be _ex hypothesi_ to assert what was false. In fact, to assert the
occurrence of a miracle is simply to go back to the beginning of
science, and to say: Here is an event which we cannot assign to that
derivative action to which we have been led to assign the great body of
events; we cannot explain it except by referring it to direct and
spontaneous action, to a will like our own will. Science has shown that
the vast majority of events are due to derivative action regulated by
laws. Here is an event which cannot be so explained, any more than the
action of our own free will can be so explained. Science may fairly
claim to have shown that miracles, if they happen at all, are
exceedingly rare. To demonstrate that they never happen at all is
impossible, from the very nature of the evidence on which Science rests.
But for the same reason Science can never in its character of Science
admit that a miracle has happened. Science can only admit that, so far
as the evidence goes, an event has happened which lies outside its
province.

To believers the progress of Science is a perpetual instruction in the
character which God has impressed on His works. That He has put Order in
the very first place may be a surprise to us; but it can only be a
surprise. In the great machinery of the Universe it constantly happens
to us to find that that which is made indispensable, is nevertheless not
the highest. The chosen people were not the highest in all moral or even
in all spiritual characteristics; if we refuse the explanation given by
Goethe that they were chosen for their toughness, yet we have no better
to give. The eternal moral law is of all we know the highest and
holiest. Yet the religious instinct seems to have been more
indispensable for the development of humanity according to the Divine
purpose than the observance of that moral law in all its fulness. It
would never have occurred to us beforehand to permit in Divine