Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/650

* MIRABEAU. 578 MIRACLES. tion francaise (ib., 1SS2; ; lor liis methods of work, Diimont, lioufciiirs ; and Keybaz, Lit col- laborutvur tie Mirabcau (ib., 1874) ; for liis elec- tion to the titates-Ueiieral, Guibiil, llirabeau ct la Provence (ib., 1887-91) ; for his career in the Assembly, Reynald, Mirubeau et hi Vonstituantc (ib., 1872). The best lives are Stern, Dus Leben Mirabcaiis (Berlin, 1889) ; Mezi6re.s, ]'ie de Mirabcau ; and LomCnie, Lea Mirabeaux (5 vols., Paris, 1889-01). MIRACLE PLAY (OF., Fr. miracle, from Lat. miruculuin, miracle, from miruri, to wonder, from mirus, wonderful; eonnoctcd with Gk. ^«- 5o>', mcidaii, Skt. siiii, to smile). Strictly, the second stage in the development of the modern drama under religious auspices, though it is sometimes confounded with the lirst, for which, and for a general account of this development, see ilYSTEBY. The distinction between the two, where it is made, is based on the fact that whereas the mysteries proper took their subjects from the Scripture narrative, centring about the life of Christ, the miracle plays were taken rather from tlu> lives of the saints. The signifi- cant features of this change were that by getting away from the sacred text of the Scriptures greater latitude was gained, and a greater range of characters; a nearer approach to a repre- sentation of contemporary life was thus also permittcil, and a freer introduction of the comedy clement than reverence would allow in the earlier form. Mattlicw Paris mentions a miracle phiy, Ludiis de Sancta Kathnrinn, that was performed at Dunstable about 1110, under the direction of a certain GeofTrey. afterwards Abbot of Saint Albans. Again, William KitZ'Stephen, in his Life of Thomas Becket (about 1182), writes approvingly of London plays on the miracles and snircrings of martyrs and confessors. Other miracle plays, based on the lives of Saint Fabian, Saint Sebastian. Saint Botolph. Saint George, and Saint Crispin, were performed in the four- teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Very- few texts of English miracle plays have been preserved; but from numerous Continental speci- mens, it may be inferred that they were in aim and structure similar to the mysteries. For bibliography, see JIystery. MIRACLES. The view to be taken of these extraordinary events is very largely a qtiestion of what definition of them is presupposed. .V miracle was for a long time held to be "a viola- tion or sus[)cn-iion of, or an interference with, the laws of nature." A later typical definition makes it "an extraordinary operation cognizable by the senses, which has its course not in the order of nature, as known to us, hut in God." . other, not antagonistic to this, but perhaps more in accordance with the most recent scien- tific and rcdigioiis thought, understands a mira- cle as "a revelation of a higher life, the prophecy of a new stage in the devclo|imcnt of creation." The old definition upon which flume trained his intellectual artillery has disappeared with the eighteenth century Deism which gave it birth. Hume's ar'/imient and the replies of the Christian apologists of his day are no longer factors in tl^ discussion of the miraculous. The theory of special creations has been snpplanteil by that of organic growth. The divine bein;; is recojrnized as immnnpnt as well as transcend- ent. He is neither banished from the world nor buried in it. .s a result, God and man are closer together. The line of demarcation be- tween the natural and llie suiwrnatural is finer. Some writers even insist that the couimoii dis- tinction between the two is unreal and mislead- ing. We are told that there are not and cannot be any divine interpositions in nature, for God cannot interfere with Himself, ills creative activity is evcrywlicre i)resent. Man, though made in the image of God, is not the measure of God. If he were, nothing would he morn supernatural to him than the visible and known course of things is now. To men thinking along these lines miracles are no longer interferences with or violations of the fixed laws of nature. They are but the uianilestalions of a Higher Life — the expression among the lower sequences of life of that which a larger vision may one day make our own. ilan himself, by the exercise of his personality, works wonders among the laws or forces of the natural world which are brought under his control, ileu of scientific training elVect changes in physical things which are miracles to other men. Grown- up people perform miracles in the sight of chil- dren. A distinction, moreover, has been made between "known' ami imknown' laws. The old laws formerly designated as -the laws of nature' are not violated or suspended. All natural proc- esses go on, l)ut they are counteracted or inter- acted by a new kind of nature working by a new law with a new power. The 'fixity of law' in the physical world is no longer an indispeusal)lc factor in biological phraseology. It is contendeil that modern .science, in enlarging its horizon, has discv<>red and labeled some of the principles by which an immanent (iod effects His beneficent purposes, but that beyond and above these are other, and to man, as yet, 'unknown' and higher laws. Further: the great First Cause who, Christian- ity assumes, is behind all the evolutionary proc- esses of nature has another kingdom. He' is the author and controller of the moral as well as the natural order of the universe. Embodied in the doctrine of the divine immanence is the unity of a divine purpose throughout the moral and the physical world. The natural and the moral are not two opposing spheres of which the one dominates the other, but the one conjoint reve- lation of the moral nature of God. the lower of which pre|)arcs for and leads on to the higher. Or. in other words, the moral and the material world are obviously and incontcstably part and parcel of one and the same system. Hence, our definition may be enlarged to make a mir- acle not only the prophecy of a new state in the development of creation, but "an event in physical nature which makes unmistakably plain the presence and direct action of God working for a n.oral end." This view eliminates the Kantian dualism, and makes the Bible miracles not detached and meaningless portents, but part of a preparatory dispensation in the divine evolution. Displays of miractilous power are but the nuinifestations to man in his imper- fection of that for which he hungers, and toward which he struggles — the perfection of the moral king of the universe. To the unbiased thinker along these lines the rationale of miracles is at once apparent, and their possiliility or even probability pre- sents no serious dilliculty. But the credibility of the so-called miraculous events car be estab- I