human being can add to or subtract a single property of any species of
matter. To do so were, indeed, to create. For matter is an aggregate
of properties; each species of matter is differentiated only by its
properties, and could we alter one of these we should really turn it
into different matter. It is true there are what are called allotropic
forms, such as oxygen and ozone, the yellow and red phosphorus, the
forms of sulphur as modified by heat, and a considerable number of
organic compounds, and we can by certain arrangements turn the one
into the other. But when we ask what allotropism is, we find that it
is itself one of the properties (however obscure to us) of the matter
we deal with. Oxygen would not be oxygen, but something else, if
it had not the inherent property of becoming ozone under certain
conditions. Given these conditions, and there is nothing we can do
which will prevent the change occurring. If, as chemists believe,
allotropism depends on the different arrangement of the ultimate atoms
of matter, then the capacity of assuming two arrangements in its atoms
is clearly one of the ultimate properties of that species of matter.
It follows, then, that if a miracle were really a suspension of a
physical law, or a change, temporary or permanent, of any property
of matter, it would really be an act of creation--the creation of
something having different properties from any matter that before
existed. If iron were to float on water by suspension of the law of
gravity, it would be in fact the creation of something having (at
least for the time required) the physical and chemical properties
of iron, but with a specific gravity less than water--and therefore
something not iron.
But, without creation, man has enormous power over Nature. He can,
and daily does, overpower her laws, or seemingly make them work as
he pleases. Despite the law of gravity, he ascends to the sky in a
balloon; he makes water spring up in fountains; he makes vessels,
weighing thousands of tons, float on the seas. Despite cohesion, he
grinds rocks to powder; despite chemical affinity, he transmutes
into myriads of different forms the few elements of which all matter
consists; despite the resistless power of the thunderbolt, he tames
electricity to be his servant or his harmless toy. With water and fire
he moulds into shape mighty masses of metal; he shoots, at a sustained
speed beyond that of birds, across valleys and through mountain
ranges; he unites seas which continents had separated; there is
nothing in the whole earth which he has not subdued, or does not hope
to subdue, to his use. There is hardly a physical miracle which he
does not feel he can, or may yet, perform.
But all this wonderful, this boundless, power over material laws is
gained by these laws. He alters no property of matter, but he uses one
property or another as he needs, and he uses one property to overpower
another. It is by knowing that gravity is more powerful in the case of
air than in the case of hydrogen gas, that he makes air sustain him
as he floats, beneath a bag of hydrogen, above the earth; it is by
knowing that it is more powerful in water than in air that he sails
in iron ships; it is by knowing chemical affinity or repulsion that he
makes the compounds or extracts the simple elements he desires; it is
by knowing that affinity is force, and that force is transmutable
into electricity, that he makes a messenger of the obedient lightning
shock; it is by knowing that heat, itself unknown, causes gases
to expand, that he makes machines of senseless iron do the work of
intelligent giants. He subdues Nature by understanding Nature. He
creates no property; he therefore performs no miracle, though he does
marvels.
By what means, then, does man bring one property, or law, into play
instead of, or against, another? By one means only, that of changing
the position of matter.
This is Bacon's aphorism (Nov. Org. Book i. 4): "Man contributes
nothing to operations except the applying or withdrawing of natural
bodies: Nature, internally, performs the rest."
In order to trace and recognize the truth of this fact, let us follow
in rough and rapid outline the operations by which man effects his
purposes. We will begin at the beginning, and suppose him to have only
reached the stage when a knowledge of the effects of fire enables
him to work with metals. He produces fire by friction--that is, by
bringing one piece of wood to another, and rapidly moving the one on
the other; or else by striking two flints on each other, which also
is merely rapid motion and shock. He carries the wood to a hearth, he
brings to it the lump of crude metal or the ore; he urges the fire
by a blast of air--still his acts are only those of imparting motion.
Then the fire acts on the metal, it excites some affinities and
enfeebles other affinities, which result in removing impurities; it
softens the purified metal. Then the workman lifts it on a stone, and
by beating it with another stone--still motion--he moves its particles
so that it assumes the form of a hammer, an axe, a chisel, or a file.
Then by rubbing with a rough stone--still motion--he moves away some
particles from the edge, and makes it sharp and fit for cutting. By
plunging it in water when hot--still only motion--he tempers it to
hardness. With the edge thus obtained he cuts wood into the forms he
requires for various purposes, and by degrees he learns how to fashion
other pieces of metal into other and more elaborate tools. Yet all
this is done by no other means than giving motion to the material on
which, or by which, he works. From tools he advances to machines, by
which his power of giving motion is increased, and as he learns more
of the properties of matter he constructs engines, by which these
properties work for him in the directions in which he guides them.
