d for
ever, immutable. Not only, however, is a negative proposition of this
kind incapable of proof, but modern chemistry is inclining towards the
contrary doctrine. And if carbon can be got out of hydrogen or oxygen,
the conversion of water into wine comes within range of scientific
possibility--it becomes a mere question of molecular arrangement.

As for virgin procreation, it is not only clearly imaginable, but
modern biology recognises it as an everyday occurrence among some
groups of animals. So with restoration to life after death. Certain
animals, long as dry as mummies, and, to all appearance, as dead, when
placed in proper conditions resume their vitality. It may be said that
these creatures are not dead, but merely in a condition of suspended
vitality. That, however, is only begging the question by making the
incapacity for restoration to life part of the definition of death. In
the absence of obvious lesions of some of the more important organs,
it is no easy matter, even for experts, to say that an apparently dead
man is incapable of restoration to life; and, in the recorded
instances of such restoration, the want of any conclusive evidence
that the man was dead is even more remarkable than the insufficiency
of the testimony as to his coming to life again.

It may be urged, however, that there is, at any rate, one miracle
certified by all three of the Synoptic Gospels which really does
"imply a contradiction," and is, therefore, "impossible" in the
strictest sense of the word. This is the well-known story of the
feeding of several thousand men, to the complete satisfaction of their
hunger, by the distribution of a few loaves and fishes among them; the
wondrousness of this already somewhat surprising performance being
intensified by the assertion that the quantity of the fragments of the
meal, left over, amounted to much more than the original store.

Undoubtedly, if the operation is stated in its most general form; if
it is to be supposed that a certain quantity, or magnitude, was
divided into many more parts than the whole contained; and that, after
the subtraction of several thousands of such parts, the magnitude of
the remainder amounted to more than the original magnitude, there does
seem to be an _a priori_ difficulty about accepting the proposition,
seeing that it appears to be contradictory of the senses which we
attach to the words "whole" and "parts" respectively. But this
difficulty is removed i