Nature and the Supernatural. 71 



II. 



These postulates beiag premised, I would at once remark that 

 it may be, indeed, possible for the believer in a Creator and 

 Ruler of the world to suppose his immediate interference in the 

 empirical order of the phenomena, his special operation without 

 the empirical antecedents which we ordinarily see in nature. I 

 have nothing to do with that explanation of what are called 

 "miracles." I only remark that the question is then altogether 

 removed from the sphere of science, and no reconciliation, I 

 think, is to be sought for. As a thoughtful scientist once said to 

 me, "I keep my faith in one pocket, my science in another, for I 

 find it necessary to keep them apart." It seems to me strange that 

 truths should be in such an awkward position, especially if any 

 one have reason to believe that empirical laws are the operation 

 of an unseen Ruler of the universe teaching us the invisible 

 things which we could not otherwise comprehend. 



But, dismissing the question as not before us, I fail to find in 

 any of the facts, commonly received as true, any need of such a 

 divorce from science. It is now generally admitted, and has been 

 admitted, by careful thinkers in past ages also, that nothing occurs 

 contrary to the order of nature. I may refer to former believers in 

 what are called " miracles," because they would be likely to deny 

 it if any philosophers did. But Augustine' and Thomas Aquinas'" 

 argue that nothing can happen contrary to the 'order of nature ; 

 for, they say, nature is the product of an unseen Being who can 

 not contradict himself. So I suppose we may hold this as practi- 

 cally undisputed. But the proposition contains a term which 

 calls for definition. 



In common acceptation " nature " seems to signify : 



(1) The sensible phenomena which we group under the name 

 of matter. 



quent. I grant, however, that we cannot conceive of contradiction between 

 these two, sc, the freedom of spirit and the necessily of nature, or of any 

 violation of empirical laws. 1 cannot stop to discuss this inference from my 

 sixth postulate ; tut we must have some common ground to stand on and to 

 start from ; I ask for this. 



1 S. Aug. contra Faust., XXVI, 3 ; XXIX, 2. 



2 Sum. Theol., I, 105-6. 



