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discovery of Professor Adams was made by calculations. His work was a 
great work of pure mathematics and calculation, and no one could deny, 
after such an example, that there was a great utility in the study of mathe- 
matical science independently of the observation of phenomena. The 
question was, whether it is not better first to stoTe the mind with a know- 
ledge of pure science and then proceed to the observation of phenomena, 
rather than to begin with the observation of phenomena and then proceed 
to derive our laws and calculations. It would, he thought, be impossible to 
study phenomena with any advantage, without a considerable acquaintance 
with pure mathematics to begin with. A person who wished to make calcula- 
tions or observations in Astronomy must be acquainted with many common 
mathematical rules quite independent of observation ; rules, he thought, 
must be learnt before observation could be productive of any good. No 
doubt boys were often to be found rushing to observe phenomena, but 
they did it in an oflhand and superficial manner through lack of the 
necessary preliminary knowledge, and there they stopped, for they were 
just in the position of a person who attempted to learn a language with- 
out studying its grammar. He wished to know how far this applied 
to Science, and whether there was not some danger in pressing the young 
mind too quickly into the field of phenomenal observations. 
Re\. 1. M. Gorman. — M it h regard to the question of miracles, Professor 
Nicholson had attached an important note to one part of his paper. He 
said : — 
No being, even though his powers should extend to what is ordinarily 
called ‘ Omnipotence,’ can be conceived of as endowed with the power of 
acting against the laws and constitution of his own nature. The laws of 
.Divine action must, therefore, be invariable, as grounded in the nature of a 
.Being in whom there is ‘ no variableness or shadow of turning.’ For the 
same reason, the material universe, regarded as the product of Divine love 
and wisdom, must be governed by invariable laws. Any departure from 
invariable law can but be apparent, and can simply be the result of the 
intervention of a higher law, equally invariable in its operation with the 
lower law which it supersedes.” 
In this passage Professor Nicholson evidently referred to miracles, and laid 
it down as an axiom that no being could act against its own constitution, 
and applied that axiom to the Infinite Being. Therefore, as the laws of the 
universe were the laws of God’s divine power and wisdom, there might 
be things in these laws which totally transcended the natural sphere, 
and these laws transcending the natural sphere would appear to us to be 
miracles and against law, although they were really under law. In this view 
he thoroughly agreed with Professor Nicholson. The difficulty which non- 
Christians or atheists felt about miracles was owing to the fact that they never 
ascended out of the natural sphere into the spiritual sphere. The argument 
of Professor Draper, for instance, had no meaning, for it did not belong to true 
theology to siqrpose that the world was “ controlled by discontinuous, dis- 
YOL. X. 2 B 
