In the second place, these wonders ought not to cause an incredulous
surprise in any sensible person who pays due attention to the wonders
of nature. "Man," says St. Augustine, "sees extraordinary things happen,
and he admires them, while he himself, the admirer, is a great wonder,
and a much greater miracle than any things which are done by the
intervention of man. There is nothing more marvellous done in the
world, which is not less wonderful than the world itself. All nature
is full of what is miraculous; we seem unconscious of it, because we
see those things daily, and because this daily repetition lowers them
in our eyes. And this is one reason why God has reserved to Himself
other things out of the common course of nature, on which He shows His
power from time to time, in order that their novelty may strike us;
but when we consider attentively, and with reflection, the miracles
we constantly see, we find that they are far greater than others,
however surprising and uncommon these may be."

The holy doctor admits that the prodigies which are out of the common
course of nature, and which are properly called miracles, are to be
viewed with astonishment, since they are works of God, worthy of
admiration; he only requires that the surprise they cause shall be
qualified by a consideration of the wonders of nature, to which he
likewise gives the name of miracles, in a more extended sense: on the
same principle, and _a fortiori_, what there is surprising in them
should not make them appear to us incredible. An enlightened mind
does not believe in miracles which are communicated to him, unless due
proof of them is adduced; but it is not because what is wonderful in
them renders him incredulous, because he sees more marvellous things
in the universe and in himself. If men who apply themselves to the
study of nature, are pertinacious in refusing to believe in the miracles