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Wellington says that, “in cases that at first sight appear to have this kind of 
variability, the progress of science has shown that they are really subject to 
law ; and so analogy would lead us to suspect the same thing in other 
quarters.” He gives the winds as an example of that which has been found 
to b'e fixed by invariable law. But if it were true that the fixed laws of the 
winds had been discovered (as it is not true), that would be only a case of 
inorganic matter having invariable rules of motion when afieeted by the 
action of Him who gives that motion, and could have no such analogy to the 
laws of life as to lead even to the suspicion that these must be of the same 
nature. But surely Mr. Warington does not mean that we are to take 
“ suspicions ” for science. He cannot contend that a “ may be” or that even a 
“ must be ” in the mind of a “philosopher,” is to be set down as truth. 
Variation is the law of all living organism , so far as facts teach us. This is 
the result of discovery — a result so established as to lead to the idea, which 
I have noticed in the paper, that even man himself is but the last variety in 
the ever-varying universe. I may certainly say that, if science has taught us 
anything, it has taught us that variation is Nature’s law of life. 
Mr. Warington is dissatisfied with the distinction between “ usage ” and 
“ law,” and he seems to think that we depend on infractions of natural law 
for our belief of the supernatural. Even in such a case as that in which the 
dead arose at the command of Christ, he cannot see the supernatural but in 
the breach of law. But he means by law uniformity of occurrence, and 
nothing more. The “ law ” which he contemplates as violated in the miracle 
is nothing beyond this uniformity “ as known to us .” If he will think at all 
carefully he will soon see that this is really no law whatever. It is not 
even usage. One man has observed uniformity of occurrence only to such 
an extent that another man has observed variation in that which the first 
has observed to be uniform, and that second man has observed only so far 
that a third has observed variation in his uniformity, the third has been 
corrected by a fourth, and so on. A “ law ” to one generation is a 
“fancy” t only to the next. A “miracle,” in this sense, to one crowd, 
is only a natural transaction to another. It is such a “ law ” as Mr. 
Warington contemplates that “ like shall produce like.” A man observes 
this, for example, in a breed of certain animals, and he holds his observation 
to be that of “ a natural law.” Another man has had a wider field, or better 
opportunity of observation, and he has seen an instance of striking unlikeness 
in certain individuals among the produce of the herd. The “ natural law ” 
of the former man is seen to be “ violated ; ” in other words, it is seen to be 
no law at all. No one thinks this so-called “sport” a miracle, nor can any 
one who knows what he is saying call it an infraction of law. It is a 
departure from observed uniformity — or, as I would say, a departure from 
usage — though no such departure as indicates the “ supernatural.” We 
may surely distinguish between that from which this is a departure, and 
those laws or principles of being itself, from which there can be no departure 
in the actions of God. Calling the dead to life by the human voice is a 
departure from usage, such as does indicate the supernatural; not 
