The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences Part 19

What is a secondary cause? or, in other words, what is a law of nature considered as a cause? It is simply a uniform mode of operation. We find that heavy bodies uniformly tend towards the earth's centre, and that we call the law of gravity; but if those bodies sometimes ascended, and sometimes moved horizontally, under the same circ.u.mstances, we could not infer the existence of such a law.

Now, there must be some cause for uniformity of operation in nature. There must be some foreign power, which gives the uniformity, since it is certain that the law itself can possess no efficiency. We may, indeed, find one law dependent upon a second law, and this upon a third, and so on. But the inquiry still arises, What gives the efficiency to this second and third law? and still the answer must be, Something out of itself. So that if we run back on the chain of causes ever so far, we must still resort to the power of the Deity to find any efficiency that will produce the final result. In most cases, we can trace back only one or two links on the chain. For instance, we account for the falling of all bodies by the law of gravity. But philosophers have wearied themselves in vain to find any cause for gravity, except in the will of G.o.d. The failure of every other hypothesis, though invented by such men as Newton and Le Sage, has been signal. Sound philosophy, then, requires us to infer that gravity owes its efficiency to the direct exertion of divine power. And so in all cases, when we can no longer discover second causes for any phenomenon, why should we imagine their existence, rather than refer it to the agency of G.o.d? For go back as far as we may, and discover a thousand intervening causes, the efficiency resides alone in G.o.d. We have no evidence that even infinite power can communicate that efficiency to the laws of nature, so that they can act without the presence and agency of G.o.d. The common idea, which endows those laws with independent power, will not bear examination.

In the second place, if natural operations do not depend upon the exercise of divine power, no other efficient cause can be a.s.signed for their production.

We have seen that in the laws of nature, independently of the Deity, there is no efficiency; and I know not where else we can resort for any agency to carry forward the operations of nature, except to the same infinite Being. The fate and chance of the ancients, the plastic nature of Cudworth, the delegated nature of Lamarck, are indeed names invented by men to designate a certain imaginary efficiency residing somewhere, independent of the Deity, by which the phenomena of nature have been supposed to be produced. But the moment they are described, they are found to be mere imaginary agencies, meaning nothing more than the course of nature, or the laws of nature, which we have seen possess no independent efficiency. To a divine agency, therefore, we must resort, or be left without any adequate cause for the complicated and wonderful processes of nature.

In the third place, this view of the subject is strongly confirmed by the Christian Scriptures.

How universal is the divine agency represented in the well-known pa.s.sage--_for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things_.

Equally vivid is Paul's statement on Mars Hill--_In him we live, and move, and have our being._ How graphic a description is the 147th Psalm of G.o.d's agency in the natural world! Not only is all good ascribed to G.o.d, but evil also. By the mouth of Isaiah he says, _I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things._ In short, no event in the material or spiritual world is by the sacred writers ascribed to chance, or to nature, or the laws of nature, as it is among men; but to the direct efficiency of G.o.d. Nor is there any difference in this respect between miracles and common events. The one cla.s.s is represented as originating in the agency of G.o.d, just as much as the other.

Finally. It will hardly be thought strange, in view of the preceding considerations, that a large proportion of the most acute and philosophical minds in modern times have preferred this view of divine providence to any other.

Sir Isaac Newton declares that the various parts of the world, organic and inorganic, "can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful, ever-living Agent, who, being in all places, is more able by his will to move the bodies within his boundless, uniform _sensorium_, thereby to form and reform the parts of the universe, than we are by our will to move the parts of our own bodies."

Says Dr. Clarke, the friend and disciple of Newton, "All things which we commonly say are the effects of the natural powers of matter, and laws of motion, are, indeed, if we will speak strictly and properly, the effects of G.o.d's action upon matter continually, and at every moment, either immediately by himself, or mediately by some created, intelligent being.

Consequently there is no such thing as the course of nature, or the power of nature, independent of the effects produced by the will of G.o.d."

