96 
The commoner form of objection, however, evades this 
answer by adopting a different ground of attack. _ Granted, it 
is said, that there is a true personal God, having full and 
supreme power over Nature, and therefore able to suspend, 
modify, or act independently of, its laws ; yet is it credible 
that He should do so ? Are not these laws the proper expres- 
sions of His Will, ordained and created by Himself with a full 
knowledge beforehand of the results that must arise from their 
action ; so created as exactly to accomplish the ends which He 
had in mind and no others, so created also as to be sufficie 
to accomplish these ends without further extraneous aid or 
interference? Is not the uniformity of Nature, m fact, the 
inevitable consequence of the unchangeableness of o , 
suppose an alteration in which is hence to suppose a change 
of mind in God, which is incredible ? Man, indeed, may be 
constantly interfering with Nature ; but is not this because 
Nature is independent of him, and so -does not always fat 1 
of itself with his designs, because also his knowledge of it 
is limited, and his will concerning it variable ? Does not, then, 
the ascription of such interference to God also really imp.y 
that he is subject to the like imperfections, that Nature is in- 
dependent of Him, that His knowledge is limited, and His 
will variable ? While, yet further, have we not m tle oterjed 
fact of the undeviating uniformity of Nature, and the absolute 
supremacy of physical laws, even in cases where we should 
have thought a slight alteration would have been productive ot 
immense good, a proof that human reason is altogether incom- 
petent to comprehend the purpose of this iron rule of law, 
but must be content to receive it simply as a iact, which, how- 
ever apparently fraught with evils here and there, 1S 
in accordance with God's Will, and not, therefore lightly to 
be set aside on any grounds of fancied expediency t 
To this objection, thus set forth, there are, as before, thiee 
distinct lines of reply : — . , • _r 
First, there are those who deny the scientific premiss of 
the objection, that Nature is thus inexorably uniform and su - 
ject to law. According to some, this premiss is unsound, be- 
cause, after all, the idea of uniformity is merely the 
which a more or less extended experience of past uniformity 
has made upon the imagination, whereby we instinctively con- 
clude that it will continue for the future, and, in fa0 \ a ™ a J S r ’ 
which kind of instinctive conclusion has been proved, ow , 
over and over again, to be in particular cases fallacious a 
misleading, and therefore may be so m the present o as ® 
This answer, pushed to its extremest limit, puts t e imp 
bility of a miracle on exactly the same footing as e imp 
