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usage with law ; or, rather,, he reasons as if the usual course 
of nature observed by us were equivalent to natural law. 
The progress of being which we have already noticed is fatal 
to his mistake. If his argument, consequently, has any force, 
that force lies in our experience of law, and not of temporary 
usage. There is no violation of any laiv of nature in 
any of the miracles of the Bible, though there is in some of 
them a departure from usage. 
Take the case of Christ walking on the Sea of Galilee, and 
enabling Peter to do the same. Is there in this any suspension 
or infraction of natural law ? Does any one say that gravitation 
was suspended ? Then what kept the two bodies from flying off 
from the surface on which they walked ! If I wade through a 
stream, and, as I do so, I bear any object that I have with me 
above the surface of the water, do I suspend or violate the law 
of gravitation ? Clearly no. I only exert another force 
sufficient at the time to keep the object I am carrying above 
the surface. Take, again, the case of the “withered arm 
When by an unusual exertion of power the Saviour made the 
living action pass through that arm, did he suspend or violate 
any natural law ? We can see no such suspension or violation. 
We can see an exertion of force which is unusual, but that 
force is exerted in perfect accordance with all the laws which 
it ever follows in its most ordinary exertions. The “vis vitce” 
of the materialist passes from the ganglions, along the various 
tissues, and affects arteries, veins, muscles, bones, skin, and all 
else, in perfect accordance with law. Take the dead body that 
had “lain four days” in the tomb, and let the same thing be 
done to that which is done in this withered arm, and where is 
either the suspension or infraction of any one law of nature ? 
Hume^s gathering up of his argument is in these words : — * 
“ It is experience only which gives authority to human testi- 
mony, and it is the same experience which assures us of the 
laws of nature. When, therefore, these two kinds of experi- 
ence are contrary, we have nothing to do but subtract the one 
from the other and embrace an opinion either on one side or 
the other, with that assurance which arises from the remainder/ 7 
Who does not see that this vaunted argument goes to smoke, 
the instant we perceive that no real miracle involves the 
slightest deviation from natural law ? If it shall be said that 
usage is violated, we have only to ask if it is contrary to 
human experience that it should be so ? Is not every varia- 
tion in nature a departure from usage ? What was that leap 
which Sir Charles Ly ell contemplates when he says, “We may 
also demur to the assumption that the hypothesis of variation 
and natural selection obliges us to assume that there was an 
