269 
to it, therefore, in any sense otherwise than is compatible with 
received views of the Divine attributes. 
The Divine Wisdom has been said to be opposed to miracles, 
ff . on ^ ie pl ea our ideas of the Divine perfections must 
directly discredit the notion of occasional interposition ; that 
it is derogatory to the idea of infinite wisdom to suppose an 
order of things so imperfectly established that it must be 
occasionally interrupted and violated when the necessity of 
the case compelled, as the emergency of a revelation was 
imagined to do.”* Putting aside the “interpositions” implied 
m the belief in a Divine Providence, I do not know how this 
objection could be made to square with the views of some 
eminent professors in physical science, with such a passage, for 
example, as the following irom Professor W. Thomson : — 
“ (1) There is at present in the natural world a universal tendency to the 
dissipation of mechanical energy. (2) Any restoration of mechanical energy, 
without more than equivalent dissipation, is impossible in inanimate material 
processes, and is probably never effected by means of organized matter, 
either endowed with vegetable life or subjected to the will of an animated 
creature. . (3) Within a finite period of time past, the earth must have been, 
and within a finite period of time to come, the earth must again be, unfit for 
the habitation of man as at present constituted, unless operations have been 
or are to be performed, which are impossible under the laws to which the 
known operations going on at present in the material world are subject.”! 
Those who deify the laws of nature might do well to consider 
this passage. It does not fail in certainly with the spirit of 
this objection to miracles, in answer to which I would make 
three remarks. First , it is founded upon that misrepresenta- 
tion which persists in calling a miracle a “ violation ” of the 
“ established order of things.” Secondly, it confounds appa- 
rently physical cc imperfections ” with the moral wants of man ; 
a course well suited to create prejudice in the public mind, 
but one which can have no other tendency than that of con- 
cealing the truth. . Thirdly, this very objection urged against 
revelation, and miracles in particular, lies open, with whatever 
force it has, against the book of nature and the creed of the 
Theist who brings it. The “ order of things” is charged 
with imperfection,” if we suppose it to have stood in need 
of any revelation or miracle. This supposition, it is said, 
would bo “ contrary to our ideas of the Divine perfections,” 
“ derogatory to the idea of Infinite Wisdom /” Divestino- 
ourselves, then, of all ideas of revelation or miracle, let us 
* Essays and Reviews, p. 136. (The Italics are my own.) 
t Trans, of the Royal Soc. of Ediu., 1S52. 
X 
