Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/360

 statements may be made. Since the miracles are of such different kind, it is difficult to say much of them as a class that would be true of each. For some of the miracles were performed by opening the mind to the spiritual world, or by making things appear to the mind rather than to the corporeal senses, as the mountains round about Dothan covered with horses and chariots, or the ass talking to Balaam; and some are explained by natural causes, like the winds driving back the waters of the Red Sea. But it may be said of all that they were performed according to, and not in violation of law. Power descended from God into suitable ultimates by Divine volition, and worked natural results. The frogs and lice of Egypt were created by the same laws that they were originally brought forth. The almond budded by the same laws that all plants do. The manna formed by the same laws that it gathers in the ear of corn. The water turned into wine by the same forces that it does the same thing in the grape. Diseases were cured and the dead raised by the same life-force that heals and restores now. But in the case of miracles they differed only that God willed, and gave an increased influx, whereby results were more immediate.

The miracles can not be explained away, for