burn dimly. Then a new
psychological world is created within them. The erstwhile solid earth
with its blind driving power becomes transparent and a thing {124} to
despise. The Lord reigneth to Whom all things are possible. His the
power to create or to destroy, to bind or to loose, to wither or to
make whole.

The next day in the laboratory, perhaps, the same individuals watch the
circulation of the blood in the thin membrane of a frog's foot, or
measure the transformation of energy in a chemical reaction, or examine
the nerve-tissue of the human brain, and another outlook forms itself.
They see a world of harmonious movements, of gigantic forces, of
delicate adjustments, of slow birth and quick decay. The sentiment of
law, the feeling for fact, the sense of nature grow upon them. For the
time being, they are the conscious spectators of an immense reality it
would be meaningless to set aside. The complexity and autonomy of
nature thrusts all thought of superpersonal agency into the background.
Thus the pendulum swings back and forth from supernaturalism to
naturalism. They believe, and yet disbelieve. What answer must be
given to these troubled minds?

Now the question, Do miracles happen? presupposes a single, unambiguous
meaning for the term, miracle. Yet to secure such a single meaning
requires an effort. It is so tempting for the advocate of miracles to
make qualifications when the argument goes against him, to say that he
did not mean an act of a supernatural agent but only an extraordinary
event, something marvelous and not easily accounted for. We shall
concern ourselves primarily with what may be called a theological
miracle, an occurrence confidently assigned to the will of a divine
agent. Incidentally, however, we shall discuss the logical attitude to
take toward marvels which cannot easily be fitted into the usual scheme
of events.

{125}

To understand the ideas and sentiments associated with our term, we
must go back to the past. We are sufficiently acquainted by now with
the setting of the religious view of the universe to know that the gods
were at first forces _in_ nature and only slowly became spiritual
agents _outside_ of nature. We cannot too often remember that man had
no instinctive knowledge of what energies operated in the world and
what were the conditions of their operation. He peopled woods and
fields and sky with invisible agents who could do almost all they
wanted to do