Meantime he has learned that clay, when heated, becomes hard as stone,
and the arts of pottery take their rise; while glass-making follows on
the discovery that ashes and sand fuse into a transparent mass. Yet,
whether in their rude beginning or finished elegance, man in these
arts does no more than bring together the rough materials and apply
to them heat, then their own inherent properties effect the result.
Science--that is, knowledge of natural laws of matter--guides his
hand, but his hand only moves matter; it gives no property and takes
away none; it does not even enable one property to work; it does
absolutely nothing except to place matter where its own laws work, to
bring or to remove matter which is needed, or to remove matter which
is superfluous. Let us analyze every complicated triumph of human
knowledge and skill, and we shall find it all reduced to the knowledge
of what the properties of matter are, and the skill which imparts to
it motion just sufficient to permit these properties to operate. Man's
power over Nature is therefore limited to the power of giving motion
to matter, or of stopping or resisting motion in matter.
Now, to give motion or to resist motion is itself either a breach or
a use of a law of Nature, according as we express that law. The law is
(as usually expressed), that matter at rest remains at rest till moved
by a force, and that matter in motion continues in motion till stayed
by a force. This is the law of inertia. If we consider that rest or
motion when once established is the normal state of matter, then the
force which causes a change causes a breach of the law of inertia.
But if we consider that the liability to be moved, or to have motion
stopped by force, is itself a property of matter, then the application
of force with such result is merely calling into operation the law of
inertia. It really does not signify which view we take, so long as we
recognize that such are the facts. But since it is more familiar to
associate rest with inertia, it will perhaps be most convenient and
simple to consider rest and motion as the laws of matter, till the law
is interfered with. Therefore in what follows we shall say, that when
matter at rest is moved, or when matter in motion is stayed, or its
movement by a natural force is prevented, a breach of the law of
inertia is committed.
We come, then, to these propositions:--1st, That human power is
utterly unable to break any law of matter except the law of inertia.
2nd, That when, by breaking only the law of inertia--_i.e._, by moving
or by resisting the motion of matter--any operation is accomplished,
no other law of matter is broken. 3rd, That to break the law of
inertia by Force, directed by Will, is no interference with the
properties of matter. 4th, That by breaking the law of inertia
only, man has power to call into play properties which make matter
subservient to his objects.
Nor is this man's power only. Inferior animals can also move matter,
and by moving it can cause prodigious results. A minute insect, by
secreting lime from sea waters, makes a coral reef, or aids in forming
a cliff of chalk. A beaver cuts down a tree, and forms a swamp that
changes the climate of a district; a bird carries a seed, and makes
a forest on an island. Inanimate life has the same power. The plant
opens its leaves to the sun, and abstracts the carbon that forms
fruitful soils and beds of coal. Matter itself can by motion work on
matter. The great physical powers, heat and electricity, are modes of
motion. Radiation of heat causes freezing, and freezing crumbles rocks
into soil, or it forms the clouds in the air, whose deluges hollow
valleys; while electricity cleaves and splinters the summits of the
mountain peaks. Everywhere motion, sharp or slow, works with matter;
everywhere the law of inertia is broken; and everywhere the miracles
of Nature are wrought out by Nature's unbroken laws, set in action or
withheld by only the movement which matter has received, be it from
Will in man or beast, or be it from forces which themselves are part
of matter's properties.
Now, since we have started from the assumption that God does exist, it
is impossible to make Him an exception to the rule which holds of
the spirits of inferior creatures, and even of inanimate matter. If,
therefore, He can cause or stop movement, He can, without further
breach of any law of Nature, bring into play the laws of Nature. Or,
to state the same proposition conversely, we must admit that whatever
wonders God may cause by bringing into operation a law of Nature
through the means of affecting motion in matter, cannot be called a
breach of the laws of Nature. It is, of course, understood that this
proposition is limited to the results of motion; it does not affirm
that the cause of the motion may not be a breach of a law of Nature.
This question will remain for future examination; at present it is
neither affirmed nor denied.
Let us in the meantime, however, consider what we have reached by the
proposition above stated. What are called miracles may be divided into
three classes. The first are purely spiritual, affecting mind without
the intervention of matter, such as visions (though these _may_
originate in the brain, and therefore belong to the next class), gifts
of tongues, inspirations, mental resolutions. The second affect mind
in connection with matter, such as, perhaps, the healing of paralytic
or epileptic affections, and certainly the restoration of life to
the dead. The third affect matter solely; they include the healing
of wounds, or of corporeal disease, such as blindness, or fever; the
dividing of waters; the walking on water, or raising an iron axe-head
from the bottom of water; the falling of walls or trees; the opening
of prison-doors, and such like.
