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with respect to the miracle of multiplying the loaves and fishes, that “ their 
constituents had been built up by God through the ordinary forces and laws of 
nature,” and that “ the ingredients necessary for multiplying them were all 
present in the earth, the water, or the air,” is not this affirming something 
about tiie modus operandi of the miracle ; something, too, involving inference 
from modern physical science ? The view I take of the character of miracles 
absolutely forbids my entering upon any such considerations, inasmuch as I 
hold it to be out of the province of the human intellect to inquire concerning 
either mode or limitation relatively to miracles wrought by an Omnipotent 
Creator. In sec. 35 of the Paper I say of the miracle just mentioned that “it 
consisted of the multiplication of the loaves by an operation which, as being 
creative, is incapable of being submitted to logical inquiry.” The word 
“ multiplication,” inasmuch as twelve baskets of fragments were taken up, 
simply expresses the matter of fact ; and as to the word “ creative,” when it is 
considered that the creation of the universe was the first and greatest of all 
miracles, no term for specifically designating miracle-working power could be 
more appropriate than one significant of creation. In fact, the external 
world supplies no other term indicative of the essential character of a miracle, 
the word “ miracle ” having properly only the subjective meaning of wonder , 
such as an act of creation might be supposed to produce. 
I come now to a part of Prebendary Row’s speech, the consideration of 
which will serve to point out the source of the divergence of views above 
refen ed to. lhat a miracle involves no “violation of the laws of nature,” I 
fully admit for special scientific reasons which I have stated definitely in 
sec. 23 (1) of the Essay on “ The Indestructibility of Matter," read at the 
Meeting of the Institute on May 7, 1877. I concur also in taking the view 
that God brought on the plague of locusts, and divided the Red Sea, by 
natural operations expressly adapted to effect these purposes. Still I maintain 
that it is not allowable to try to account for miracles by natural causes not 
specified in Scripture, or to derive explanations of them from suppositious 
gratuitously made relative to the operation of laws kuown only by scientific 
research. If such explanations were valid in any instance, they should be 
applicable in all. Rut that this is not the case will, I think, appear from the 
lollowing argument. It is, first, to be especially noticed that in all instances 
of Scriptural accounts of miracles an instrumental cause is mentioned, which 
according to all human judgment and experience would be pronounced to be 
wholly inadequate to produce the observed effects. Por instance, handker- 
chiefs and aprons brought from the body of the Apostle Paul to the sick, 
cured them of diseases, or sent evil spirits out of them (Amts xix. 12). It 
would demand a great effort of the imagination to conceive of any natural 
operation by which such effects could be produced by such means. As another 
instance, our Lord “made clay of spittle and anointed the eyes of a blind 
man, and then , after wmshing in the pool of Siloam as he was bid to do, the 
