MIBACLES, SCIENCE, AND PRAYER. 2~3 



them, and assign to them their origin. Let science do so. If 

 it can be proved that they are reducible to purely physical 

 laws, by all means let ns know what those laws are. Let ns 

 begin, as with other physical laws, to assume their truth, and 

 to calculate results from them as Ave do in the case of the 

 heavenly bodies. Has this been done? Can it be done? 

 The answer is, Certainly not. Therefore we are not only 

 unable to disprove the existence of supernatural forces 

 intruding into the natural world, and profoundly modifying, 

 without in the least destroyiiio;-, the natural order, but we find, 

 so far as our present knowledge goes, that such forces are 

 actually at work among us. The utmost the opponents of 

 miracles can say is that when science has sufficiently advanced, 

 these facts, which at present defy analysis and classification, 

 will be ultimately found to be of the same character as the 

 rest. Until this is done, however, the presumption lies the 

 other way. 



From this point of view it appears that the miraculous, 

 regarded as the interference of supernatural* with natural 

 forces is not only not a deviation from the ordinary course of 

 things, but hi truth, so far as our present knowledge can 

 guide us, forms part of it. This argument may be further 

 extended by a reference to the course of nature itself. As 

 Bishop Butler has said,t there was no course of nature at 

 the beginning of the world. Consequently, even if we 

 admit the eternity of matter, we shall still be forced to 

 confess that the first introduction of organic life into the 

 Avorld was an interposition from without, or in other words 

 was the result of the action of other than natural forces. 

 The same mt^y be said of the origin of species. In the last 

 paper read before this Institute, it was shown that the 

 theory of natural selection, the struggle for existence, and the 

 survival of the fittest, does not satisfactorily account for the 

 evolution of vegetable and animal life. Moreover, it has been 

 frequently observed that no evidence has as yet been dis- 



* If the expression " supernatural force " be thought to involve too 

 large an a!::sum|ition, it should be borne in mind that no more is meant 

 than this — a force outside tlie natural order, yet exerting power over it. 

 The word natural in the present paper is regarded as referring to inorganic 

 matter— aa including all visible phenomena whose laws are capable of 

 being ascertained. Without definitions argument is inter mil. able. 

 Spinoza, for instance, defines the natural order asrelatiao-, not only to the 

 visible universe, but to an infinity of things beyond. It is obvious that 

 on such a ground miracle woiild simply be a part of the course of nature. 



t Analogy, Part II, chap. ii. 



T 2 



