inductive philosophy, and show not only that miracles may be, but that they have been. For this purpose we go to the great 'stone-book' of the earth, and call upon geology to give testimony in our behalf. If any of the deductions of that most interesting science may be accepted as well founded, it is that which declares that there are certain distinct and well-defined formations,— each belonging to a separate period in the history of the earth's crust, having its own kind of remains, and revealing the existence of new species, which could only have been called into being by the miracle of creation. Lest, however, we should mar the force of this argument by an imperfect statement of it, let us hear one who was well qualified to speak with authority on the subject. 'What say you,' says Hugh Miller,1 'to the relics that stand out in such bold relief from the rocks beside us, in their character as the results of miracle? The perished tribes and races which they represent all began to exist. There is no truth which science can more conclusively demonstrate than that they all had a beginning. 1 Footprints of the Creator, 1861, pp. 266, 267. The infidel who, in this late age of the world, would attempt to fall back upon the fiction of "an infinite series," would be laughed to scorn. They all began to be. But how? No true geologist holds by the development hypothesis. It has been resigned to sciolists and smatterers, and there is but one alternative. They began to be through the miracle of creation. From the evidence furnished by these rocks we are shut down either to the belief in miracle, or to the belief in something else, infinitely harder of reception, and as thoroughly unsupported by evidence as it is contrary to experience. Hume is at length answered by the severe truths of the stony science. He was not, according to Job, "in league with the stones of the field, and they have risen in irresistible warfare against him in the Creator's behalf."" It may be said, however, that since Miller's lamented death the development hypothesis has been immensely forwarded by Mr Darwin, but we greatly fear that even he must be classed with those whom Miller in the above-quoted passage has called sciolists and smatterers;' for where are the facts on which he proceeds? His view has been dignified with the name of a theory; but to call it by that appellation is more than it deserves. A theory is a general principle which is tentatively put forth as the explanation of certain well-accredited facts; but where are the facts here? Has the vaunted naturalist produced a single instance in which a change of species has occurred, requiring some such hypothesis as that of natural selection for its explanation? Has he found any remains which may verify his view by showing us the different steps by which in any given case the transition was accomplished? Or is it not rather the case that, in utter defiance of the Newtonian maxim, 'Hypotheses non fingo,' he has been feigning hypotheses, and that the whole thing is an 'ingenious fancy'? Does he not require to help out his view with a whole host of suppositions, such as that some geologic strata are entirely lost? and is it not true that he bases his argument on simple possibilities, and not on actual facts? If all this were done by a theologian, men would cry out against its unphilosophical character, and talk about the first principles of 1 the inductive system; but what must be said of it as the logic of a naturalist? We are not surprised that a reviewer has declared that Mr Darwin's book 'exhibits philosophical abilities of the lowest order,' and we shall need something stronger than hypothesis before we give up the already well-ascertained deductions of geology as announced by Hugh Miller in the paragraph which we have quoted. We hold, then, science itself being witness, that miracles have been; and this is the best answer that can be given to those who proclaim them to be impossible. If on the leaves of the book of nature we see that there have been repeated breakings in upon its uniformity by new creating acts, on what principle shall we refuse to believe that similar occurrences can take place when we read of them in the book of revelation? That 'British Quarterly Review for January 1865, p. 143, note. For a masterly note on the logic of Mr Darwin from the recent work of Dr W. L. Alexander, St Paul at Athens, see Appendix A. After reading that exposure of fallacious reasoning, there will be few who will allow themselves to be carried away with the development novelty, and every one will feel the force of the warning, 'Let us distinguish between what science can prove, and what men of science can ingeniously fancy and ably expound.' |