346 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



when we do not intend it. She does assert, for example, 

 that without a disturbance of natural law, quite as serious 

 as the stoppage of an eclipse, or the rolling of the river 

 Niagara up the Falls, no act of humiliation, individual or 

 national, could call one shower from heaven, or deflect 

 toward us a single beam of the sun. 



Those, therefore, who believe that the miraculous is still 

 active in nature, may, with perfect consistency, join in 

 our periodic prayers for fair weather and for ruin: while 

 those who hold that the age of miracles is past, will, if 

 they be consistent, refuse to join in these petitions. And 

 these latter, if they wish to fall back upon such a justifi- 

 cation, may fairly urge that the latest conclusions of science 

 are in perfect accordance with the doctrine of the Master 

 himself, which manifestly was that the distribution of 

 natural phenomena is not affected by moral or religious 

 causes. "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on 

 the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust/' 

 Granting " the power of Free Will in man," so strongly 

 claimed by Professor Mansel in his admirable defense of 

 the belief in miracles, and assuming the efficacy of free 

 prayer to produce changes in external nature, it necessarily 

 follows that natural laws are more or less at the mercy of 

 man's volition, and no conclusion founded on the assumed 

 permanence of those laws would be worthy of confi- 

 dence. 



It is a wholesome sign for England that she numbers 

 among her clergy men wise enough to understand all this, 

 and courageous enough to act up to their knowledge. Such 

 men do service to public character, by encouraging a manly 

 and intelligent conflict with the real causes of disease and 

 scarcity, instead of a delusive reliance on supernatural aid. 

 But they have also a value beyond this local and temporary 

 one. They prepare the public mind for changes, which 

 though inevitable, could hardly, without such preparation, 

 be wrought without violence. Iron is strong; still, water 

 in crystallizing will shiver an iron envelope, and the more 

 unyielding the metal is, the worse for its safety. There 

 are in the world men who would encompass philosophic 

 speculation by a rigid envelope, hoping thereby to restrain 

 it, hut in reality giving it explosive force. In England, 

 thanks to men of the stamp to which I have alluded, scope 

 is gradually given to thought f<5r changes of aggregation, 



