Again, when any one affirms that only living matter can be acted on by mind, whether human or Divine, we may fairly ask him, not indeed what is life, which is a problem as yet beyond science; but how life changes matter, which is a question strictly within the range of science dealing with matter. But to this inquiry we shall get no answer. The cells in an organism, the protoplasm in the cells, are living when the organism is living, dead when the organism is dead, and, as matter, no difference is discoverable between them in the state of living and dead. The cells consist of cellulose, the protoplasm of some "protein" compounds; no element is added or subtracted, no compound is altered, when it lives or when it dies. Nor can science even tell us when an organic compound becomes alive, or dead. Every instant crude sap is becoming living plants, every instant crude chyle is becoming living blood, every instant living organisms die and are expelled from plants by the leaves, from animals by the lungs, the skin, and the kidneys. Yet no physician can say at _what_ moment any of these carbon compounds become living, or when they cease to have life. Since of this perpetual birth and death in all nature we know absolutely nothing, it is manifestly unreasonable to lay down laws respecting them. If life and death make (as far as we can discover) absolutely no immediate physical change in the matter which they affect, how can we propound as a dogma of physical science that God cannot move "dead" matter, when our own experience tells us that our spirits can move "living" matter? It is clear that if we are not warranted in making a law, we are not warranted in saying that it is broken. Our concern with laws is to see that such as we do know are uniform, for this is the basis of science. But true science repudiates dogmas on subjects of which it avows its ignorance. Let us sum up the argument as it has now been stated. The propositions are the following:-- 1. Matter is subject to unalterable laws, which express its properties. No created being can originate, alter, or destroy any of these properties. 2. It is possible, however, for one property to overpower the action of another property, either in the same matter or in other matter. 3. By placing matter in a position in which one or other property has its natural action, man, as well as animals and inanimate matter, can overpower a law of Nature with almost boundless power. 4. The sole means by which such results are effected, are by affecting the law of inertia. Therefore, whatever is effected by natural laws, without other interference than by affecting inertia, is consistent with the uniformity of natural law. 5. All strictly physical "miracles" recorded in the Bible are capable of being effected by natural law, without other interference than by affecting inertia, and therefore are consistent with the uniformity of natural law.