AGENCY OF THE DEITY. 359 



requires some attention on our part in order to 

 understand it with proper clearness. One reason 

 of this is, that it is a mode of operation altogether 

 different from that in which we are able to make 

 matter fulfil our designs. Man can construct 

 exquisite machines, can call in vast powers, can 

 form extensive combinations, in order to bring 

 about results which he has in view. But in all 

 this he is only taking advantage of laws of 

 nature which already exist; he is applying to 

 his use qualities which matter already possesses. 

 Nor can he by any effort do more. He can 

 establish no new law of nature which is not a 

 result of the existing ones. He can invest matter 

 with no new properties which are not modifi- 

 cations of its present attributes. His greatest 

 advances in skill and power are made when he 

 calls to his aid forces which before existed un- 

 employed, or when he discovers so much of 

 the habits of some of the elements as to be able 

 to bend them to his purpose. He navigates the 

 ocean by the assistance of the winds which he 

 cannot raise or still: and even if we suppose him 

 able to control the course of these, his yet un- 

 subjugated ministers, this could only be done by 

 studying their characters, by learning more tho- 

 roughly the laws of air and heat and moisture. 

 He cannot give the minutest portion of the at- 

 mosphere new relations, a new course of expan- 

 sion, new laws of motion. But the Divine opera- 



