ORDINARY MEETING.* 



Sir G. G. Stokes, Bart., in the Chair. 



The following pajDer was read by tlie Author :— 



MIRACLES, SCIENCE, AND PRAYER. By the Rev. 

 J. J. Lias, M.A., Chancellor of Llanclaff Cathedral, 

 Rector of East Bergholt, Colchester. 



I REJOICE to find myself once more addressing the 

 Institute, after an interval of some years. If I have 

 chosen an altogether diiferent subject to those •which I have 

 treated on former occasions, I may at least claim that it has 

 received from me some attention. I published a small 

 volume on the subject of miracles in 1883. I fear I can at 

 present add but little to what I have there said, but if I 

 •should seem to repeat myself on this occasion, I can at least 

 claim that when I then wrote, I was Avorking on new lines. 

 At that time the question of miracles had hardly, so far as I 

 knew, been approached from a scientific standpoint, yet the 

 scientific was the side from Avhich the most formidable 

 objections proceeded. The discoveries of the last two 

 hundred years in the department of physical science had 

 largely extended the domain of law in relation to phenomena. 

 Therefore the conception of miracle as a violation or suspen- 

 sion of the laws of nature had become discredited. It had 

 become necessar}^ to restate the argument for miracles in a 

 form not incompatible with the progress of science. It should 



* The preliminaries of the meeting have been published, but the 

 final arrangement of the paper and discussion has only now (1897) been 

 jjossible. — Ed. 



