stern decree of nature. The invariable action of law of itself eliminates the unfit Progress is necessary to existence; extinction is the doom of retrogression. The highest effect contemplated by the supposed Revelation is to bring man into perfect harmony with law, and this is ensured by law itself acting upon intelligence. Only in obedience to law is there life and safety. Knowledge of law is imperatively demanded by nature. Ignorance of it is a capital offence. If we ignore the law of gravitation we are dashed to pieces at the foot of a precipice, or are crushed by a falling rock; if we neglect sanatory law, we are destroyed by a pestilence; if we disregard chemical laws, we are poisoned by a vapour. There is not, in reality, a gradation of breach of law that is not followed by an equivalent gradation of punishment. Civilization is nothing but the knowledge and observance of natural laws. The savage must learn them or be extinguished; the cultivated must observe them or die. The balance of moral and physical development cannot be deranged with impunity. In the spiritual as well as the physical sense only the fittest eventually can survive in the struggle for existence. There is, in fact, an absolute upward impulse to the whole human race supplied by the invariable operation of the laws of nature acting upon the common instinct of self-preservation. As, on the one hand, the highest human conception of infinite wisdom and power is derived from the universality and invariability of law, so that universality and invariability, on the other hand, exclude the idea of interruption or occasional suspension of law for any purpose whatever, and more especially for the correction of supposed original errors of design which cannot have existed, or for the attainment of objects already provided for in the order of nature. {52} Upon the first groundless assumption of a Divine design of such a revelation follows the hypothetical inference that, for the purpose of making the communication from the unseen world, a miracle or visible suspension of the order or nature is no irregularity, but part of the system of the universe. This, however, is a mere assertion, and no argument An avowed assumption which is contrary to reason is followed by another which is contrary to experience. It is simply absurd to speak of a visible suspension of the order of nature being part of the system of the universe. Such a statement has no meaning whatever within the range of human conception. Moreover, it must be remembered that miracles--or "visible suspensions of the order of nature"--are ascribed indifferently to Divine and to Satanic agency. If miracles are not an anomaly or irregularity on the supposition of the Divine design of a revelation, upon what supposition do Satanic miracles cease to be irregularities? Is the order of nature, which it is asserted is under the personal control of God, at the same time at the mercy of the Devil?