause % " Your objection, so far as you 

 have stated it," the philosopher might have said, " amounts 

 simply to this : — Creation by direct act is a miracle ; whereas 

 all that exists is propagated and maintained by natural law. 

 Natural laws, — to vary the illustration, — were in full opera- 

 tion at the period when the Author of the Christian religion 

 was, it is said, engaged in working his miracles. When, ac- 

 cording to our opponents, he walked upon the surface of the 

 sea, Peter, through the operation of the natural law of gravi- 

 tation, was sinking into it ; when he withered by a word the 

 barren fig-tree, there were other trees on the Mount thriving, 

 in conformity with the vegetative laws, under the infiuence 

 of sun and shower ; when he raised the dead Lazarus, there 

 were corpses in the neighbouring tombs passing, through the 

 natural putrefactive fermentation, into a state of utter decom- 

 position. In fine, at the time when he was engaged, as Reid 

 and Campbell believe, in working miracles in violation of 

 law, the laws of which these were a violation actually existed, 

 and were everj^where actively operative : or, to employ your 



