284 THE REV. CHANCELLOR LIAS, M.A., ON 



fringe ? " Why " lowest," and " most mechanical " ? What 

 should lead us to suppose that the mechanics of earth, in this 

 sense, are in any real degree inferior to the mechanics of the 

 unseen universe ? Rather, sui'ely, we arrive at the " grand con- 

 ception of an universal cosmos " by refusing to see any boundary 

 between the natural and the supernatural, except what the mere 

 ignorance of man causes him to imagine. Is not, in fact, the real 

 drift of Mr. Lias' arguments this? — that, as the etherial side of 

 the universe, and with it the intellectual and moral, is better 

 understood by science, much that has been regarded as super- 

 natural (or, as perhaps some scientists in their own sense of the 

 word ought to express it, unnatural) will be brought into the 

 sphere of the evidently natural ; nature, as we know it at present, 

 being only part of an universal whole, each part of which is 

 related to, and is in harmony with, every other part, as the 

 members of the body are with each other. 



The Rev. Canon S. Gaeratt, M.A., writes : — 



For the most part, I greatly admire Mr. Lias's paper. The 

 passage, including the words quoted from Sir John Herschell on 

 the fourth page, contains in itself the whole thought needed to 

 answer the objection to miracles from the uniform action of laws of 

 force. If force resolves itself into will, such uniformity cannot be 

 necessary, however apparently universal. And the so-called laws 

 of Nature are broken by our own will whenever we lift a weight. 

 A miracle is the observed exertion of a will acting in a sphere 

 above our own. 



Supernatural is, as used in this paper, the right word to use, 

 because it does not follow necessarily that the will which interferes 

 with the usual course of events is Divine or good. If it effects what 

 we cannot conceive ourselves effectory, it must be a will belonging 

 to an order of being above our own. But if all force is " the effect 

 of consciousness or will," every exertion of force outside man's 

 powers must be the effect of a will outside man's will ; and if that 

 will produces an unknown phenomenon, there is a miracle. 



I do not see that Mr. Herbert Spencer's views as to the trans- 

 scendental origin of the phenomena of space and time do really bear 

 on the question. There is, to my mind, a confusion in them 

 between the impossibility of conceiving what is a Divine attribute 

 — timelessness, with the impossibility of explaining what is a 

 primary human conception — time. Herbert Spencer considers 



