74 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



tific or unphilosophic to assume the possibility of his doing, on a 

 limitless scale, what we do on the smallest, without altering, any 

 more than we do, one law, force, property, or attribute which, on 

 that theory, has been bis own perpetual working from the begin- 

 ning of the world. 



(4) Lastl}^, the supernatural, as a notion of our minds, might 

 mean that which I, for my part, would be inclined to regard as a 

 purely negative notion, and no positive thought at all, viz. : what 

 follows no law of material nature, bat is an immediate operation 

 of a supreme being, without material antecedents or any medium 

 whatsoever. This is what Spinoza discussed as an interruption 

 of the order of nature, and tried to show to be impossible. 



Returning to the formally supernatural, I -may observe that it 

 finds its rational harmony and unity with the natural ; first, be- 

 cause, as stated, the forces, attributes or properties of things re- 

 main unchanged ; secondly, because the adaptations, ends and 

 moral relations of things are similar. I mean that man, by his 

 free spirit, does similar things to what nature does. Whether 

 this remark apply to neo-platonist wonders of old, and spiritualist 

 wonders of recent days, I will not inquire. But I remember that 

 one v>?ho, as Sir William Hamilton says, would have been the 

 greatest of philosophers had he not been greatest in another 

 sphere, notices that the historical wonders recorded in the chris- 

 tian sacred books are strictly analogous to those which are always 

 produced.^ And this remark will illustrate my meaning to any 

 one who admits adaptations, end^, and moral relations as existing 

 in the present order of nature. 



Consider, e. g., an earthquake or the Chicago fire. The phe- 

 nomenal sequence can be investigated according to known laws. 

 It proves to be a chain of a number of links practically infinite. 

 The intelligible or moral end, if such exist, does not come under 

 the province of phenomenal induction. If it esist, it may be 

 sought for, but by the aid of suitable principles, not by scientific 

 induction. 



A man may know in himself, in his own conscious life, moral 



' S. Aug. de Trio, III. 5. 



