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because it is the infraction of any of these laws, but because it is an act 
in which all that we eall Nature is so distinctly shown to be at the will 
of Him who performs it. In truth Nature is only a name for that extremely 
partial idea which men have of the universe apart from God ; and no doubt 
such an act as this makes sad work of the idea. It is infraction enough- of 
the essential elements of which such an idea is composed, though no 
infraction of any strictly divine law regulating divine action on either 
matter or inind. 
Mr. Warington says that “there may be higher laws” than those 
uniformities which are called “ usages.” I think he may very safely say 
that there are such higher laws, especially when he is thinking of merely 
material uniformities as the lower. There must be higher laws than those 
which affect the lowest things in the universe ; or how are the higher 
existences to be ruled ? There must be moral laws as truly as there are 
moral beings. And we believe that one of the most momentous of these 
is that which was obeyed by Jesus before he called Lazarus from the grave, 
namely, when he prayed to the Father. 
On the subject of the “ infinite ” Mr. Warington is, I think, in confusion, 
because he fails to distinguish between measuring and conceiving. His 
words are, — “ Can we conceive of an object having no limits?” I under- 
stand that he argues against the possibility of such a conception. But his 
argument is valid only against our grasping the infinite. He says that he 
believes in the infinite, but as to getting a measure of it we utterly fail. 
He seems to argue that, because we cannot get a measure of it, we cannot 
come into contact with it so as to conceive it as infinite. I cannot admit the 
validity of such reasoning. We come in contact with multitudes of things 
of which we have no measure, and that too so as to perceive that to us they 
are immeasurable. We clearly conceive their immeasurableness. 
All will easily believe that I am far from delighted to find that I differ in 
idea from the conclusions of our excellent Vice-President, Mr. Mitchell. 
And I feel that I must say a few words in reference to that “ force ” which 
he believes to be a substance, and which is neither mind nor matter. It may 
be necessary to explain that I do not think intelligence essential to mind, 
when contemplating the great whole of immaterial being. The self-mover is 
mind, as I understand the word, whether capable of thought and emotion or 
incapable of these. If I take the lowest animal in the scale of life which is 
self-motive, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to predicate thought of that 
creature, yet it has what I understand in this discussion as a mind. The living 
seed to which Mr. Mitchell refers is not a substance of this nature. There is 
no force in that seed such as originates any change either in itself or in any- 
thing else. It is a mistake in philosophy to imagine that a seed exerts any 
force analogous to that which belongs to what we call mind, even as that is 
found in the lowest animal. The seed, when placed in the current of certain 
motions, is put in motion and kept in that peculiar state of agitation in 
which it is developed and increased as a piece of any other mere matter is 
developed and increased when brought into contiguous agitations. We know 
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