26 i 
having for their efficient cause the active power of God, are 
not only possible, but, a priori , probable , from the limited 
share of freedom and power which we know by experience 
we have. We cannot conceive of a God of freedom never 
exercising that freedom. Providence implies the constant 
exercise of freedom. Without such an exercise there could 
be nothing for us here below but fate. But this is con- 
trary to the facts of human consciousness and the results of 
mental study. Physical science might — if taken alone, it 
would — lead to fatalism ; but the higher science of mind sup- 
plies the counteractive to this uninviting, one-sided view of 
nature, and leads the inquirer onwards to the great law of 
freedom. We know we are free, and we cannot, without an 
absurdity, suppose man, who was made in the likeness of 
God, to be free to control the forces of nature, while He who 
made man is not so. As to material nature, it is, of pur- 
pose apparently, endued with a certain elasticity. The 
orbits of the heavenly bodies bulge and flatten within a 
given sphere ; so do the laws of nature, without any general 
disturbance, bend befoi*e the will of man. This elasticity 
appears to have been necessary for the harmonious working 
and general stability of the universe. So may the moral re- 
quirements of man have necessitated miracles to instruct 
him in the knowledge of Divine things. Our social and 
domestic well-being stands in need of the power and play 
over matter which we know we have ; so may our moral and 
religious well - being stand in need of that freedom which 
miracles and the providential care of the great God imply 
and presuppose. And the fact that we are formed with mind 
and will, and the power to exercise a certain control over 
nature^s forces for our own happiness and good, warrants the 
inference that our Maker is not only able but willing to suc- 
cour and defend us where our own freedom and power cannot 
reach. He knew from all eternity, doubtless, not only the 
laws which He proposed to give to matter, but also the wants 
of His intelligent and moral creatures. He had, doubtless, 
a care both for the worlds general working and also man’s 
benefit. What seems to us irregular, as miracles, cannot 
possibly be so to Him, with whom there is no past nor future, 
but simply an Eternal now — an Omnipresent here. Miracles 
are the effects of His own free will and power, and they may 
fall in with higher and wider laws than mere physical science 
has discovered or can discover. Every separate department 
of science may have a partial unity, but there must be a 
universal science which compares together particular sciences, 
and ascends to the whole of things. “ If there were only 
