as they spoke three thousand years
ago to the Hebrew poet who wrote the Psalm "_C[oe]li enarrant_," as they
spoke but yesterday to the severely disciplined intellect of John Stuart
Mill, who, brushing aside the prepossessions and prejudices of a
lifetime, has recorded his deliberate judgment that "there is a large
balance in favour of the probability of creation by intelligence."[44]
Sir William Thomson, no mean authority upon a question of physical
science, goes further, and speaks not of "a large balance of
probability," but of "overpowering proofs." "Overpowering proofs," he
told the British Association, "of intelligence and benevolent design,
lie all around us; and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or
scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us
with irresistible force, showing to us through Nature the influence of a
free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend upon one
ever-acting Creator and Ruler."[45] And, once more, it is indubitable
that matter is inert until acted upon by force, and that we have no
knowledge of any other primary[46] cause of force than will. Whence, as
Mr. Wallace argues in his well-known work, "it does not seem improbable
that all force may be will-force, and that the whole universe is not
merely dependent upon, but actually is, the will of higher intelligences
or of one Supreme Intelligence."[47]

If then things are so--as who can disprove?--we may reasonably demur to
the assertion that physical science throws discredit upon the position
that a Personal Will is the cause of the universe. Let us now glance at
the last of the propositions supposed to be condemned by the researches
of the physicists--namely, that this Personal Will has sometimes
interfered by miracles with the order of the universe. Now, here, as I
intimated in an earlier portion of this article, I find myself at
variance with the author of "Natural Religion" upon a question, and a
very important question, of terminology. I do not regard the
supernatural as an interference with, or violation of, the order of the
universe. I adopt, unreservedly, the doctrine that "nothing is that errs
from law." The phenomena which we call supernatural and those which we
call natural, I view as alike the expression of the Divine Will: a Will
which acts not capriciously, nor, as the phrase is, arbitrarily, but by
law, "attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens
omnia." And so the