f religion by reflection. It arises
out of the action of his own mind upon the things which he sees, or upon
what he may happen to hear or to read, and the practice joins itself
thereto.

When men, whether from policy or pious fraud, set up systems of religion
incompatible with the word or works of God in the creation, and not
only above but repugnant to human comprehension, they were under the
necessity of inventing or adopting a word that should serve as a bar
to all questions, inquiries and speculations. The word mystery answered
this purpose, and thus it has happened that religion, which is in itself
without mystery, has been corrupted into a fog of mysteries.

As mystery answered all general purposes, miracle followed as an
occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the mind, the latter
to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, the other the legerdemain.

But before going further into this subject, it will be proper to inquire
what is to be understood by a miracle.

In the same sense that every thing may be said to be a mystery, so also
may it be said that every thing is a miracle, and that no one thing is
a greater miracle than another. The elephant, though larger, is not a
greater miracle than a mite: nor a mountain a greater miracle than an
atom. To an almighty power it is no more difficult to make the one than
the other, and no more difficult to make a million of worlds than to
make one. Every thing, therefore, is a miracle, in one sense; whilst,
in the other sense, there is no such thing as a miracle. It is a miracle
when compared to our power, and to our comprehension. It is not a
miracle compared to the power that performs it. But as nothing in this
description conveys the idea that is affixed to the word miracle, it is
necessary to carry the inquiry further.

Mankind have conceived to themselves certain laws, by which what they
call nature is supposed to act; and that a miracle is something contrary
to the operation and effect of those laws. But unless we know the whole
extent of those laws, and of what are commonly called the powers of
nature, we are not able to judge whether any thing that may appear to us
wonderful or miraculous, be within, or be beyond, or be contrary to, her
natural power of acting.

The ascension of a man several miles high into the air, would have
everything in it that constitutes the idea of a miracle, if it were not
known that a species of air can be generated sev