218 EEV. H. C. M. WATSON 



A Miracle in relation to Testimony — a case of diverse, but not 

 contradictory, Testimony. 



But this is by no means the most powerful way of putting 

 the case of miracles in relation to testimony. I should prefer 

 to put it as a case of diverse, but not contradictory, testimony. 



The laws of nature, to which miraculous operations are 

 here opposed, ai'e known to us mainly by testimony ; and 

 " the grand truth of the universal order and constancy of 

 natural causes/' rests upon the testimony of witnesses long 

 since dead. The operations of nature, coming under our 

 own personal observation, are but a fraction of the whole; 

 nor would our own observation alone convince us of *'the 

 grand truth of the universal order, and constancy of natural 

 causes." 



Men in past ages observed the operations of nature; they 

 saw the sun rise and set; the water of the ocean ebb and 

 flow ; men born and die ; and they expressed the facts they 

 observed in general language, and so formulated laws. A 

 law of nature, it must be remembered, is not the expression 

 of a command, but the expression, in general terms, of a 

 series of observations. 



Dr. W. B. Carpenter, in his Principles of Mental Philosophy 

 (pp. 692-3), says :— 



'' It must be clearly understood (that) science is nothing 

 else than man's intellectual representation of the jDheno- 

 mena of nature, and his conception of the order of the 

 universe. That conception is formulated in what we term 

 the laws of nature, which, in their primary sense, are 

 simply the expression of phenomenal itniformities , having no 

 coercive power whatever. To speak of such phenomenal laws 

 as governing phenomena is altogether unscientific ; such laws 

 being nothing else than comprehensive expressions of aggre- 

 gates of particular facts.'' 



Mill says {Logic, book iii., chapter iv.) : — 



" Generalisation is either a law of nature, or a result of laws 

 of natui'e. The expression ' laws of nature,' means nothing 

 else but the uniformities which exist among natural phenomena 

 (or, in other words, the results of induction), when reduced 

 to their simplest expression." 



It is evident, then, that our knowledge of a law of nature 

 which is described as '' the grand truth of the universal order 

 and constancy of natural causes," is mainly the result of past 

 observation, which is known to us by testimony. 



Our own personal observation would carry us but a little 



