THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENCE TOWARDS MIRACLES. 89 
however, many such occurrences which are recognized by 
science as established facts. Earthquakes, the Noachian 
Deluge, the burning up of stars, the odd behaviour of radium, 
etc., come under this category. So far, then, there is no 
impossibility in the occurrence of a miracle. But is any 
existent cause adequate to its production ? Our definition finds 
the adequate cause in the supernatural, and there only. If the 
supernatural exist, miracles are possible; if the supernatural 
do not exist, miracles are impossible. Occurrences may take 
place which look like miracles, but they are not really miracles. 
They are either impostures, or merely natural marvels. To 
atheism Divine miracles are, in the nature of the case, impos- 
sible ; the atheist must necessarily reject them, for every effect, 
and therefore every miraculous effect, requires for its pr oduction 
an adequate cause, and the adequate cause in this case the atheist 
denies. But atheism and science are two very different things. 
Science (as we have seen) affirms the existence of the 
supernatural, and therefore of a cause adequate to the produc- 
tion of miracles. She tells us that such occurrences are 
(intrinsically) possible. “If,” says our late President, Sir 
George Stokes,* “ we think of the laws of nature as self-existent 
and uncaused, then we cannot admit any deviation from them. 
But if we think of them as designed by a Supreme Will, 
then we must allow the possibility of their being on some 
particular occasion suspended.” 
And he goes on to say that it is not necessary, “in order that 
some result out of the ordinary course of nature should be 
brought about, that they should even be suspended ; it may be 
that some different law is brought into action whereby the 
result in question is brought about without any suspension 
whatsoever of the laws by which the ordinary course of nature 
isregulated.” According to J. S. Mill,t “« An impossibility is that, 
the truth of which would conflict with a complete induction, 
that is, with the most conclusive evidence which we possess of 
universal truth.” But a “complete” induction must obviously 
take account of and include the alleged miraculous occurrence 
itself. Mull points out} that in the case of an alleged miracle, 
the usual effect of a natural law is defeated “in consequence of 
a counteracting cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act 
* Gifford Lectures, 1891, pp. 23, 24. 
+ System of Logie, vols ui, 7th Edition, p. 169. 
{ Lbed., p. 164. 
G 2 
