THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENCE TOWARDS MIRACLES. 101 
the definition of miracles given early in this Essay. Among 
these events are creation ot this world of matter, creation of 
living organisms, and the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
That these things are miracles (according to our definition) will 
be admitted by all scientists, even by evolutionists, except 
those who assert that matter is eternal, and even they must 
perforce admit the last two examples. It is, however, pretty 
evident that if the material atom is, as has been pointed out 
by Herschel and Clerk Maxwell, “a manufactured article,’ and 
if matter’s changes and its modifications are not self-originated, 
science is certain that it has been created. Science also asserts 
that the great doctrine of biogenesis put forward by Redi “is 
victorious all along the line,”* and that life upon this earth 
must have had a beginning. And, with regard to the character 
of Christ, science recognizes that (to quote the words of Renan’s 
famous admission) “it would require a Jesus to invent a Jesus.” 
Adopting the definitions at which we arrived on pp. 3 and 4 
of science and miracle respectively as “the investigation and 
study of things and phenomena in nature, with a view to their 
explanation and correlation in the great order of the universe,” 
and “an exceptional marvel in nature, not explicable by natural 
causes, and therefore directly attributable to a supernatural 
cause, *t we have been led, by a scientific investigation into 
Miracles in general, to give the following answers to the 
questions with which we set out, namely :—(a) Are miracles 
possible? Yes, they are. (b) Are miracles probable? They are 
not improbable, and may or may not be probable. Any 
particular case of alleged miracle should be examined specially 
on its own merits, as tot (1) the nature of the phenomenon, 
(2) the conditions under which it is alleged to have occurred, 
(3) the character of the testimony to its occurrence. (¢) Have 
miracles actually occurred ? Yes, they have. 
Hl. Lhe bible miracles—That science affirms their possi- 
bility we have seen already, since she aftirms that of miracles 
generally. Our investigation will therefore concern itself with 
their probability @ priori, and their actual occurrence. 
(a) Were the Bible miracles probable? (1) Might they be 
expected from what we know of their nature? They were not 
purposeless manifestations of mere power, but were always 
ancillary to Divine teaching, helping men to recover that 
knowledge of God which through sin they had lost, the 
* Huxley. + See, however, footnote to p, 83. t See p. 99. 
