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value is the argument ? For, if common or ordinary things, 
and miraculous or wonderful things, are all equally supposed 
to be done according* to laws, will not the denier of miracles 
merely also deny, and a fortiori , the existence of the laws to 
which the miracles are attributed ? 
For my own part, I venture to think there is another 
remedy required for this state of mind— another line of 
argument which should be adopted ; and that I expect we 
shall have advanced in the paper to be read at the close of this 
Session by Professor Kirk, On the Relations of Metaphysical 
and Physical Science to the Christian Doctrine of Prayer. This 
also is a subject, you are aware, upon which the challenge has 
recently been thrown down, in the name of science, to all who 
believe that Grod hears and answers prayer, by an eminent 
scientific man, and upon the same specific ground of the 
uniformity and invariableness of the physical laws of nature. 
This again, let me remark, is a subject which could not be 
taken up in any other scientific society in London except our 
own. I observe from an advertisement this morning in the 
newspapers, that an essay by Professor Tyndall, On Miracles 
and Special Providence , will appear in the June number of the 
Fortnightly Review. We should have been glad to have read 
it here ; and here, I need not say, it would have been 
discussed more freely than it is likely to be in the press. 
It would not be desirable, however, nor wise, to have our 
minds always as it were upon the stretch, and engaged ex- 
clusively in the contemplation of such high subjects. Nor, as 
you are aware, have objectors to Scripture always taken such 
high or abstract ground. Many of those objections most 
prominently advanced in our day, have been, we may almost 
say, based upon the minor details of geological science, which 
only require to be tested by reference to facts and by inductive 
proof of a scientific kind, without involving philosophical or 
metaphysical considerations. And so we have had several 
geological papers read before us. In Mr. Hopkins's two 
interesting memoirs, we had a theory brought before us which 
le had put forward many years ago, but which was contrary 
.o current views, and received little attention as a whole 
m scientific societies. Some of his views, however, were 
partially discussed from time to time, and some of them came 
° e established and accepted, in spite of previous neglect 
anc opposition.* His main theory, that electro-magnetism is 
Pi © a y the great active cause of certain important geological 
* Vide, Journ. of Trans, of Viet. Inst, Yol. I., p. 33. 
