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testimony upon this point. Physical science does not touch 
the question as to the historical fact of miracles, and it has not 
attempted to explain them. It has left them simply where 
they were a century ago. I believe in the “ grand truth,” 
repeated so often and needlessly by Mr. Powell, “ of the uni- 
versal order and constancy of natural causes.” It is “ fixed, in 
my mincl , so firmly that I cannot conceive of the possibility of 
its failure,” when left to itself. A miracle has nothing to do 
with this “ constancy,” or reverse, of “ natural causes” — it is 
simply the fact, or otherwise, of personal agency producing 
special results. The phenomena produced by “ natural 
causes,” that is, viewed as effects proceeding from merely 
physical causes, are of necessity uniform and constant, being 
subject to the law of necessity as opposed to the law of free- 
dom ; but the phenomena of mind or personal agency are the 
reverse — they are not of necessity uniform, being subject to 
the law of freedom as opposed to the law of necessity. It 
matters not what hypothesis is accepted to explain the 
efficiency or activity of “ natural causes.” Mr. Stewart 
enumerated six , and the law of natural selection and struggle 
for existence, perhaps, might be called a seventh hypothesis ; 
but whether we accept materialism, or the explanation that 
the phenomena of nature result from certain powers com- 
municated to matter at its first formation, or that the pheno- 
mena proceed from general laws, or that the universe is a sort 
of machine put in motion, and so constructed that the multi- 
plicity of effects which we see are all to be traced to one 
original act of sovereign power,- — I say it matters not which, 
nor what hypothesis we accept ; they all come under the law 
of necessity ; and are, therefore, foreign to the question before 
us. Physics without mind may exclude the question of 
miracles ; but physics alone can do nothing, either to argue or 
settle such a question. 
The real point. — Does the natural exclude the supernatural ? 
Are natural causes and effects so arranged as not to allow the 
intervention of mind and personal agency ? Gravity draws all 
bodies to the earth, but man puts forth his hand and arrests 
the falling apple at will. Mr. Powell, however, affirmed that 
“ miracles are inconceivable to reason,” opposed to “the 
primary laws of human belief.” But by what primary law of 
belief we are required to reject miracles without looking’ at 
their evidence, is not said. The statements in Essays and 
Reviews are naked and bold enough ; but when we search for 
argument, we find appeals to fact where reason fails, and 
appeals to reason where facts are wanting. Miracles are not 
“ inconceivable to reason ; ” we have no intuitive principles in 