In speaking of the principle of vegetable life, Sir James Edward Smith, the eminent botanist, says, "I humbly conceive that, if the human understanding can in any case flatter itself with obtaining, in the natural world, a glimpse of the _immediate agency_ of the Deity, it is in the contemplation of this _vital principle_, which seems independent of material organization, and an impulse, of his own divine energy."--_Introduction to Botany_, p. 26, (Boston edition.)

"We would no way be understood," says Sir John Herschel, "to deny the constant exercise of this [G.o.d's] direct power in maintaining the system of nature, or the ultimate emanation of every energy, which material agents exert, from his immediate will, acting in conformity with his own laws."--_Discourse on Nat. Philosophy._

"A law," says Professor Whewell, "supposes an agent and a power; for it is the mode according to which the agent proceeds, the order according to which the power acts. Without the presence of such an agent, of such a power, conscious of the relations on which the law depends, producing the effects which the law prescribes, the law can have no efficiency, no existence. Hence we infer that the intelligence by which the law is ordained, the power by which it is put in action, must be present at all times and in all places where the effects of the law occur; that thus the knowledge and the agency of the divine Being pervades every portion of the universe, producing all action and pa.s.sion, all permanence and change. The laws of nature are the laws which He, in his wisdom, prescribes to his own acts; his universal presence is the necessary condition of any course of events; his universal agency the only origin of any efficient force."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 270.

"The student in natural philosophy," observes the Bishop of London, "will find rest from all those perplexities, which are occasioned by the obscurity of causation, in the proposition which, although it was discredited by the patronage of Malebranche and the Cartesians, has been adopted by Clarke and Dugald Stewart, and which is by far the most simple and sublime account of the matter--that all events which are continually taking place in the different parts of the material universe are the _immediate_ effects of the divine agency."--_Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 273.

"Jonathan Edwards," says M'Cosh in his Method of the Divine Government, "somewhere ill.u.s.trates the manner in which G.o.d upholds the universe, by the way in which an image is upheld in a mirror. That image is maintained by a continual flow of rays of light, each succeeding pencil of which does not differ from that by which the image was first produced. He conceives that the universe is, in every part of it, supported in a similar way by a continual succession of acts of the divine will, and these not differing from that which at first caused the world to spring into existence. Now, it may be safely said of this theory that it cannot be disproved. Several considerations may be urged in support of it."

Which of the views respecting divine providence that have been stated has the best practical tendency, seems hardly to admit of doubt. If we believe that G.o.d has submitted the direction and government of this world to a subordinate agent, a plastic nature; or if we suppose he has impressed matter and mind with certain general laws, which have the power of executing themselves without his agency, and especially if in their operation they do sometimes actually clash with one another, or even if those laws extend to every movement of matter and mind,--still, if they do not require divine efficiency, men cannot but feel that G.o.d is removed from his works, and that the laws of nature, and not his agency, are their security. But if they believe that every movement of matter or mind requires a direct exercise of divine power or efficiency, just as much as if every event was a miracle, it cannot but bring G.o.d near to us, and make us realize his presence.

If we obtain a timepiece from London or Paris, which contains all the springs and wheels requisite to keep it in operation, by occasionally winding it up, how little do we think of the artist who constructed it, except, perhaps, occasionally to admire his ingenuity! But if it had been necessary for that artist to accompany the chronometer, and actually to put forth the strength of his own arm every moment to keep it in motion, how much more should we think of him and realize his presence! The same effect, in a greater or less degree, will attend the belief that G.o.d must be not only virtually, but substantially, present every where, and be constantly exercising his power to keep in operation the vast machine of the universe. It cannot but deeply impress the heart, and exert a most salutary influence upon the affections, to realize that every event around us is brought about by the immediate agency of the supreme Being.

