are not superhuman now. The same lecturer who told his audience that there was nothing spontaneous in Nature proceeded, by virtue of his own knowledge of natural laws, and by his selecting and combining power, to present a whole series of phenomena—such as ice frozen in contact with red-hot crucibles-which certainly did not belong to the "ordinary course of Nature." Such an exhibition a few centuries ago, would beyond all doubt have subjected the lecturer on Heat to painful experience of that condition of matter. Nevertheless the phenomena so exhibited were natural phenomena—in this sense, that they were the product of natural laws. Only these laws were combined in action under extraordinary conditions, and these conditions were governed by the purpose and design of the lecturer, which design was "spontaneous," if there is any meaning in the word. In like manner, if the progress of discovery is as rapid during the next 400 years as it has been during the last period of the same extent, men will be able to do many things which would now appear to be "supernatural." There is no difficulty in conceiving how a complete knowledge of

all natural laws would give, if not complete power, at least degrees of power immensely greater than those which we now possess. Power of this kind, then, however great in degree, clearly does not answer that idea of the Supernatural which so many reject as inconceivable. What, then, is

that idea? Have we not traced it to its den at last? By "supernatural" power, do we not mean power independent of the use of means, as distinguished from power depending on knowledgeeven infinite knowledge-of the means proper to be employed?

This is the sense-probably the only sense-in which the Supernatural is, to many minds, so difficult of belief. No man can have any difficulty in believing that there are natural laws of which he is ignorant; nor in conceiving that there may be Beings who do know them, and can use them, even as he himself now uses the few laws with which he is acquainted. The real difficulty lies in the idea of Will exercised without the use of means—not in the exercise of Will through means which are beyond our knowledge.

Now, have we any right to say that belief in this

is essential to all Religion? If we have not, then it is only putting, as so many other hasty sayings do put, additional difficulties in the way of Religion. The relation in which God stands to those rules of His government which are called "laws," is, of course, an inscrutable mystery to us. But those who believe that His Will does govern the world, must believe that ordinarily, at least, He does govern it by the choice and use of means. Nor have we any certain reason to believe that He ever acts otherwise. Extraordinary manifestations of His Will-signs and wonders-may be wrought, for aught we know, by similar instrumentality-only by the selection and use of laws of which Man knows and can know nothing, and which, if he did know, he could not employ.*

Here, then, we come upon the question of

*This chapter, originally published as an article in the Edinburgh Review for Oct. 1862, has been referred to in the remarkable work of Mr Lecky on "The Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe," (vol. i. ch. ii. p. 195 note,) as conveying "a notion of a miracle which would not differ generically from a human act, though it would still be strictly available for evidential purposes." I am quite satisfied with this definition of the result. Beyond the immediate purposes of benevolence which were served by almost all the miracles of the New Testament, the only other purpose which

miracles-how we understand them?

what we

"to

would define them to be? The common idea of a miracle is, a suspension or violation of the laws of Nature. This is a definition which places the essence of a miracle in a particular method of operation. But there is another definition which passes this by altogether, and dwells only on the agency by which, and the purpose for which, a wonderful work is wrought. "We would confine the word miracle," says Dr M'Cosh, those events which were wrought in our world as a sign or proof of God making a supernatural interposition, or a revelation to Man." This definition is defective in so far as it uses the word supernatural," which, as we have seen, itself requires definition as much as miracle. But from the general context and many individual passages in his treatise, it is sufficiently clear that the two conditions essential in Dr

is ever assigned to them is an "evidential purpose "—that is, a purpose that they might serve as signs of the presence of superhuman knowledge, and of the working of superhuman power. They were performed—in short—to assist faith, and not to confound reason.

* The Supernatural in relation to the Natural. By the Rev. James M'Cosh, LL.D. Macmillan, Cambridge, 1861.

M'Cosh's view of a miracle, are that they are wrought by a Divine power for a Divine purpose, and are of a nature such as could not be wrought by merely human contrivance. In this sense a miracle means a superhuman work. This definition of a miracle does not exclude the idea of God working by the use of means, provided they are such means as are out of human reach. Indeed, in an important note, (p. 149,) Dr M'Cosh seems to admit that miracles are not to be considered "as against Nature" in any other sense than that in which "one natural agent may be against another as water may counteract fire." Mr Mansel, in his "Essay on Miracles," adopts the word "superhuman" as the most accurate expression of his meaning. He says, “A superhuman authority needs to be substantiated by superhuman evidence; and what is superhuman is miraculous."* It is important to observe that this

* Aids to Faith, p. 35. In another passage, (p. 21,) Mr Mansel says that in respect to the great majority of the miracles recorded in Scripture, "the supernatural element appears . . in the exercise of a personal power transcending the limits of man's will. They are not so much supermaterial as super

human."

B