thing besides itself--do they mean that in spite of this there may
still be a second something, a power of a different order, acting on
man's brain and grappling with its automatic movements? Do they mean
that that '_heathen_' and '_gross_' conception of an immaterial soul is
probably after all the true one? Either they must mean this or else they
must mean the exact opposite. There is no third course open to them.[36]

Their opinion, as soon as they form one, must rest either on this
extreme or that. They will see, as exact and scientific thinkers, that
if it be not practically certain that there is some supernatural entity
in us, it is practically certain that there is not one. To say merely
that it _may_ exist is but to put an ounce in one scale whilst there is
a ton in the other. It is an admission that is utterly dead and
meaningless. They can only entertain the question of its existence
because its existence is essential to man as a moral being. The only
reason that can tempt us to say it _may_ be forces us in the same moment
to say that it _must_ be, and that it _is_.

Which answer eventually the positive school will choose, and which
answer men in general will accept, I make as I have said before, no
attempt to answer. My only purpose to show is, that if man has any moral
being at all, he has it in virtue of his _immaterial_ will--a force, a
something of which physical science can give no account whatever, and
which it has no shadow of authority either for affirming or for denying;
and further, that if we are not prevented by it from affirming his
immaterial will, we are not prevented from affirming his immortality,
and the existence of God likewise.

And now I come to that third point which I said I should deal with here,
but which I have not yet touched upon. Every logical reasoner who admits
the power of will must admit not only the possibility of miracles, but
also the actual fact of their daily and hourly occurrence. Every
exertion of the human will is a miracle in the strictest sense of the
word; only it takes place privately, within the closed walls of the
brain. The molecules of the brain are arranged and ordered by a
supernatural agency. Their natural automatic movements are suspended, or
directed and interfered with. It is true that in common usage the word
_miracle_ has a more restricted sense. It is applied generally not to
the action of man's will, but of God's. But the sense in both cases is
esse