the intervention of second causes? We only know that the second causes constantly operating will not, without some other intervening cause, account for the effect in question. But of the nature of the other intervening cause or causes, or whether the effect may have been produced by the immediate agency of the First Cause, we in fact profess ourselves utterly ignorant, when we call the effect a miracle. We only say, that it is an effect beyond the power of that system of causation which is constantly in action, and which we call Nature, or the Laws of Nature

In believing a miracle, then, we do not, as has sometimes been represented, believe an effect to have happened without a cause. No. We infer an unknown cause to have acted, since the effect is such as known causes are insufficient to produce.

When we see things frequently and constantly happening in the course of Nature, which we cannot explain by referring them to any natural laws with which we are yet acquainted, we nevertheless assume that they do obey some unknown law, that they are produced by some uniformly acting cause, with which we are unacquainted. A cause must be assumed for every effect; and for constant or uniform effect a constant or uniform cause is believed, before it is known.

And just so when I find some phenomenon occurring, not thus frequently and constantly, but singly and remarkably, a phenomenon which is not only incapable of being referred to any known law, but which the known laws of Nature proclaim to be impossible, without the intervention of some special and superior power, we infer the operation of a special and superior power on that occasion, in order to account for the effect in question. If it is unphilosophical to suppose the existence of more causes than are necessary to account for an effect, it is equally unphilosophical to ascribe an effect to causes confessedly inadequate to its production, and to deny the existence of other causes unknown to us, when those that are known are insufficient. No one, in short, more scrupulously adheres to the philosophical principle, that all effects must have adequate causes, than he who, when he finds an effect to have been pro

duced for which ordinary causes will not account, infers an extraordinary cause to have been present.

Perhaps it will be objected to this idea of a miracle, that the application of it must be attended with uncertainty; as the varying degrees of our knowledge respecting the laws of Nature, will make that a miracle to one man, which to another is only a natural occurrence.

We admit the fact; but see not how it bears upon the question of the leading gospel miracles. We admit the fact it is nothing more than happens in every department of our knowledge or belief; that correct principles may be mistakenly applied, and that their application, as well as their adoption, is practically subject to the errors of each individual's mind. Yet mistakes in the application, or diversity among those who apply them, does not impeach the correctness of the principles. Else there were an end to all reasoning on any subject, not excepting mathematics, respecting which an individual mind may make a blunder, though the science is in itself the science of certainty. We admit that an uninformed man might be made to regard as miraculous some curious phenomena which a scientific man might produce in the way of philosophical experiment. We know that ignorant minds are ever ready to cut the knot which they cannot untie, by ascribing to supernatural agency things which happen to strike their usually obtuse apprehension, and which another man's understanding, more alive to the investigation of causes, would ascribe to ordinary agencies. We admit that some things which seem miracles in an unenlightened age, are not regarded as such in a more advanced age, when the powers of Nature have been more diligently investigated. These are truisms.

But how does all this bear upon the question before us :-the question of the gospel miracles?

THE DEFECTS OF POPULAR INSTRUCTION;

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE CREDITON MECHANICS'

INSTITUTE.

BY WILLIAM MACCALL.

THE diffusion of knowledge is much talked of in the present generation. And it is a consoling fact, amid abounding cant, feebleness, and pretension, that the communication of knowledge should occupy so extensively the thoughts and efforts of earnest and benevolent men. Squabble as theologians may about the dogmas of religious belief, contend as factions may about political theories, yet the holy ground of popular enlightenment, few, but the most furious of religious and political bigots, are disposed to desecrate with the mad turmoil of partizan hostility. Difficult as every true worshipper of duty, every ardent lover of mankind, finds it to realize his ideas, and to obtain social instruments that may fitly embody his conception of social blessings, still there is always one mode left by which he can potently cooperate with others, while unable to make others cooperate with him. If it is a formidable, almost a despairing task, to penetrate his fellows with his high and peculiar faith, still it is a labour of comparative ease to join himself to the general crusade against ignorance. And though he may have mission and strength to hew out a path capacious enough for the majestic march of his faculties, yet he ought not to spurn the beaten track, where it is suited for ordinary purposes of improvement. The error of many who pant unselfishly for the amelioration of the world, is in despising all vehicles of progress which are not of their own creation. thus they remain inactive, waiting fruitlessly for a period when not merely the substance of their action, but its form, may be their own. Nor is the error confined to whom is more specially allotted the regeneration of humanity. Nearly every man that thinks at all, has some notion or plan to which he is desirous of giving a social shape. And it is proper and praiseworthy that he should strive energetically to render his notion or

