knowledge of nature, i.e., of God's orderly government of the cosmos. The CHAIRMAN: It is, in my judgment, important to decide what we understand by "miracle." Assuredly we are not specially concerned with the terata, that is, "wonders," or acts of prodigy, which Christ foretold would be performed by false prophets. Acts of a marvellous character, such as might be wrought by deceivers, may have their proper interest; but it is not in order to an understanding of such acts that Christian apologists are to-day devoting their earnest thought to the subject before us. Rather the enquiry is as to the semeia, or "signs," performed by Jesus Christ-not to signs in general, but to signs specifically attributed to our Lordthat thought is devoted. We are concerned to understand, and place in relation to questions of faith, deeds which, as claimed, were done by the exercise of divine power, and at length recorded in the Gospels with the object of inducing men to accept Christ; in other words, of leading them, although originally biased against Him, to believe on Him, to rely on Him, as the Son of God, according as we read in John xx, 30, 31, cp. . 29. Strictly speaking, investigations regarding miracles pass by, or ignore, mere wonders, and concern themselves with deeds and performances which manifestly challenge a recognition of the hand of the Infinite. In this light, certain narratives recorded in the Old Testament assume an importance alongside those of the New, and, above all such miracles, alike in significance and influence, stands the victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Rev. JOHN TUCKWELL, M.R.A.S., said that if we were to avoid confusion in our discussion we must have a little clearer definition of our terms. We must take care not to deny the reasonableness of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural. By the natural I suppose we mean all that belongs to the cosmos--the organized creation-which will include the subjects of all our sureness, whether physical or otherwise. But there is, of course, something beyond. The supernatural must have existed before the natural, and be the antecedent from which it has sprung. The cosmos must have had a beginning, but before that beginning there was the supernatural Creator, the Author of it. Again scientific knowledge must be distinguished from science properly so called. Science is a fixed quantity and cannot be added to until our Creator sees fit to create some new fact. But scientific knowledge is continually changing and growing. Hence, an occurrence cannot be described as a "miracle" because it does not come within the circle of our scientific knowledge. Dr. von Gerdtell's definition of a miracle is inadequate, and, of course, he did not intend it to be taken as logically and scientifically sufficient. The freezing of water would not be a miracle to the King of Bantam, merely because he did not understand it. If I may venture to describe a miracle, I should say it is an effect produced in the sphere of the natural by a force in that of the supernatural. Our Lord's miracles of healing the blind and restoring limbs to the maimed cannot be explained by natural laws, and could not have been an imposition upon the ignorance of the observers. It was the power of the supernatural breaking through into the sphere of the natural. There is nothing contrary to reason in this, although it may be above the sphere of reason. Our Creator, having given freedom to our wills, cannot be less free than we are, and if we are able to modify the operation of natural laws, surely we must allow to Him a still greater power. The miracles of our Lord were the exercise of the divine freedom to overrule and supersede mere natural law by the introduction of supernatural power. A cordial vote of thanks to the Lecturer was put to the meeting and carried unanimously. Professor LANGHORNE ORCHARD, M.A., B.Sc., wrote:-In this thoughtful and interesting paper the able author has established his contention that the "laws of nature," or uniform natural sequences, do not preclude the possibility of miracle. He might have carried the argument further, and shown that science affirms that miracles have actually taken place. We shall undoubtedly agree with his conclusion (page 45) that "a present system of natural law" can-" strictly speaking-never pledge the past or future." The value of the paper is impaired by what is, in my judgment, a serious misnomer. The reasoning process described by the author as springing up from the three roots of association, inquiry, experience, is a very different thing from "the causal principle" or "the law of causation." This principle is innate to the mind. Being a primary intuition, it is the root of inquiry, and is 66 independent of experience and of the association supplied by experience. Its formula is, "Every effect flows from some cause, and like effects flow from like causes." Without the causal principle science cannot advance a step-it is far more than a working hypothesis." Were it really opposed to belief in miracle, we should have to "consider of it "; but, in reality, the belief in miracle finds. in the (true) causal principle invincible support, complete justification. I cannot accept the definition of a "miracle" on page 50, which appears to include such things as radium, wireless telegraphy, etc. Colonel MACKINLAY writes:-I heartily agree with the conclusions of Dr. von Gerdtell that miracles may be considered as facts, as soon as satisfactory proofs of their historic credibility have been furnished-and they have been furnished. Though our author's definition of natural law, given on page 38, is excellent, he hardly seems to have adhered to it throughout his paper, as for instance, when he considers the astronomical ideas before