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I may remark, how in Mr. Grove's address, as elsewhere 
miracle and mystery are confounded. Many things may be 
mysterious which are by no means miraculous, in the ordinary 
or generally received sense of the words. These terms are 
not to be confounded; our whole existence and everythin^ 
around us teems with mystery. The power by which I now 
perceive you, the power by which I convey my thoughts to 
you at this moment, are mysteries which no human knowledge, 
no human inquisition, can thoroughly or satisfactorily explain 
or eveffipenetrate. Take the commonest occurrences of nature. 
Consider the lilies, how they grow; try to get at the bottom 
of this common occurrence ; though it is no miracle, it none 
the less leads you ultimately to that which is profoundly 
mysterious. J 
If the growth of things be a mystery, if the power of mind 
over matter be mysterious, if the communication of thought 
be also mysterious, if the power of investigating the laws 
which govern these things be still more mysterious, must not 
the origin of all these mysterious things be itself mysterious ? 
But there are things not only mysterious but even miraculous; 
and creation is admitted to be in this sense miraculous as well 
as mysterious, a miracle also, in that sense of the word in 
which it is used in Scripture — a miracle, because a sign, a 
token of God's own working. 
When the Bible tells me that God made all things, that He 
said and it was done, that He created the earth and the 
waters, that He commanded the earth to produce the herbs 
and plants, that He commanded the waters and the earth to 
bring forth all living animal creatures after their kinds, lastly, 
that He made man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life, and caused him to become 
a living soul, and that after He had done all this by many 
successive fiats, He rested from the work of His creation; I 
am content to believe all this. If it be called an apparently 
extravagant hypothesis, I ask, does it not present a greater 
consistency with observed facts — does it not require fewer 
assumptions, does it not remove more difficulties, than any 
other hypothesis ? I maintain, without fear, without shrinking, 
with every love for truth, with all boldness in investigating the 
regions of science, that it does. And therefore, on Mr. Grove's 
own canon, I claim for it the character of being the most 
rational and philosophical hypothesis. 
What proofs have I afforded me for the contrary hypothesis 
which Mr. Grove has laboured so assiduously to maintain ? 
Where am I to look for my origin as a man, if I refuse to 
admit man's special creation ? I am called upon to trace my 