But notwithstanding the salutary influence of this view of Providence upon our moral feelings, and though philosophy p.r.o.nounces it decidedly the most reasonable, still it meets with strong opposition. I need not stop to notice the objections, that it makes G.o.d the author of evil as well as good, and that it represents man as a mere machine in the hands of the Deity, and therefore takes away human responsibility. I say I need not stop to answer such objections, because they lie equally strong against any system which makes G.o.d the original author of the universe. But a more plausible objection is, that it makes all events miraculous. This objection is based on the supposition that every event which takes place through the direct and immediate agency of G.o.d is a miracle. But is this the true meaning of a miracle? Is the term ever applied to any but extraordinary events? It may or it may not imply a contravention of the laws of nature. But it does always imply something which the laws of nature cannot produce, and which, of course, they cannot explain. It is always the result of some new force coming in to the aid of the laws of nature, or in the place of them, or even sometimes, perhaps, in opposition to them; as when the _sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon_. Hence an event may take place through the direct and immediate agency of G.o.d, and yet not be a miracle. If it be neither above, nor independent of, nor in opposition to the laws of nature, then it forms a part of the ordinary providence of G.o.d; it is a part of the usual, the fixed and uniform course of nature, and can be explained by known and unalterable laws. The nature of the event is not affected at all by the question whether it is produced by the direct efficiency of G.o.d, or by a power inherent in those laws. We, who believe that the direct efficiency of G.o.d is necessary to the operation, and even to the existence, of the laws of nature, are just as firm believers in the constancy of those laws as he who supposes them possessed of inherent powers. When that constancy is interrupted in any way, we call it a miracle. Hence it appears that our views of the nature of a miracle are the same as his, viz., an event which takes place out of the ordinary course of nature; and, therefore, our system is no more liable to the objection that all events are made miracles than his system.

The way is now prepared for inquiring what geology teaches respecting the ordinary and extraordinary providence of G.o.d over this world.

The evidences of ordinary providence, which are common to geology and other sources of proof, I shall pa.s.s by; both because they are familiar to all, and because I have, in a former lecture, shown the existence and operation of the present laws of nature in all past ages. But there is one feature of the past condition of the world taught by geology to which I would call your attention, as exhibiting a more impressive view of the wisdom and skill of ordinary providence than almost any other department of nature presents. When the heavenly bodies are once put under the control of the two great forces that guide them, viz., the centrifugal and centripetal, we see no reason why they may not move on forever in their accustomed paths. But the two great agents of geological change, fire and water, have an aspect of great irregularity and violence, and are apparently less under the control of mathematical laws. In the mighty intensity of their action in early times, we can hardly see how there could have been much of security or permanence in the state of the globe, without the constant restraining energy of Jehovah. We feel as if the earth's crust must have been constantly liable to be torn in pieces by volcanic fires, or drenched by sweeping deluges. And yet the various economies of life on the globe, that have preceded the present, have all been seasons of profound repose and uniformity. The truth is, these mighty agencies have been just as much under the divine control as those which regulate the heavenly bodies; and I doubt not but the laws that regulate their action are as fixed and mathematical as those which guide the sun, moon, and planets. Still, it must have required infinite wisdom and power so to arrange the agencies of nature that the desolating action of fire and water should take place only at those epochs when every thing was in readiness for the ruin of an old economy and the introduction of a new one. Geological agencies differ from astronomical in this--that the former must be allowed an irregular action within certain limits; whereas the latter act with unvarying uniformity in all circ.u.mstances. If the former had not some room for irregular action, they would not act at all; but if allowed too much liberty, they will destroy what they were intended to preserve. And G.o.d does restrain, and always has restrained them, just at the point where desolation would be the result of their more powerful operation. I do not, indeed, contend that it requires more power or wisdom to bind those mighty agencies within proper limits than to control the heavenly bodies. But to our limited faculties it certainly seems a more difficult work; and, therefore, the geological history of the globe gives us a more impressive idea of the ordinary providence of G.o.d than we see in the calm and uniform movements of nature around us.

