300 
of man, who merely reads the results on the machine; and no natural 
philosopher can say that any event cannot possibly happen. If he tells 
me it cannot, I have a right to say, “ For aught you know, the Maker of 
the machine determined at that particular period to meet a certain moral 
exigency, which He foresaw, and supplied by this operation taking place.” I 
say that Babbage has triumphantly proved such violations of the observed 
laws of nature to be possible ; and (we must always bear in mind) that such 
events may or may not be miraculous. We read that Herodotus was told 
by the Egyptian priests that the sun rose twice in the twenty-four hours. 
“ Well,” the philosopher may say, “ it is not true, it is contrary to the law 
of gravitation.” I say there is nothing whatever in the presumed improbability 
derived from any succession of phenomena, however great, to show that we 
can absolutely and mathematically assert that such an event, whether 
miraculous or not, could not have occurred. If I am told that God heard 
the voice of man, and caused the sun and the moon to stand still, could I 
say that that was not one of the things God provided for ? There is nothing 
in natural philosophy to compel me to deny it. When attempting to argue 
against this miracle, Dr. Colenso tells me the earth could not have stood still 
on its axis— that its motion could not have been arrested without everything on 
the earth being hurled into space. But I ask how was the earth to be stopped 
on its axis ? It must be by a power which acted upon the motion of the 
earth. Now, I maintain that that power would equally apply to the trees 
and everything else on it. Bet me take the rough comparison which 
Dr. Colenso mentions You arc in a railway carriage, and a collision 
happens, and you are thrown forward. Why ? Because you are inde- 
pendent of the carriage ; but if you were tied in the carriage, and made 
one with the carriage, you would not be hurled forward. I would ask 
Colenso to explain by his philosophy, why, when we consider the earth’s 
great velocity, every particle of the ocean at the ecpiator is not hurled into 
space ? It is owing to the gravitation of the earth. This same gravitation 
would so hold the trees and houses to the earth, that anything stopping the 
motion of the earth would likewise so stop their motion, as to prevent their 
flight into space. I would only mention that to show that when men deny 
miracles as contrary to natural philosophy, we can get sufficient demonstration 
from mathematics to show that miracles are more probable than improbable— 
that they contradict no laws which the mathematician or observer of nature 
is bound to believe ; and I thoroughly agree with the important con- 
sideration brought forward by Dr. Gladstone, that the unhappy state of 
men’s minds is from confining their attention to the inorganic world. As 
you rise from inorganics to organics, there are phenomena which would 
show that all the arguments raised against the miraculous are fallacies. It 
was well put by Mr. Keddie with regard to our Saviour’s miracles, 
that when you rise from inorganics to organics, the philosopher is bound 
to admit perturbations and interruptions ; that disease is an interruption 
of the law of health, and that you cannot use the word law hi the same 
sense here as you use the word law with regard to inorganic matter , that 
