THE INVESTIGATION OF NATURE AND MIRACLE. 13 



tenthums,") and see how he defends the reaUty of mira- 

 cles. " Miracles," he says, " are not even miracles. They 

 do not even repeal the laws of nature; they merely re- 

 lease single occurrences from the dominion of those laws, 

 and place them under the law of a higher will and a 

 higher power. Of this we have many analogies in lower 

 spheres. If my arm hurls a stone into the air, this is 

 contrary to the nature of the stone, and is not an effect 

 of the law of gravitation, but the interposition of a 

 higher power and a higher will, producing effects 

 which are not the effects of the inferior powers. These 

 powers and these laws are not hereby repealed, but still 

 subsist." 



Let us pause a moment. To say that it is contrary 

 to the nature of the stone that gravity should be appar- 

 ently overpowered for a few moments by muscular agen- 

 cy, is physically absurd. The stone remains the same 

 weight, its nature is wholly the same, even while in 

 the motion of projection; and it is utterly unjustifia- 

 ble and sophistical to prate about muscular force as a 

 higher power opposed to gravity. If the stone 

 weighs two hundredweight, where is the higher power 

 then? 



But when the champion of supernaturalism has mis- 

 led and prepared his hearers by his worthless analogy, 

 he proceeds : " Thus in the miracle, a higher causaljty 

 interposes, and evokes an effect which is not the effect 

 of the concatenation of those lower causalities, and yet 

 subsequently submits to these concatenations. But this 

 higher causality ultimately coincides with the highest 

 moral objects of existence. To serve them is nature's 

 highest and most glorious pursuit. Therefore if miracle 



