But we may go farther, and assert that such a supposition as we have made not only accords with the story in the Gospels, but also with the whole spirit of Christianity, and with all the analogies of nature. The resurrection of Jesus, so regarded, becomes the most _natural_ thing in the world. If souls live after death, as even natural instinct teaches, they live somewhere. As by the analogy of nature we see an ascending scale of bodily existence up to man, whose body is superior to that of all other animals, because fitted for the very highest uses, so if man is to live hereafter and elsewhere, and not in this earthly body, analogy would anticipate that he should live in a body still, but in a higher form. If Jesus, therefore, rose in this higher body, and appeared to his disciples, it was to lift them above fear of death by showing that this corruptible must put on incorruption. So his resurrection was not merely coming to life again in the same body, but rising up into a higher body and a higher state, to show us how we are to be, to give us a glimpse of the hereafter, to bridge over the gulf between this life and that to come. § 9. Final Result of this Examination. We have thus examined, as thoroughly as our limited space will allow, the questions at issue, on the subject of miracles, between the old Orthodox and recent heterodox views; and the result to which we have arrived may be thus stated:— 1. We may believe, on the testimony of history, that through Jesus of Nazareth there entered the world a great impulse of creative moral life, which has been, and is now, renewing society. This new impulse of life may be regarded as miraculous or supernatural. 2. We may believe, though perhaps less strongly, but still decidedly, that during the stay of Jesus on earth many extraordinary phenomena took place, such as the sudden healing of the sick, the raising of the dead to life, a display of miraculous insight and foresight, or knowledge of the present and the future, and some influence over organic and material life, and over the lifeless forces of nature. The precise limits of this we do not know, and need not pretend to define. We need not think it essential to fix the boundary. It may be interesting as speculation, but it is not important as religion. 3. For, in the third place, we may say that these miracles of Jesus have very little direct bearing on our _religion_. As they illustrate his character, they are valuable, and also as they help us to believe that the laws of nature are not stiff and rigid, like the movement of a machine, but that there is force above force, a vortex of living powers, in the universe, rising higher and higher towards the fountain of all force and life in God. All portents and wonders are useful, as they shake us out of the mechanical view of things, and show that even the outward, sensible world is full of spiritual power.