the time of Copernicus (page 47). There is surely a great difference between the laws of nature and the theories or working hypothesis deduced from them, which are liable to constant change. Hume* wrote of a miracle as "a violation of the laws of nature," and as "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity." But these are very erroneous methods of expression. Augustine wrote, "How can that be contrary to nature, which takes place by the will of God, seeing that the will of the Great Creator is the true nature of everything created? So miracle is not contrary to nature, but only to what we know of nature." Dr. Sanday, commenting on this remarkable passage, wrote, "Miracle is not really a breach of the order of nature; it is only an apparent breach of laws that we know, in obedience to other and higher laws that we do not know." The late Duke of Argyll§ wrote, "Miracles may be wrought by the selection and use of laws of which man knows and can know nothing, and which, if he did know them, he could not employ." Far from miracles involving violations of law, it would appear from scripture that they are performed in accordance with it * Philosophical Works, vol. iv, pp. 93–105. + De civitate Dei, xvi, 8. The Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 216. (1907.) though the law is in a higher plane from that which can be appreciated by mere human intellect. This is the deduction from the following passages: Matt. xiii, 58; Mark ix, 23; Acts xiv, 10; Matt. ix, 29; Mark ii, 5, x, 52; Luke xviii, 42. In all these instances a law is evident, that certain miracles could only be performed when faith was present on the part of the recipient. The Victoria Institute is to be congratulated on the widespread sources from which its papers come. Within less than a year and a half we have a paper from an American judge, afterwards another from a Swiss professor, and now we are indebted to a distinguished German author for the present valuable essay. Mr. J. O. CORRIE wrote: Inductive reasoning is, as the lecturer points out, not demonstration. But the presumption against miracle, that arises from observed causality in nature (notably in the domain of astronomy), is reinforced by the thought that an exceptional interference by the Creator in His own order of things would be derogatory to His wisdom and dignity. This is met by the observation that the state of things on earth, through all known history, cannot be regarded as being purely of His order. The villainies of mankind (to say nothing of the cruelties of nature) evince the action of some malign power. The deprivation of the divine order by such a power accounts for, and justifies, miraculous interposition. Mr. W. E. LESLIE wrote: After carefully perusing Dr. Ludwig von Gerdtell's interesting paper on Natural Law and Miracle I cannot but feel that he errs in his treatment of the principle of causation. Think for a moment of a few of the consequences of the denial of the necessity of causation. History disappears, and with it the historic Christ. The scriptures may have come into existence fortuitously without writers. The New Testament miracles may have happened of themselves-in other words, did not happen, for a fortuitous onpêtov is a contradiction in terms. Nay, the philosophical basis of theism itself is destroyed. A first cause may be dispensed with in a universe which, "considered with critical accuracy," may have come into existence by chance. I cannot enter into a detailed examination of Dr. von Gerdtell's arguments, but would like to make one or two remarks on his three psychological "roots" of the idea of causality. Before doing so may I suggest that his evident firm conviction that the causal principle must have a "root" is somewhat inconsistent with his theories:(a) The exact nature of the first root is not clear. The contention appears to be that our constant consciousness of the mechanical operation of the association of our ideas gives rise to our idea of causation. Is not this equivalent to the assertion that our idea of causality is derived from our perception of the mechanical working of that principle. This may be true, but how does it help the Doctor's argument? (b) Surely the statement of the second "root" should be reversed. Is not the idea of causation the root of the instinct of inquiry? A child sees a railway engine go "puff, puff." He feels there must be some adequate reason or cause for this. He yearns to know what that cause ishence his inquiries. The idea of causality is necessarily presupposed by the query "Why?" (c) The third "root" implies that the repetition of a given sequence causes me to become gradually convinced that the two phenomena constituting the sequence are causally related. If this be so, why do I not believe day to be the cause of night, and 12 o'clock of 1 o'clock? As a matter of fact, we do not experience this growing conviction. A chemist performs a new experiment. Though he performs it but once he is perfectly convinced that, on the conditions being reproduced, he will always obtain the same result. Dr. von Gerdtell next cites the belief of Homer and others in the intervention of gods and demons in the course of nature, as an evidence that they did not believe in the inviolability of the causal principle. But this is beside the mark. The ancients believed, not that these prodigies were uncaused, but that they were supernaturally caused. Even Epicurus or Aristotle would have found it difficult to believe that a field of wheat had sprung into being uncaused, i.e., without growth from seed sown, on the one hand, or the powerful intervention of some supernatural being, on the other. At the end of his first part Dr. von Gerdtell states that the causal principle "is the essential antecedent to all human thought |