Still less was it a miracle; for a miracle is a visible interposition in the course of nature by a power superior to the powers of nature. A given effect, therefore, is termed miraculous with express reference to some existing natural agency, whose efficacy it, in some way, exceeds. If there existed in inorganic nature some natural process of self-vivification, then any Divine interposition to produce life independently of this natural agency, would be a miraculous intervention. As a matter of fact, however, inorganic nature is destitute of this power of self-vitalization, and consequently no natural agency was superseded or overridden by the initial imparting of life to lifeless matter. Life was not ordained to originate in any other way. Given, therefore, this impotence of inorganic nature, it follows that an initial vivification of matter by Divine power was demanded by the very nature of things. The Divine action did not come into competition, as it were, with existing natural agencies, but was put forth in response to the exigencies of nature itself. It cannot, therefore, be regarded as miraculous. Nor, finally, is there any warrant for regarding such an initial vivification of matter as supernatural. Only that is supernatural which transcends the nature, powers, and exigencies of all things created or creatable. But, as we have seen, if life was to exist at all, a primal animation of inanimate matter by Divine power was demanded by the very nature of things. Here the Divine action put forth in response to an exigency of nature and terminated in the constitution of living nature itself. Now, the effect of a Divine action, by which the natures of things are initially constituted, plainly pertains to the order of nature, and has nothing to do with the supernatural. Hence the primordial constitution by Divine power of living nature was not a supernatural, but a purely natural, event. CHAPTER II THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL § 1. Matter and Spirit We live in an age in which scientific specialization is stressed as the most important means of advancing the interests of human knowledge; and specialism, by reason of its many triumphs, seems to have deserved, in large measure, the prestige which it now enjoys. It has, however, the distinct disadvantage of fostering provincialism and separatism. This lopsided learning of the single track mind is a condition that verges on paranoia, leads to naïve contempt for all knowledge not reducible to its own set of formulæ, and portends, in the near future, a Babel-like confusion of tongues. In fact, the need of a corrective is beginning to be felt in many quarters. This corrective can be none other than the general and synthetic science of philosophy; it is philosophy alone that can furnish a common ground and break down the barriers of exclusiveness which immure the special sciences within the minds of experts.