is a pure spirit, or rather the pure Spirit, conscious of itself, and of every infinitesimal part of the Universe; personal, but without form; . . as active in the operations of terrestrial Nature as in the sublime manifestations of the higher spiritual spheres.

"The Infinite Being-Cause of causes, Principle of all that is, virtue and support of the universe, absolute, eternal-is, moreover, wholly incomprehensible by you, and me, and all creatures. His existence is indisputable, for without it it would be impossible to explain the existence of intelligence in the creation, of mathematics (which man did not invent, but discovered), and of intellectual and moral truths. But the Author and Supreme Judge of all things is above our conception. Efforts to comprehend the intrinsic nature and mode of action. of the Infinite Being would be labour utterly in vain."

We have argued that The Absolute is the Ultimate Fact, behind which we cannot go; that Its existence is the source and the explanation of everything; that the so-called laws of Nature are simply the manifestation of It in visibility; and that, therefore, there cannot be anything super natural. How, then, about Miracle? For in attempting to replace the anthropomorphism of much popular Christianity

by a higher and truer conception it is far indeed from our purpose to throw doubt on Christianity itself. This is a question, then, of considerable importance, and a few words upon it are necessary from the standpoint we have taken up.

We will be as concise as possible. For the purposes of our argument there are, hypothetically, two sorts of miracle: absolute and relative. The former, which is imagined only by very thoughtless and uncultured persons, is by its very nature impossible-impossible because, as we shall show, it involves a logical absurdity, a contradiction in terms. Now there are two propositions which, in a somewhat fluid state, exist in the minds of the unthinking. One is that the Ultimate Fact of the Universe is the will of God; the other, that Omnipotence can do 'anything.' But it should be clear to anybody who weighs the question for a moment that the will of God is an ultimate fact only in relation to that which is effected or affected by it-not as regards God Himself; seeing that will is only the expression of one's nature, and

that therefore the nature of God, who is invariable, is the Ultimate Fact with which we have to deal. It is, therefore, not an irreverent statement, but a metaphysical truth, that God cannot transgress the 'law'-if we may, for convenience' sake, use such a term-of His own nature; and, this law' being permanent, as well as the ultima Thule of our profoundest investigations, it is this which determines the will, and is in itself an eternal and unchanging fact. Similarly, to say that God can do anything'-in other words, that He can perform 'absolute' miracle-is not only to affirm that which would involve a variation in the Invariable and the existence of something behind the Ultimate; it is to be guilty of a contradiction in terms. It would be an 'absolute' miracle if two and two were made to equal five; if a triangle were described that should be neither equilateral, isosceles, nor scalene; if the same thing were to occupy two or more different places at the same time; or if a man were to jump down his own throat. Such, however, are the absurdities ascribed to Omnipotence by

persons who thoughtlessly and irrationally em: ploy the formula that we have quoted; and we

can only say that, if their notion of Omnipo-
tence is the correct one, there is no such thing
as Omnipotence in existence. We are reminded
here of the clever catch with which mischievous
persons are sometimes prone to puzzle the
unwary. What would happen, one is asked,
if an irresistible force were brought to bear
upon an immovable object? A tremendous
problem, truly. Would they both be anni-
hilated? Would the Universe come to an end?
Or would the result be nil? Of course nothing
would happen, because the proposition itself is
nonsense. Given the existence of an irresistible
force, there can be no such thing as an immov-
able object; for, if there were, no force could
be irresistible. The two terms of the proposi-
tion are mutually exclusive; and so
so with

'absolute' miracle.

But there is no such difficulty in connection with the miracle we have called 'relative.' On the contrary, 'relative' miracle is one of the commonplaces of our daily experience. Here

crete.

we are on firm ground; if we may be allowed a somewhat palpable pun, on the firmest conThe sudden transformation, by means of a refrigerating-machine, of a pint of water into a solid block is a real miracle in the eyes of a tropical savage-as much so as walking on the water is to us. Had our great-grandfathers been told that in a few years a man in London would be able to converse vivâ voce with a man in New York, they would have declared such a thing to be as miraculous as the floating of an iron hatchet or the blossoming of Aaron's wand, and would naturally have declined to believe it. It is clear, then, that what is a miracle to an untutored savage is an ordinary process to a man of average education; that what is a miracle to the wisest and most ingenious inventor would be simple enough to higher and more enlightened intelligences; and that nothing which does not involve a contradiction in terms can possibly be miraculous to the Supreme Intelligence of all.

One of the best-known definitions of Miracle is that by St. Thomas Aquinas. "Those events