for 1877 on the Efficacy of Prayer , specifies as the essential 
difference between a miracle and an ordinary occurrence. 
According to him it is this — that in the case of a miracle 
there is an immediate transition from a volition to an external 
result.” By an external result he means a change external 
to the being or person by whom it is caused. Such a change 
cannot be effected by man except through the movements of 
his own body, caused by an exertion of his will ; and a change 
so effected, however wonderful, is not a miracle. But we 
believe that an exertion of the Divine Will can produce results 
without any corporeal intervention ; and when such is the case, 
the result is properly called a miracle. To use Professor 
Jellett’s own words — fc You cannot cause a pebble to rise 
from the ground, however earnestly you may desire it, without 
the intervention of your body ; you cannot affect the mind of 
your fellow-man, however strongly you may will it, without 
the intervention of your body. Thoughts the most burning, 
until they are clothed in words, or find some other bodily 
expression, have no power beyond the individual in whose 
heart they are formed. So it is with the work of man. But 
it is otherwise with the work of God. There a mental ante- 
cedent is followed by an immediate external consequent ” 
(On the Efficacy of Prayer , p. 39). And again he says : — “ Not- 
withstanding some asserted phenomena (meaning, we may 
presume, those of mesmerism), it does seem to be a natural 
law that man’s will, without the intervention of man’s body, 
is powerless upon the external world. But we have no right 
to extend this law to the Divine volitions ; nor, indeed, could 
we do so consistently with any system of Theism which pre- 
scribes action at any time to the Divine Being. If a divine 
volition cannot be followed by an external consequent, it is 
hard to see how the Deity, unless corporeal, can act at all, or 
could have acted at any time. Only an Epicurean theology 
would be possible under such a limitation ” (lb., p. 56). 
20. We have now to consider Mr. Herbert Spencer’s argu- 
ments against the doctrine that there is a personal and intelli- 
gent Creator of the universe. He ultimately reduces them all 
to one, namely, that founded upon the persistence of force ; 
but as he first gives them separately, it will be most convenient 
to take them in the order in which he has laid them down in 
First Principles. They are chiefly founded on : — 1 . The implied 
self-existence of the Creator. 2. The Indestructibility of Matter. 
3. The Continuity of Motion. 4. The Persistence of Force 
(Part I., p. 31, and Part II., chapters 4, 5, and 6). Speaking 
of creation by external agency, he makes the following prelimi- 
nary remark : — “ Alike in the rudest creeds and in the cosmo- 
