134 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



would be the mysterious and inexplicable process of 

 creation from nothing. It would be the accomplish- 

 ment of the feat which Kant himself declared impossible 

 within the field of Nature, and which accordingly he can 

 represent as possible only by shutting the ego out of 

 phenomenal nature as he has done. 



If we grant free-will, we must be prepared for further 

 consequences. We shall have once more the return of 

 the miracle, everywhere else expelled from the field of 

 science and history : and this time all the more dangerous 

 if the power of working it be lodged within the man's 

 breast to be daily exercised. Let us but once grant this 

 mysterious self endowed with this power of free volition, 

 and the miracle becomes everywhere else credible, as 

 required by theological or metaphysical needs. For 

 what is a miracle but the interruption of the regularity 

 of natural sequence by the sudden irruption and inter- 

 ference of a foreign and superior power ? And what is 

 the exercise of a free-will but the like arbitrary appear- 

 ance and interference of a foreign power in the circle of 

 natural phenomenal motives for the purpose of breaking 

 the natural sequence of motive and volition ? It is not 

 the appearance of a new motive, but of a power different 

 in kind, a thing per se, of whose existence, moreover, we 

 have no evidence. Indeed, if we admit this miracle to 

 be performed within ourselves and by ourselves, we are 

 only obstinate as well as illogical in affirming its im- 

 possibility in other cases where it seems more urgently 

 called for. 



But Science cannot without self-destruction allow 

 either the miracle in general or the special one of creation 

 ex nihilo ; and least of all can she allow that both take 

 place within the theatre of man's breast in the produc- 

 tion of something from nothing, as in the supposed 



