270 THE EEV. CHANCELLOR LIAS^ M.A.^ ON 



alone. And in this lie is but a follower of one more celebrated 

 than himself. Kant has also seen that no such assumption as 

 that of the impossibility of miracles can reasonably be made. 

 Into the evidence I do not propose, on the present occasion, to 

 enter. The question of evidence, however, is not outside the 

 province of the Institute. It falls within the domain of his- 

 torical science, and the historical evidence for the miraculous is 

 a question of the luost interesting character, Avhich I trust may 

 one day be discussed here.* 



What I desire to do this evening, is to give a short sketch 

 of the argument for the existence of what is called the 

 supernatural, but which might with greater propriety be 

 called the spiritual. Some years ago a treatise appeared 

 which attracted much attention, called " Natural Law in the 

 Spiritual World." It has always seemed to me that the 

 principle thus enunciated should have been reversed. The 

 philosophic inquirer might with advantage devote himself to 

 the evidence for the working of spiritual law in the natural 

 world. That there are such spiritual forces at work, 

 Mr. Myersf claims to have demonstrated as a result of" 

 psychical research. Such a statement as his, coming as it 

 does from one who is not a professed believer in Christianity, 

 is worthy of the utmost attention. But we need not wander in 

 the dubious paths of telepathy in order to demonstrate the 

 existence of supernatural or spiritual forces. They meet us 

 at every step. First of all we are everywhere confronted 

 with two incontestable and yet most mysterious facts, 

 closely related to one another, yet standing apart from all 

 properly natural phenomena, the existence of will, and the 

 existence of evil. These are facts, not of the natural, but of 

 tlie supernatural or spiritual order. Yet their effects are 

 most widely traceable on the physical world. Take the first, 

 leaving out of consideration for the present the will of every 

 bei]ig higher than man. Will is clearly an extra-natural 

 force. That is to say, it belongs to an order the laws of" 

 which cannot be exactly ascertained, and its exercise is con- 

 ditional on a faculty which is incontrovertibly extra-natural, 

 except on materialistic principles, namely, the exercise of the 

 reason. For that a species of reason conditions the action 

 even of the brute creation can hardly be denied, though in 

 their case it is of course of a very rudimentary kind. But 

 no one would deny that the lower animals possess the powei" 



See Vol. xxvii., p. 267. t Nineteenth Century for April, 1891. 