_In the second place, geology furnishes us with some very striking examples of miraculous providence._

In disproving the eternity of the organic world, in a former lecture, I adduced and ill.u.s.trated these examples so fully, that I shall do little more in this place than give a recapitulation of that argument.

If we suppose the earth originally to have been merely a diffused ma.s.s of vapor, like comets, or nebul, I can conceive how, by the operation of such natural laws as now exist, it might have been condensed into a solid globe; into a melted state, indeed, from the amount of heat extricated in the condensation. Those same laws might subsequently form over the molten ma.s.s a solid crust, which, at length, might be ridged and furrowed by the action of internal heat, so as to form the basis of continents and the beds of oceans. In due time, the vapors might condense, so as to fill those basins with water; and, by the mutual and alternate action of the waters above and the heat beneath, the rocks might be comminuted, so as to form the basis of soils. So far might the arrangements of the world have proceeded by natural laws; in other words, by the ordinary providence of G.o.d. But at this point we must bring in an extraordinary agency of the Deity, or the world would have remained, in the expressive language of revelation, _without form and void_; that is, invisible and unfurnished.

You have, indeed, the framework of a world, but the most difficult and complicated part of the work, the creation of plants and animals, remains yet to be performed. Here, then, is the precise point where you must call in the miraculous agency of the Deity, or the earth would forever remain an uninhabited waste. For if it does not require miraculous agency to bring into existence animals and plants, I know not what can require it, or prove its operation. I can almost as easily conceive how matter might spring from nothing fortuitously, certainly I can as easily conceive of its eternity, as that organism and life can result from the ordinary laws of nature.

It may be, however, that I shall here be met by the statement, that some distinguished geologists maintain the probable existence of organized beings on the globe at an indefinitely earlier period than that in which their remains first appear in the rocks. They contend that the extreme heat which has melted the older rocks has obliterated all traces of organic existence below a certain line. Now, in order to meet this difficulty, it is not necessary to show this opinion to be erroneous. We have only to advance another step in our general argument, which brings us upon ground admitted to be good by the geologists above alluded to. They all of them believe that many new animals and plants have from time to time appeared on the globe; that, in fact, there have been several almost entire changes in its inhabitants. Most of them suppose these new races to have been introduced in large numbers at particular epochs, though some prefer the theory which supposes the new species to have been introduced one by one, as the old ones became extinct. But even this supposition does not essentially affect my argument; because they all allow that these successive species were really new, and could not have been the result of any metamorphosis of the old species. And it is the fact that new organic beings have, from time to time, been created, that is alone essential to my argument. Whether they were created by groups or singly, is an interesting geological question; but, in either case, miraculous power must have been put forth as really and as efficiently to call into existence a single new species of animalcula, or sea-weed, as to introduce an entirely new race. The successive economies of organic life that have existed on the earth, and pa.s.sed from it, do most unequivocally demonstrate the extraordinary or miraculous providence of G.o.d.

But we might abandon even this strong ground of our argument, and still geology would afford us a most unequivocal example of the creative agency of the Deity. That science shows, beyond all question, that man, and most of his contemporary races of animals and plants, have not always occupied this globe; and, indeed, that they were not placed upon it till nearly every form buried in the rocks had pa.s.sed away. And since those races which now inhabit the globe have among them a larger proportion of highly organized and more complicated species than have ever before been contemporaries,--especially since man is among them, confessedly the most perfect in organization and in intellect of all the beings that ever occupied this planet,--we can here point to the highest exercise of creative power ever exhibited in this lower world, as a certain memento of G.o.d's extraordinary or miraculous providence. Indeed, who, that has any adequate idea of the wonders of man's intellectual, moral, and immortal nature, and of the strange extremes that meet and harmonize in his physical and intellectual const.i.tution, will believe that any loftier miracle has ever been exhibited on this globe than his creation?

