agencies did not intervene in the general course of nature”; but we believe that this must be a lapsus linguæ; for, as he does not admit that external agencies do now intervene in the general course of nature, to say that the case may have been exactly the same in all remote times is not to adduce a reason of the supposed disturbance of the relations of cause and effect, of which he is speaking, nor would it serve to limit, as he wishes, our “generalization.” The context, therefore, shows that what the lecturer intended to say was that there may have been a time when external agencies did intervene in the general course of nature. In fact, however, he said the contrary. Perhaps the professor, considering that he was speaking to an American audience with whose religious opinions he was little acquainted, thought it wise to give such a turn to his phrases as to avoid all profession of belief or disbelief in the existence of a Creator. But, however this may be, the idea that God’s intervention in the course of nature would disturb the relation of cause and effect is quite preposterous; for if God intervenes, his action carries with itself its proportionate effect, while the actions of other causes maintain their natural relations to their ordinary effects. When a man raises a stone from the ground, does he disturb the relation of cause and effect? or does he abolish gravitation? Certainly not. Gravity continues to urge down the body, while it is raised; but the effect corresponds to the combined actions of the two distinct causes. Now, the same must be said of God’s intervention with natural causes. The effect will always correspond to the combined causalities; and therefore the relation of the effect
to its adequate cause remains undisturbed.
To assume, as the lecturer does, that at the present time God has ceased to intervene in the course of nature, is to assume something for which there is not the least warrant. God’s intervention in the course of nature is continuous; for without it nature can neither act nor exist for a single moment, as every one knows who is not absolutely ignorant of philosophy. But this is not all. God, seeing that men try to blind themselves to the fact of his intervention in the ordinary course of nature, gives us in his mercy not unfrequent proofs of his intervention by works so far above nature that no effort of scientific infidels can evade their testimony. These works are miracles. “Modern thought” denies miracles, as irreconcilable with the “constancy of nature”; but the history of the church is full of well-authenticated miracles, and there are to-day living in different countries thousands of unexceptionable witnesses who can testify that miracles are, even now, an almost daily occurrence among the Christian people. We, too, admit “the constancy of nature,” but we are not so dull as to interpret this constancy as modern thought strives to interpret it. It is the laws of nature that are constant, not the course of nature; the former alone are connected with the essence of things and are immutable; the latter depends on accidental conditions, and can be interfered with not only by God, but even by man, as daily experience shows. Hence the intervention of external agencies does not impair the constancy of nature, and the argument of modern thinkers against the possibility of miracles falls to the ground.
Mr. Huxley, after stating that the question with which he has to deal is essentially historical, affirms that “there are only three views—three hypotheses—respecting the past history of nature.” The first hypothesis is that
“The order of nature which now obtains has always obtained; in other words, that the present course of nature, the present order of things, has existed from all eternity. The second hypothesis is that the present state of things, the present order of nature, has had only a limited duration, and that at some period in the past the state of things which we now know—substantially, though not, of course, in all its details, the state of things which we now know—arose and came into existence without any precedent similar condition from which it could have proceeded. The third hypothesis also assumes that the present order of nature has had but a limited duration, but it supposes that the present order of things proceeded by a natural process from an antecedent order, and that from another antecedent order, and so on; and that on this hypothesis the attempt to fix any limit at which we could assign the commencement of this series of changes is given up.”
Of these three hypotheses, the first is discarded by the lecturer as untenable, because “circumstantial evidence absolutely negatives the conception of the eternity of the present condition of things.” In this we agree with him, not only on account of geological evidence, but also, and principally, because the world is mutable, and therefore contingent; which proves that it must have had a beginning. It is remarkable that he denies the eternity of the present condition of things, but does not deny the eternity of matter. Modern thought could not admit of such a denial; because, if matter is not eternal, the admission of a Creator becomes unavoidable.
The second hypothesis the professor calls the “Miltonic” hypothesis, and he proceeds to explain why he calls it so:
“I doubt not that it may have excited some surprise in your minds that I should have spoken of this as Milton’s hypothesis rather than I should choose the terms which are much more familiar to you, such as ‘the doctrine of creation,’ or ‘the Biblical doctrine’ or ‘the doctrine of Moses,’ all of which terms, as applied to the hypothesis to which I have just referred, are certainly much more familiar to you than the title of the Miltonic hypothesis. But I have had what I cannot but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which I have pursued. For example, I have discarded the title of the hypothesis of creation, because my present business is not with the question as to how nature has originated, as to the causes which have led to her origination, but as to the manner and order of her origination. Our present inquiry is not why the objects which constitute nature came into existence, but when they came into existence, and in what order. This is a strictly historical question, as that about the date at which the Angles and Jutes invaded England. But the other question about creation is a philosophical question, and one which cannot be solved or approached or touched by the historical method.”
Then he gives his reasons why he avoids the title of Biblical hypothesis:
“In the first place, it is not my business to say what the Hebrew text contains, and what it does not; and, in the second place, were I to say that this was the Biblical hypothesis, I should be met by the authority of many eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, who, in recent times, have absolutely denied that this doctrine is to be found in Genesis at all. If we are to listen to them, we must believe that what seem so clearly defined as days of creation—as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no mistake—that these are not days at all, but periods that we may make just as long as convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent