THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENCE TOWARDS MIRACLES. 91 
its journey in the palm stretched out to catch it. But there 
has been no violation of the law of gravitation, the force of 
gravity has been acting on the ball at each stage of its 
adventures. An eagle beating the air with its wings and 
soaring toward the sun, is not violating the law of gravitation; 
on the contrary, the force of gravity “itself assists the rising. 
What in truth do we mean by a “law of nature”? Mill* 
defines it as a uniformity, «eit is a uniform mode of force- 
action. When a natural force acts in a uniform manner, this 
uniform way of action is its law and is called a ‘law of 
nature”; eg., “the law of gravitation” expresses a force called 
gravity which acts uniformly with an intensity varying as the 
product of the attracting masses divided by the square of the 
centre-gravity distance. In general, “natural laws” and phe- 
nomena represent several natural forces in combination with 
each other; and natural phenomena are, as we have seen, 
continually being modified by will, whether of man or of some 
other creature. Obviously then they may be modified, altered 
entirely, or created, by the Will of the Creator. 
Not only does science affirm this will-modification of nature, 
but without it, science cannot move hand or foot. For the 
processes whereby she works are voluntary processes. She 
cannot stand or walk, write down hypotheses, prepare experi- 
ments, adjust the apparatus, or make her notes of the results, 
unless she modify the force of gravity by new forces introduced 
by will. Lotze has remarked that there is in nature a real 
determinism without which we could not adjust means to ends 
with any certainty. But this determinism is not more necessary 
to science than is the power of modifying it and varying its 
phenomena through the introduction of new forces by the will 
of the scientist. 
If the scientist can produce natural modifications, so also can 
nature herself. Man is a break in its continuity. ‘Sir Charles 
Lyellf tells us that “atavism” “is an instance of discon- 
tinuity.” Referring to “the dissipation of energy,” Clerk 
Maxwellf tells us that “the duration of the universe according 
to the present order of things is . . . essentially finite 
both @ parte ante and a parte post.’ Speaking of Fourier’s 
famous theory of the conduction of heat, where the formule 
indicate a possible solution of all positive values of the time 
which continually tends to a uniform diffusion of heat, 
* Logic, Book iii, c. xiv. + Geology. t Nature, ix, p. 200. 