But I have already dwelt so long upon this whole argument in a former lecture, that I will add no more in this place. If the facts which I have stated do not prove the miraculous agency of the Deity in past ages, I know not how it can be proved. But a.s.suming this position to be established, and several inferences of importance will follow.

_In the first place, this subject removes all philosophical presumption against a special revelation from heaven._

If we can prove that the Deity has often so interfered with the course of nature as to introduce new species, nay, whole races of animals and plants upon the globe,--if, in a comparatively recent period, he has created a moral and immortal being, endowed with all the powers of a free and an accountable agent,--it would surely be no more wonderful if he should communicate to that being his will by a written revelation. Indeed, the benevolence of the Deity, as we learn it from nature, would create a presumption that such a revelation would be given, if it appear, as we know it does, that no sufficient knowledge is inherent in his nature to guide him in the path of duty; since such a revelation would be no greater miracle than to people the world, originally dest.i.tute of life, and then to repeople it again and again, with so vast a variety of organic natures.

Philosophy has sometimes been disinclined to admit the claims of revelation, because it implies a supernatural agency of the Deity; and, until recently, revelation seemed to be a solitary example of special interference on the part of Jehovah. But geology adds other examples, long anterior to revelation--examples registered, like the laws of Sinai, on tables of stone. And the admission of the geological evidence of special interference with the regular sequence of nature's operations ought to predispose the mind for listening to the appropriate proofs of a moral communication to ignorant and erring man.

_In the second place, the subject shows us how groundless is the famous objection to the miracles recorded in Scripture, founded on the position that they are contrary to experience._

"It is," says Mr. Hume, "a maxim worthy of our attention, that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." Hence he a.s.serts, that "the evidence of testimony, when applied to a miracle, carries falsehood on the very face of it, and is more properly a subject of derision than of argument," and that "whoever believes the Christian religion is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience."

At the time when Mr. Hume wrote, and with his great skill in weaving together metaphysical subtilties, such an argument might deceive superficial minds; for then a miracle was supposed to be contrary to all experience. But geology has disclosed many new chapters in the world's history, and shown the existence of miracles earlier than chronological dates. Even Mr. Hume would hardly deny that the creation of whole series of animals and plants was miraculous; and yet, in proof of that creation, we need not depend upon testimony; for we can read it with our own eyes upon the solid rocks. Such proof appeals directly to our common sense; nor can any ingenious quibble, concerning the nature of human testimony, weaken its influence in producing conviction.

And if G.o.d has wrought stupendous miracles of creation in order to people the world, who does not see that it is still more probable he would perform other miracles when they were needed to substantiate a revelation of his will to those moral and accountable beings, who needed its special teachings to make them acquainted with their G.o.d, their duty, and their destiny?

_Finally. The subject removes all presumption against the exercise of a special and miraculous providence in the divine government of the world._

In all ages of the world, philosophers, and even many theologians, have been strenuous opposers of special and miraculous providence. If they have admitted, as most of the latter cla.s.s have done, that some miracles were performed in ancient times, they have strenuously maintained that the doctrine of special providence in these days is absurd, and that G.o.d cannot, without a miracle, bestow any special favors upon the virtuous in answer to their prayers, or inflict any special punishments upon the wicked; and that it is fanaticism to expect any other retributions than such as the ordinary and unmodified course of nature brings along with it.