The first two classes we may, in any discussion limited to the laws of
Nature, leave out of view, because it cannot be said that we know any
laws of Nature affecting mind by itself, or even mind in relation to
matter. Metaphysicians have interested themselves in trying to trace
the origin or sequence of intellectual processes, but I hardly think
any would assert they had discovered or defined what can properly be
called a law; and certainly, if any do assert it, the accuracy of the
assertion is controverted by as many philosophers on the other side.
Any direct influence of God on mind cannot, therefore, be charged with
being in violation of natural law. Nor can it even be declared to
be contrary to universal experience, since in this case the negative
evidence of those who have not experienced it would only be set
against the positive evidence of innumerable persons who affirm that
they have experienced it.
The influence of mind on matter, and matter on mind, are also so
obscure, that it cannot be affirmed that anything which mental
operation can effect on one's own body is contrary to natural law.
No physiologist will assert that mental resolution, or conviction,
tending towards recovery from sickness, is without some power to bring
that result to pass. They will admit also that this is peculiarly the
case in regard to those disorders which, in pure ignorance of their
actual source, they are fain to call hysterical, neuralgic, or
generally nervous. They are all acquainted with many cases in their
own experience of recovery from such disorders in which no physical
cause for recovery can be imagined. If, then, God should convey to
the mind of a patient an impression which brings about recovery,
there would clearly be no violation of natural law. With regard to the
restoration of life, it is quite true that this is beyond the ordinary
power of man's volition. Nevertheless, at each moment of our lives
there is a communication of life to the dead matter which has formed
our food, but which, after digestion, becomes a part of our living
organs; and this is true even in the nutrition of plants. How or
at what moment the mind enters or becomes capable of affecting our
frames, we do not know. But this happens at some moment before or
during birth; its doing so at a subsequent period is, therefore, not
a breach of natural law, but is only an instance of natural law coming
into operation, by the same cause, at a period differing from that
which is customary. The _act_, whatever it is, is not exceptional, but
ordinary. The _time_ is alone exceptional.
We have now to consider the strictly physical phenomena to which the
name of miracles is in this discussion confined, and to which the
objection that they are contrary to natural laws is commonly stated.
A very large number of these are at first glance seen to be only
instances of inertia being affected. To walk on water, to make water
stand in a heap, to raise a body from the ground, to cast down walls,
or move bolts and doors, are obviously exertions of simple mechanical
force such as we ourselves daily employ. Their effective cause is
neither more nor less than an interference with the law of inertia,
and by the previous demonstration they are therefore not to be
reckoned as breaches of any law of Nature.
Let us try if this can be made clearer by an example. It has been
stated before that if iron were made to swim on water by modification
of the law of gravity it would be creation of a new substance
differing from iron in being of less specific gravity. At the
same time, the original iron of normal specific gravity would have
disappeared. These processes of creation and destruction would be
so unprecedented that we should justly call them violations of the
ordinary laws of nature. But at least we should then expect that the
light iron thus created would be permanently light, and we should
call it another breach of the laws of nature if on lifting it from the
water we found it heavy. But if we were to hold a magnet of suitable
power over the original heavy iron, when at the bottom of the water,
we might see it rise and float, although not touched or upheld by
any visible substance, and although its specific gravity remained
constant. In this case it would be moved by a power which overcomes
gravity, but there would be no creation nor destruction of any
property, and no natural law would be broken. But if now we substitute
for "magnetic" "Divine" power, there is still no breach of a natural
law, for no property is created or destroyed. In both cases the acting
agent is a power outside the iron, invisible and unknown, except by
the effects. The effect of both is the same: it is to give motion to
matter, and nothing more. Hence, neither violate any law of nature
except that of inertia.
Proceeding to another class of miracles, which seem at first to
be creative, we shall find that they also come within the range of
familiar human potentiality. The making of bread, or meal, or oil,
or wine, are instances of chemical synthesis. These substances are
composed of three or four elements, all gaseous except carbon (to
be absolutely accurate, we must add minute quantities of eight other
elements), which no chemist has yet succeeded in uniting in such
forms. But chemists have succeeded in forming certain substances by
bringing together their elements, of which water is the simplest type,
and others of greater complexity are every year being attained. These
are formed by moving into proximity, or admixture, the elementary
ingredients, under circumstances favourable to their union in
the desired combination, and the combination then proceeds by the
operation of natural laws. No one would be surprised to hear that
some chemist had thus attained to form starch or gluten, the main
ingredients of bread; or oil, or spirit, or essences; for if it were
announced we should all know that he had only discovered some new
method of manipulation by which circumstances were arranged so as
to favour the natural laws which effect the union of the necessary
elements. Therefore, if these substances are formed by Divine power,
it is not creation--it is only the chemist's work, adopting natural
laws for its methods, and bringing them into play by transposition of
material substances.
