AS TO THE EELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND FAITH. 227 



enon or dream. It is hard for the investis^ator who does 

 not believe in the existence of God to beheve in the real 

 existence of anything, even of his own personality. 



12. It is a mistake to suppciso, that a miracle should ever 

 be capable of scientific explanation. Whatever is so explain- 

 able is not mivacnlons ; and the iconoclastic service of science 

 has been rendered in thns exposing mediajval and modern 

 miracle-mongering. The a priori improbability of the miracles 

 of scripture as supernatural manifestations is removed by the 

 extraordinary character of the redemption to which they were 

 incidental. Each of them has a supernatural part grafted on 

 to a natural basis. The basis is of course amenable to scien- 

 tific exposition ; and some people fancy that wJien they have 

 found this, they have " naturalized" the whole miracle. 



13. It is an error to suppose that we can explain how the 

 Divine Being operates upon nature. Some people argue 

 that such operation Avould necessitate the injection of a 

 new force ab extra. Malebranche's Occasional Causes, Leib- 

 nitz's Pre-estahlislied Harmony, and Edwards' doctrine of Con- 

 cursus, and the illustration of miracles by a supposed extra- 

 wheel in a Babbage calculating machine, are attempts to 

 explain what from its nature must be always inscrutable. 

 We cannot bridge over the gap between the genius of an 

 inventor and the resulting machine ; or even between our 

 OAvn mind and the act of our hand. Yet Ave never suggest 

 that mind has no control OA^er body. If Ave could give a 

 physical explanation of their relations, we should either 

 materialize mind or spiritualize body. Thought may be 

 regarded as the spiritual aspect of matter, but even this 

 we are unable to prove. In a similar Avay, Avhosoever 

 detects the divine contact Avith matter, as by reaching the 

 Deity from a material starting point, Avill reduce Him to 

 membership of the material universe, as surely as the sun 

 and the star Sirius haA^e been brought into our system. 

 x\ny objection to belief in Providence, even in a particular 

 Providence, because of our inability to comprehend its 

 mode, Avould a fortiori render it impossible for our own 

 mind to act on our environment. It Avould on such princi- 

 ples be as difficult for God even to knoAv Avliat is occurring 

 in His Avorld, as it is to direct it. as His knoAAdedge may be 

 vegarded as a measure of reaction of the um>erse upon 

 -His OAAai Being. Nor can our argument be evaded by a 

 materialistic theory of mind itself; for Avhatever be its 

 relation to its material iuA^estment, Ave must assume that the 



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