The unvarying constancy of nature, in consequence of being governed by fixed laws, is the grand argument which they adduce in opposition to any supposed special providence. _Since the fathers fell asleep_, say they, _all things continue as they were from the beginning._ G.o.d has subjected the world to the government of laws, and he will not interfere with, counteract, set aside, or give a supernatural force to those laws, to meet particular exigencies. For the adjustment of all apparent inequalities of good and evil, suffering and enjoyment here, we must wait for the disclosure of eternity, when strict retributive Justice will hold her even scales. When natural evils come upon us, therefore, it is idle to expect their removal, except so far as they may be mitigated or overcome by natural means; and hence it is useless to pray for their removal, or to expect G.o.d will deliver us from them in any other way. When the heavens over us become bra.s.s, and the earth under our feet iron, and the rain of our land is powder and dust, and want, and famine, as the consequence, stalk forth among the inhabitants, of what use to pray to G.o.d for rain, since to give it would require a miracle, and the age of miracles has pa.s.sed? When the pestilence is scouring through the land, and our neighbors and nearest friends are within its grasp, and we may next become its victims,--nay, when we, too, are on the borders of the grave,--why should we expect relief by prayer, since sickness is the result of natural causes, and G.o.d will not interpose to save us from the effects of natural evils, because that would be contrary to a fixed rule of his government?

When dangers cl.u.s.ter around the good man in the discharge of trying duties, it would be enthusiasm in him to expect any special protection against his enemies, though he pray ever so fervently, and trust in divine deliverance with ever so much confidence. He must look to another world for his reward, if called to suffer here. Nor has the daringly wicked man any reason to fear that G.o.d will punish his violations of the divine law by any unusual display of his power; not in any way, indeed, but by the evils which naturally flow from a wicked life. In short, it will be useless to pray for any blessing that requires the least interference with natural laws, or for the removal of any evil which depends upon those laws. And since our minds are controlled as much by laws as the functions of our bodies, we are not to expect any blessings in our souls, which require the least infringement of intellectual laws. In fine, the effect of prayer is limited almost entirely to its influence upon our own hearts, in preparing them to receive with a proper spirit natural blessings, and to bear aright natural evils; to stimulate us to use with more diligence the means of avoiding or removing the latter, and securing the former.

Not a few philosophers of distinction, and some theologians, have adopted these views. Even Dr. Thomas Brown uses the following language: "It is quite evident that even Omnipotence, which cannot do what is contradictory, cannot combine both advantages--the advantage of regular order in the sequences of nature, and the advantages of a uniform adaptation of the particular circ.u.mstances of the individual. We may take our choice, but we cannot think of a combination of both; and if, as is very obvious, the greater advantage be that of uniformity of operation, we must not complain of the evils to which that very uniformity which we cannot fail to prefer--if the option had been allowed us--has been the very circ.u.mstance that gave rise."--_Lecture 94._

"Science," says George Combe, "has banished from the minds of profound thinkers belief in the exercise by the Deity, in our day, of special acts of supernatural power, as a means of influencing human affairs; and it has presented a systematic order of nature, which man may study, comprehend, and follow, as a guide to his practical conduct. Many educated laymen, and also a number of the clergy, have declined to recognize fasts, humiliations, and prayers, as means adapted, according to their views, to avert the recurrence of the evil, [the potato blight.] Indeed, these observances, inasmuch as they mislead the public mind with respect to its causes, are regarded by such persons as positive evils."

"The most irreligious of all religious notions, as it seems to us," says the North American Review, "is a belief in special providences; for if the doctrine has any weight at all, it is gained at the expense of a general providence. To a.s.sume to detect G.o.d as nearer to us on some occasions is to put him farther off from us on other occasions. To have him in special incidents is to forget him in the common tenor of events. The doctrine of special providences evidently has no other foundation than this, that men _think they can detect_ G.o.d's purpose and presence more signally in some incidents than in others; so that the doctrine, after all, is only a compliment to man's power of detection, instead of an acknowledgment of G.o.d's special presence."

Such views and reasonings seem, upon a superficial examination, to be very plausible. But when we look into the Bible, we cannot but see that the main drift of it is directly opposed to such notions. That book does encourage man to pray to G.o.d for the removal of evils of every kind; evils as much dependent upon natural laws as the daily course of the sun through the heavens. It does teach us to look to G.o.d in every trying situation for deliverance, if it is best for us to be delivered. It does represent the wicked man as in danger of special punishment. It exhibits a mult.i.tude of examples, in which G.o.d has thus delivered those who trusted in him, and punished those who violated his laws.