Meteorological processes--such as lightning, rain, drought, winds--are
sometimes made the immediate cause of "miracles," as when the wind
caused the waters of the Red Sea to flow back, or brought the flights
of quails, or locusts. These are effects which we know wind is quite
capable of producing, and does produce naturally. Was there then any
breach of natural laws (beyond that of inertia) in causing such winds
to blow? or in bringing up thunder-clouds? or in causing an arid
season? We cannot, indeed, say that there was not; but as little can
we say that there was. For since we ourselves have acquired such
power over lightning, the most inscrutable and irresistible of all
meteorological agencies, as to be able to lead it where we will, how
shall we say that God's infinite knowledge has not the same power over
the winds and the clouds, by employing only natural agencies for His
work, and employing these only by the operation of motion given to
matter.
With regard to the healing of diseased matter, conjectures also can
only be offered, because of the source of diseases we know so little.
Sight is restored in cataract by simple removal of an abnormal
membrane. Many fevers, if the germ theory or the poison theory be
correct, are cured when the germs die, or the poison is eliminated. A
power that could kill the germs, or remove them or the poison from the
system, would then effect immediate cure in accordance with natural
laws. It does not seem necessarily beyond man's reach to effect
this when he shall understand natural laws more fully; it cannot,
therefore, be a breach of natural laws if God should effect it by laws
as yet unknown to man, provided they are brought into play with no
other agency than the motion of matter.
It would be folly as well as impiety to assert that it is in such ways
only that miracles are performed. No such assertion is made. But
when, on the other side, it is asserted that the miracles narrated
in Scripture cannot be true because they must involve a breach of the
immutable laws of Nature, the answer is justifiable and is sufficient,
that they do not necessarily involve any breach of any law, save of
that one law of inertia which at every instant is broken by created
things, without any disturbances being introduced into the serene
march of Nature's laws. The scientific revelation is reconciled with
the written revelation when it is shown that neither necessarily
implies the falsity of the other.
But supposing the argument thus far to be conceded, it will be urged
that the real "miracle" remains yet behind. When man moves matter,
his hand is visible: when an animal gnaws a tree, its teeth are seen
working; when a river flows down a valley, its force is heard and
felt. How different, it will be said, is God's working, where there is
no arm of flesh, no sound of power, no sign of presence.
Unquestionably it is a deep marvel and a mystery, that impalpable
spirit should act upon gross matter; but it is a mystery of humanity
as well as of Godhead. What moves the hand? Contraction of the
muscles. But what causes contraction of the muscles? The influence
transmitted from the brain by the nerves. But what sends that
influence? It is mind, which somewhere, somehow, moves animal
tissues--tissues consisting of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen,
phosphorus, and sulphur. At some point of our frames, we know not yet
where, mind does act directly on matter. It is a law of Nature that it
should so act _there_. But if God exists, His mind must, by the same
law, act on matter _somewhere_. Can we call it an offence against law
if it acts on matter elsewhere than in that mass of organized pulp
which we call brains? If no possibility of communication between
mind and matter could anywhere be found in Nature, we might call such
communication contrary to natural law. In other words, if it were one
of the properties of matter that it could not receive motion from
that which is not matter, its motion without a material cause would
be supernatural. But since it is of the very essence of existence that
matter in certain combinations should be capable of being endowed with
life, and by such endowment become capable of being affected in motion
by mind, it is indisputable that such capability is one of matter's
properties, and that its being so affected falls within and not
without Nature's laws.
It may be objected that, since it is only living substance which can
be acted on by the human mind, it is contrary to law that dead matter
should be acted on by Divine mind. But this is a simple begging of
the question at issue. It is constructing a law for the purpose of
charging God with breaking it. Where do we find evidence in Nature
that matter cannot be moved by the Divine mind? Science reveals no
such law. Science is simply silent on the subject; it admits its utter
ignorance, and declares the question beyond its scope. Undoubtedly it
does not pronounce that God does move matter, but it equally abstains
from asserting that God does not. For when it traces back material
effects from cause to cause, it comes at last to something for which
it has no explanation. When we say that an acid and an alkali combine
by the law of affinity, that a stone falls by the law of gravity, we
merely generalize facts under a name, we do not account for them. What
causes affinity, what causes gravity? Suppose we say the one is polar
electricity, the other is the impact of particles in vibration (both
of which statements are unproved guesses), what do we gain? The next
question is only, what causes electricity and what causes vibration?
Suppose, again, we answer that both are modes of motion, we only come
to the further question, what causes motion? And since motion is a
breach of the law of inertia, what is it that first excited motion in
this dead matter? Carry back our analysis as far as we will or can,
at last we reach a point where matter must be acted upon by something
that is not matter. This something is Mind; and God also is Mind.