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plexities of men are traceable to obscurity of thought hiding and breeding 
under obscurity of language.” 
Two other extracts from the same author will show how he 
attempts to clear the diflSculty : — 
“But let us observe exactly where and how the difficulty arises. The 
reign of law in Nature is, indeed, so far as we can observe it, universal. 
But the common idea of the supernatural is that which is at variance with 
natural law, above it, or in violation of it. Nothing, however wonderful, 
which happens according to natural law, would be considered by any one as 
supernatural. The law, in obedience to which a wonderful thing happens, 
may not be known ; but this would not give it a supernatural character, so 
long as we assuredly believe that it did happen according to some law. 
Hence it would appear to follow that a man thoroughly possessed of the idea 
of natural law as universal, never could admit anything to be supernatural,^ 
because on seeing any fact, however new, marvellous, or incomprehensible, 
he would escape into the conclusion that it was the result of some natural 
law of which he had before been ignorant.” 
Again : — 
“ What difficulty in this view remains in the idea of the supernatural ? 
Is it any other than the difficulty in believing in the existence of a supreme 
will,— in a living God? If this be the belief, of which M. Guizot speaks 
when he says that it is essential to religion, then his proposition is un- 
questionably true ” (p. 22). 
“ To believe in the existence of miracles, we must believe in the super- 
human and in the supernatural. But both these are familiar facts in Nature. 
We must believe, also, in a supreme will and a supreme intelligence ; but 
this, our own wills and our own intelligence, not only enable us to conceive 
of, but compel us to recognise, in the whole laws and economy of Nature. 
Her whole aspect answers intelligently to our intelligence, — mind responding 
to mind as in a glass. Once admit that there is a Being who, — irrespective 
of any theory as to the relation in which the laws of Nature stand to His 
will,— has at least an infinite knowledge of those laws, and an infinite power 
of putting them to use, then miracles lose every element of inconceivability. 
In respect to the greatest and highest of all, — that restoration of the breath 
of life, which is not more mysterious than its original gift, — there is no 
answer to the question which Paul asks, ‘ Why should it be thought a thing 
incredible by you that God should raise the dead ? ’ ” 
Why, indeed ? if God be God, according to the view of 
St. Paul, ‘O fiaKapLog /cat fxovog Svvacrrrjg, the blessed and only 
Potentate ; but, if hampered by laws o£ nature, of which He 
has only an infinite knowledge and an infinite power of putting 
them to use, I should not see (were I an agnostic) whence the 
men of faith derived the certainty of their opinion. God must 
surely be supposed to have an infinite knowledge of the ways 
of man and an infinite power of putting them to use; but we 
recognise in every repetition of the Lord^s Prayer that His 
will is not already done on earth as it is in heaven. 
* The italics are mine. 
