But though the experience argument is of no real force, and, as shown by the beliefs of the higher order of minds, of no real effect, when brought to bear against miracles supported by the proper testimony, _it is_ of great force and effect when brought to bear, not against _miracles_, but against some presumed _law_. It is experience, and experience only, that determines what is or is not law, and it is law, and law only, that constitutes the subject-matter of ordinary experience. Experience, in determining what is really miracle, does so simply through its positive knowledge of law: by knowing law, it knows also what would be a violation of it. And so miracle cannot possibly form the subject-matter of experience in the sense of Hume. For did miracle constitute the subject-matter of experience, the law of which the miracle was a violation _could not_: most emphatically, in this case, were there “no law” there could be “no transgression;” and so experience would be unable to recognize, not only the existence of the law transgressed, but also of the miracle, in its character as such, which was a transgression of the law. We determine from experience that there exists a certain fixed law, known among men as the law of gravitation; and that, in consequence of this law, if a human creature attempt standing upon the sea, he will sink into it; or if he attempt rising from the earth into the heavens, he will remain fixed to the spot on which the attempt is made. Such, in these cases, would be the direct effects of this gravitation _law_; and any presumed law antagonistic in its character could not be other than a law contrary to that invariable experience by which the existence of the real law in the case is determined. But certain it is—for the evidence regarding the facts cannot be resisted, and by the greatest minds has not been resisted—that a man _did_ once walk upon the sea without sinking into it, and _did_ once ascend from the earth into the sky; and these _miracles_ ought not to be tested—and by earnest inquirers after truth really never have been tested—by any experience of the uniformity of the law of which they were professed transgressions, seeing it was essentially and obviously necessary that, in order to serve the great moral purpose which God intended by them, the law which they violated should have been a uniform law, and that they should have been palpable violations of it. But while the experience argument is thus of no value when directed against well-attested _miracle_, it is, as I have said, all-potent when directed against presumed _law_. Of law we know nothing, I repeat, except what experience tells us. A miracle contrary to experience in the sense of Hume is simply a miracle; a presumed law contrary to experience is no law at all. For it is from experience, and experience only, that we know any thing of natural law. The argument of Hume and La Place is perfect, as such, when directed against the