In every age, too, the most devotedly pious men have testified, that they have found deliverance and support in circ.u.mstances in which mere natural laws could afford them no relief. Moreover, when men are brought into great peril or suffering of any kind, they involuntarily cry to G.o.d for help. When the vessel founders in the fury of the storm, the hardened sailor employs that breath in ardent prayer which just before had been poured out in blasphemies. And when the widowed mother hears the tempest howling around her dwelling at night, she cannot but pray for the protection of her child upon the treacherous sea. When violent disease racks the frame, and we feel ourselves rapidly sinking into the grave, it is scarcely in human nature to omit crying to G.o.d with a feeling that he can save us. In short, it is a dictate of nature to call upon G.o.d in times of trouble. Our reasoning about the constancy of nature, which appears to us while in safety so clearly to show prayer for the removal of natural evils to be useless, loses its power, and the feelings of the heart triumph. It now becomes, therefore, an important practical question, which of these views of the providence of G.o.d is correct. Is it those which our reasoning derives from the constancy of nature, or those inspired by piety and the Bible? I have already said, that the subject of this lecture removes all presumption against the latter view; and I now proceed to show how G.o.d can exercise a special providence over the world, so as to meet the case of every individual, whether for blessing or punishment, and that, too, without miracles.

Whoever believes that geology discloses stupendous miracles of creation, at various epochs, will not doubt that all presumption against miraculous agency at any other time is thus removed. For we are thus shown that the law of miracles forms a part of the divine plan in the government of the world. But this does not prove the same to be the fact in respect to a law of special providence.

It is indeed true that geology gives us no distinct examples of special providence, in the sense which we have attached to that term in the present lecture. But it does furnish a mult.i.tude of instances in which changes of physical condition in the earth were met by most wisely adapted changes of organic nature. And even though these changes were the result of miraculous agency, they disclose this principle of the divine government, viz., that peculiarities of condition are to be met by special arrangements, so that every exigency shall be provided for in the manner infinite wisdom sees to be best. Now, this principle const.i.tutes the essence of special providence; and, therefore, geology, in showing its past operation in the world's early organic history, affords a presumption that the same unchanging G.o.d may still employ it in his natural and moral government.

But does not this principle of special adaptation to individual exigencies demand miraculous agency in all cases? Can the wants of individuals be met in any other way than by miracles, or by the ordinary and settled laws of nature? I maintain that there are other modes in which this can be done; in which, in fact, every case requiring special interference can be met exactly and fully.

_This can be done, in the first place, by a divine influence exerted upon the human mind, unperceived by the individual._

If it were perceived, it would const.i.tute a miracle. But can we doubt that the Author of mind should be able to influence it directly and indirectly, unperceived by the man so acted upon? Even man can do this to his fellow; and shall such a power be denied to G.o.d?

Now, in many cases,--I do not say all,--it only needs that the minds of others should be inclined to do so and so towards a man, in order to place him in circ.u.mstances most unlike those that would have surrounded him without such an influence. Even the very elements, being to some extent under human control, can thus be made subservient, or adverse, to an individual; and, indeed, by a change in the feelings and conduct of others towards us, by an unseen influence upon their minds, our whole outward condition may be changed. In this way, therefore, can G.o.d, in many instances, confer blessings on the virtuous, or execute punishment upon the wicked, or give special answers to special prayer; and yet there shall be no miracle about it, nor even the slightest violation of a law of matter or of mind. The result may seem to us only the natural effect of those laws, and yet the divine influence may have modified the effect to any extent.

_In the second place, G.o.d can so modify the second causes of events out of our sight, as to change wholly, or in part, the final result, and yet not disturb the usual order of nature within sight, so that there shall be no miracle._

A miracle requires that the usual order of nature, as man sees it, be interrupted, or some force superadded to her agency. But if such change take place out of our sight, it might not disturb that order within sight; and, therefore, to us it would be no miracle.