NATURAL LAW A^'D MIRACLE. 



45 



occurrence in Nature to conform to it. It is, there- 

 fore, the most general and comprehensive Law of 

 Nature known to us. 



(2) It carries with it the validity of all otlier hypotheses 



of Natural Science ; which stand or fall with it. 



(3) It provides us with the only possible means of foresight 



into those things which lie beyond that which is 

 directly present to our conceptions of sense or 

 memory. 



(4) It is the essential antecedent to all human thought and 



action. 



On the other hand the Causal principle shares the weak- 

 ness of every other hypothesis : it demands proof from every 

 new experience and confronts therefore — if considered with 

 critical accuracy — the danger of being, if not reversed, yet 

 submitted to limitations in its validity by some completely new 

 experience. A present system of Natural Law can therefore — 

 strictly speaking — never pledge the past or future. The only 

 real proof for these, as for all other hypotheses in Natural Science, 

 lies along the line of constantly repeated experience. 



By this we have established the fact that the Causal principle 

 is the most general and comprehensive of natural laws ; that it 

 is therefore most clearly itself a Law of Nature. 



When opponents use the Causal principle as a weapon against 

 the facts of early Christianity, they declare themselves to be 

 opposed to miracles on the ground of an ostensibly unalterable 

 Law of Nature. 



Thus the first objection leads to the second, and the two can 

 be disposed of at once. 



Miracles are impossible since they contradict the uncJiangcable 

 Laius of Nature as known to its. 



The modern mind is nowhere so proudly self-conscious of its 

 mental possessions as in regard to this conception of " Natural 

 Law." This conception has pressed itself into the centre of all 

 scientific thought in a manner of which the ancient and mediaeval 

 mind knew nothing. 



Nor for the purpose of exact research is the argument of 

 " Natural Law " again a new philosophic dogma established for 

 all time. Our whole acquaintance with the Laws of Nature 

 has its source rather, so far as their purport and argument is 

 concerned, simply and solely in a scientific observation of 

 actitalities. The Laws of Nature are really nothing more than 



