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subject to modifications at tbe suggestion of even human voli- 
tion. Those modifications being made, it is a law of Nature 
that the action of force shall adapt itself to the circumstances ; 
leaving the rigidity of the laws of force under constant cir- 
cumstances, perfectly uninvaded. With changeable causes it is 
therefore puerile to insist upon unchangeable effects, merely on 
the plea that Nature's laws are inexorable ; nor can law 
determine for the future what events shall occur at any time, 
when they must depend upon causes that may be determined, 
so far as their element place is concerned, independently of 
the laws of physics. 
As events depend upon the relations existing between 
cause and effect, and these relations are altered by motion, 
events will often result from material organizations, whether 
endowed with intellect or not. Mind multiplies and modifies 
events by its volitions. The agriculturist multiplies organiza- 
tions, and consequently modifications of motion, by sowing 
and planting ; the chemist, by changes in place, produces 
changes in things ; the physician, by new relative positions, 
supersedes pestilence by health ; and every one moves to 
intercept events which otherwise would happen. At one 
time we secure the repetition or avoidance of an event of 
which we have learned the conditions ; or, when experience 
has served us less well, we empirically trust to probability 
for obtaining a desirable event. And, assuredly, we may 
carry the same mode of determining events up to a higher 
intelligence than our own. If we, and in its measure, every 
lower intelligence, can at the dictate of personal will, work 
changes in events, knowingly or unknowingly, then a power 
in the Creator of us and them to do the same thing, cannot 
be questioned; to doubt this would be to imagine the com- 
mand He has given to our own minds over the matter so 
mysteriously associated with them in our persons, wanting 
between His own mind and the universe of matter to which 
He is so intimately united. 
From whence, then, is scepticism to obtain reasonable 
justification for its charge against praying Christians of 
ignorance and presumption, when they, putting their shoulder 
to the wheel to roll away a pressing evil, find the task beyond 
their powers ? Christians know that converts to their faith 
are not to be made by physical evidences ; still, science may 
remove many a stumbling-block out of the way; and there 
will be one the fewer if the distinction now pointed out 
between force and cause lead to its being perceived that 
variation in effect is not incompatible with invariability of 
law. 
o 2 
