Hitherto we have been considering the action of the Will upon external
Nature; but now what as to the action of our Will upon our own Nature,
upon the machinery of our own body? Is that to be called a Law of Nature
or a suspension of a Law of Nature?
It is to be called neither. Our definition of “Law of Nature” was “a
metaphorical name given to the ordinary course of things _apart from the
intervention of human will_:” consequently the action of human will
(about which we are now speaking) is expressly excluded from the
province of Nature, in this sense, and can neither be called “a Law of
Nature,” nor a “suspension of a Law of Nature.” The action of the Will
falls under the head of “human Nature;” and, discussing it under that
head, we may call it by any metaphor we please, a custom, habit, law of
human Nature.
This distinction between the name given to the course of non-human
Nature and the name given to the action of the human Will on the bodily
framework, is based on our distinction between the regular and (if I may
use the word) the anticipable sequences of the former, as contrasted
with the irregular and unanticipable sequences of the latter. When the
Will is undeveloped or enfeebled; when the human being is a baby, or one
of an excited and undisciplined crowd, or mad, or drunk, or
narcoticized, or mesmerized, or reduced to the bestial level by some
overpowering instinct; we can occasionally prophesy his actions or
movements with something of the certainty and accuracy with which we
predict the motions of a machine; but we cannot thus calculate the
actions of a mature, healthy, and reasonable man. Hence it has been
usual to contrast with the “Laws of Nature” the “freedom of the human
Will.” We cannot demonstrate the freedom of the Will any more than the
fixity of the Laws of Nature: the belief in both is suggested by
Imagination, tested and approved by Experience and Reason, and finally
retained by Faith. Of course, when I speak thus, you will not suppose
that I assume that my mind, or being, is divided into distinct parts (as
the body consists of distinct limbs) called Will, Reason, &c.: you will
understand that I merely use the ordinary brief and convenient
phraseology which says “The Will does so-and-so,” meaning “I do
so-and-so with a certain consciousness which appears to me to result
from a faculty inherent in me of choosing between two or more courses of
action, which faculty I call Will.” With this precaution, I assert that
the action of the Will is natural as regards human Nature, but outside
Nature or “extra-natural” as regards non-human Nature, and that it does
not involve the suspension of what are technically called “the Laws of
Nature.”
It is thus shown that the human Will acts directly on the human body in
accordance with the Laws of human Nature, and that it does not interfere
with the external world except indirectly, through the body, in
accordance with the Laws of Nature (as technically defined). There is
nothing therefore in the action of the human Will that would justify the
_a priori_ inference that the divine Will would, _by any direct
intervention_, disturb or suspend that fixed Order in the external world
which constitutes a large part of the revelation of God to mankind.
If indeed we are to draw any kind of parallel between divine and human
action, we shall have to ask ourselves what is there appertaining to the
divine Spirit which can in any sense be said to correspond to its
“Body”? And I suppose we shall reply, in Pauline language, that Mankind,
which is said to have Christ for its Head, might be mystically and
spiritually called the Body of the divine Will or Holy Spirit. If this
be so, proceeding with our parallel, might we not repeat, word for word,
with the needful proportionate changes, the language of the last
paragraph: “The divine Will or Spirit acts directly on the divine body
(that is on mankind) in accordance with the Laws of Spiritual Nature,
and it does not interfere with the external world, except indirectly,
through mankind, in accordance with the Laws of Nature (as technically
defined)”? I do not say that this analogy is logic-proof: for what can
be called a “body,” or what “external,” in relation to the all-pervading
God? Nevertheless, as it falls in with our actual experiences, this
mystical parallel seems as well worth recording as most _a priori_
notions on this subject, though we take it as no more than an
illustration of possibilities. But, if we are to confine ourselves to
certainties, the one thing certain is, that Nature, in the fullest
sense, human as well as non-human, emphatically discourages us from
expecting “miracles.”
XIV
THE MIRACLES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT