116 PROF. H. LANGHORNE ORCHARD, M.A., B.SC., ON 
correlation in the great order of the universe,” is too broad. Science 
does not attempt to explain (as fruitlessly attempted by philosophy 
and metaphysics) but is content to state the co-relation of 
phenomena, His definition of a miracle as “ An exceptional marvel 
in nature not explicable by natural causes” may be accepted, but 
the inference ‘‘and therefore directly attributable to a supernatural 
cause,” science will not allow, because she hopes with a larger 
knowledge to bring many phenomena that appear exceptional 
into co-ordination with the natural order of phenomena. I fail to 
understand why earthquakes, the burning of stars, and the odd 
(sic) behaviour of radium can be described as “interrupting the 
continuity of nature,” no such suggestion has ever been made to 
my knowledge by any scientist. His attempts to demonstrate that 
“the same forces sometimes act in the most opposite way” by 
stating that ‘‘a charge of electricity sometimes attracts, sometimes 
repels,” is a strange one; surely he is aware that the one word is 
employed for two contrary manifestations differentiated as positive 
and negative. The statements that “ Compared with Bible miracles 
the spurious miracles which have from time to time attempted to 
delude mankind, exhibit a difference of character so great as best 
to be described as contrast,” and again, “ Nor can the belief in the 
Christian miracles be accounted for by what is termed the 
Mythopoetic theory,” are at variance with the honoured opinions 
of many of our most eminent liberal scholars, as exemplified below. 
J. S. Mill.—“ Stories of miracles only grow up among the 
ignorant. Modern Roman Catholic miracles often rest upon an 
amount of testimony greatly surpassing that for the early miracles. 
Miracles have no claim whatever to the character of historical 
facts.” 
Matthew Arnold.—“ The human mind is now losing its reliance on 
miracles, as its experience widens it gets acquainted with the 
natural history of miracles, and sees how they arise. The 
comparative history of all miracles admitted Bible miracles are 
doomed.” 
Professor Jowett— Every one who affirms the truth of miracles 
does in fact assert the truth of his own miracles, as the one exception 
to all the rest. But how impossible is this, For he asks you to 
believe the most improbable of all things, and does at the same 
time acknowledge a principle of self-illusion in human nature quite 
