ll it so?"

"Yes."

"But if you found that he was the head of a race, as man was, and a
whole nation of such monsters springing from him, then would you say
that this wonderful intrusion into the sphere of our experience was
no miracle, but that it was merely according to law?"

"I should."

"Verily, my dear friend, I am afraid the world will laugh at us for
making such fantastical distinctions. This infraction of 'established
sequences' ceases to be miraculous, if the wonder is perpetuated
and sufficiently multiplied! Meantime, what becomes of the prodigy
during the time in which it is uncertain whether any thing will come
of it or not? You will say, I suppose, (the interpolation in the
'series' of phenomena being just what I have supposed,) that it is
uncertain whether it is to be regarded as miraculous or not, till
we know whether it is to be repealed or not."

"I think I must, if I adhere to the principle I am now defending."

"Very well; only in the mean time you are in the ludicrous position
of facing a phenomenon of which you do not know whether you will call
it a miracle or not,--the contingency, meantime, on which it is to be
decided, not at all, as I contend, affecting the matter; since you
allow that it is the infraction of the previously established order
of sequences, as known to uniform experience, which constitutes a
miracle! If so, I must maintain that the creation of man was, for
the same reasons, of the essence of a miracle. You seem to think
there is no objection to the admission of miracles, provided they are
astounding and numerous enough; or provided they are a long time about,
instead of being instantaneously wrought. I must remind you, that to
the principle of our argument these things are quite immaterial. Whether
the revolution by which the established order of sequences is absolutely
infringed,--the face of the universe or of our globe transformed, or
an entirely new race (as, for example, man) originated,--I say, whether
such change be produced slowly or quickly is of no consequence in the
world to our argument. It is whether or not a series of phenomena
be produced as absolutely transcending the sphere of all experience,
as those events we admit to be impossible, called 'miracles.' That the
introduction of man upon the earth for the first time (for you will not
allow his race eternal), or the origination of a sun, is not at all
to be reckoned as transcending that experience, I cannot