And

plan influential and organic wherever he discovers the means thereto. What we call the crotchets of our brethren, are often the most valuable things about them, because they are the only characteristic features that clothe their existence with individuality, and the only vital portion in the mass of their conventional morality, and their traditional intelligence. To dislike persons on account of their crochets, is sometimes to dislike them because they have more vigour and zeal than their neighbours; the justly dislikeable are those who are too indifferent to have crotchets. The harm is not in being urged by some deep continuous impulse, some master-pervading sentiment, which assumes different names, according as the minds which it stirs are common or extraordinary;-the harm is in offering to our guiding and systematic impression an exclusive homage, whether that impression have the grandeur of an earth-wide vocation, or the intensity which everyday people bestow on some scheme apart from their everyday occupations. In all ages there has been a point, peaceful, serene, genial, where the sympathies and endeavours of the most divergent could commingle. Among the nations of antiquity that point was hospitality; in the times of chivalry that point was honour; during the centuries that the Catholic Church was the ruler of Europe, that point was charity; at the present moment, that point is education. Here, then, let us unite; hither let all philanthropists crowd, unfretted by the fever of polemical differences. Here is a field where we can work with the fiercest of our controversial opponents, however angular our personality, or bitter our prejudices. We are not required to abandon our connection with any section of the community, which for temporal or eternal purposes assumes a distinctive appellation; we are not required to surrender the views to which we are inclined to give an unceasing prominency in our reflections and our enterprises; we are solely required to augment and to purify that flood of instruction, which, though flowing with ever increasing clearness, rapidity, and magnificence, has still left many a desert of sin and wretchedness in England untouched.

Though the cause of education has my warmest love, and will always have my most strenuous assistance, yet there are evils resulting from the success of that cause which we ought not to overlook. Those evils are no arguments against education, though they are sometimes employed as such. Never was there a social benefit which did not assume some of the lineaments of a social curse. From the nature of man it must be so; an imperfect being can never do any thing else than imperfectly realize an imperfect idea. But because education is subject to this universal imperfection, should we therefore reject it? The same wretched sophistry has been employed from century to century against change, which is now employed against education. It is always taken for granted by those who use this hackneyed weapon, that the change which they oppose is a new imperfection, intended to supplant an old perfection. And so easily are human creatures duped, so illogical, so undiscerning, that they swallow the sophistry, transparent and feeble as it is, with as much avidity as if it were either an indubitable truth, or an ingenious lie. If the new is imperfect, the old is imperfect too; and the reason why change is sought, is not with reference to absolute imperfection either in the one or the other, but with reference to certain adaptations to society, which the new does, and which the old does not, possess. A notable blunder which the advocates and the enemies of change alike commit, sometimes unconsciously, often intentionally, is in speaking so positively and exclusively with regard to a favourite institution, a favourite theory, as if absolute perfection were embraced by either. An existing millenium under the one is always set to fight with a possible millenium under the other. Now milleniums are very nice things to talk about; but there never have been any, and till human nature grows much more angelic than it is, there never will be any. We should as much avoid speaking of any institution as an unmodified evil, as we should avoid speaking of any remedy as final and universal. There are no unmodified evils, and no final and universal remedies. We should always as candidly admit the good of a defect which we attempt to remove, as