WHAT IS DARWINISM? 25 



All-pervading Will, it is at least in the highest 

 degree unphilosophical to assert the contrary, — 

 to think or to speak, as if the forces of nature 

 were either independent of, or even separate 

 from the Creator's pow*er." 1 The Duke, how- 

 ever, in the general tenor of his book, does not 

 differ from the common doctrine, except in one 

 point. He does not deny the efficiency of 

 physical causes, or resolve them all into the 

 efficiency of God ; but he teaches that God, in 

 this world at least, never acts except through 

 those causes. He applies this doctrine even to 

 miracles, which he regards as effects produced 

 by second causes of which we are ignorant, 

 that is, by some higher law of nature. The 

 Scriptures, however, teach that God is not 

 thus bound ; that He operates through second 

 causes, with them, or without them, as He sees 

 fit. It is a purely arbitrary assumption, that 

 when Christ raised the dead, healed the lepers, 

 or gave sight to the blind, any second cause 

 intervened between the effect and the effi- 

 ciency of his will. What physical law, or uni- 

 formly acting force, operated to make the axe 

 float at the command of the prophet ? or, in 



l Reign of Law- By the Duke of Argyle. Fifth edition, Lon- 

 don, 1867, p. 123. 



