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JOUENAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Among these he directed particular attention to the attempt of 
some Theists to vindicate the possibility of miracles, by referring 
them to a higher law of the universe, not at present within the 
range of our comprehension. Having shewn, that all reduction, 
even in idea, of a miracle under a natural law at once destroys its 
miraculous character, the lecturer then dwelt at considerable 
length upon two Theistic objections to the principle of miracles; 
(1) That it is inadmissible to conceive of the Deity as violating 
or suspending the order which He has established ; and (2) That 
sound philosophy requires us to believe that God has formed and 
adjusted the system of things so perfectly, as to preclude the 
necessity for occasional interference with its operations. These 
objections, the lecturer showed, rest upon one and the same mis- 
conception of miraculous interposition, and maintained that either 
it takes place outside of the sphere of nature, or affects its laws 
only in the way of counteraction, and not of violation or sus- 
pension, in a manner analogous to the antagonisms of opposing 
natural forces and the equilibria which often result from them. 
The lecturer exposed the principle underlying the latter of these 
objections, as denying all personal action to the Deity, as if He 
had created a huge machine to discharge all Divine functions in his 
stead, and maintained, on the contrary, that the Deity must be re- 
garded as having a boundless sphere of free personal activity in 
relation to higher ends, which the system of nature was not in- 
tended to fulfil. The lecturer next adverted to the criteria of 
miracles, and proceeded to specify certain features by which, taken 
together, they might conceivably be discriminated from natural 
events. Challenged, by a supposed objection, to affirm the impos- 
sibility that, even such events as opening the eyes of the blind, or 
raising the dead to life, could be produced by natural laws ; he re- 
plied by the counter- challenge, to declare the impossibility of the 
contradiction of any of the most firmly established inductive 
truths, somewhere in unexplored regions of the universe ; and he 
contended, that both for what is within and for what is heyond the 
compass of natural powers, we must adhere to our inductive con- 
clusions, regardless of abstract possibilities. The lecturer concluded 
by pointing out the nature and limits of the evidence which may 
in any case be afforded to miracles. 
