MIEACLES, SCIENCE^ AND PEAYEK. 269 



Thus what bas been referred to (p. 26G of paper) as a possi- 

 •bility, conies before us now as a demonstrated scientific fact. 

 Forces, tlie laws of Avhicli science is uiiable to ascertain, are 

 intruded into the reahn of nature from outside, and exercise a 

 marked and appreciable influence upon the natural order. 

 They distinctly and largely modify it, and yet they do not in 

 the least destroy it. On the contrary, they in many ways 

 give new freshness, variety, interest^ value, to the order of 

 nature. One of these forces, life, physicists may claim to have 

 reduced to a certain extent to law. But they must admit that 

 it is a force of a different kind, and far more complex in its 

 action than any of the ordinary forces Avith which they 

 have to deal. The other force, will, defies their investigations. 

 It belongs to another branch of science, metaphysics, which, 

 as the term itself implies, is outside the range of physical 

 -science. There is but one objection to this line of argument. 

 The materialist, of course, claims that thought and will are 

 but the function of brain. But materialism is an hypothesis, 

 ^ creed, not a principle scientifically established. And it has 

 difficulties to face which it has never yet settled to the satis- 

 faction of mankind. ]\fost men who are not materialists are 

 ready now to admit, (1) that the order of nature is not invari- 

 able, (2) that it is not unaffected by influences of an order 

 ■outside or above it. 



I say most men are ready to admit this. For the force of 

 these arguments has been admitted by the highest and most 

 respected authority. Professor Huxley, one of the most 

 trenchant antagonists of the miracidous, admits in his essay 

 on Hume that Hume's well-known argument against the 

 possibihty of miracles cannot be sustained. He speaks of its 

 "naked absurdity." So completely has he abandoned the 

 old scientific position, that he, on a recent occasion, attacked 

 the Duke of Argyll and the late Canon Liddon Avith much 

 vivacity for continuing to demonstrate the unsoundness of 

 the theory which he had given up. But Professor Huxley is 

 not the only scientific opponent of revealed religion. Exploded 

 scientific objections to Christianit}^ are apt, unfortunately, 

 still to make their influence felt, not only among the half- 

 educated, but among that large class of persons who seem 

 to feel that any argument is fair so long as it may be used 

 against Christianity. Therefore we are driven to something 

 like Avearisome iteration in our assertion of the fact that 

 science has nothing Avhatever to say for or against miracles. 



The question, as Professor Huxley sees, is one of evidence 



