But, says the author, “If the course of nature be interrupted in any way, whether the interruption proceed from a cause beyond, beside, or above nature, such interruption cannot be caused by nature; and every disturbance in the order of nature is contrary to nature.” This passage seems to imply that an interruption in the order of nature cannot proceed from nature itself. But this is certainly incorrect. Natural forces, that is to say, material ones, modify one another; and by their combined action, they produce a series of events quite different from what would be the result of their separate action. Such a new series of events is to all intents and purposes an interruption of the previous order of nature and the introduction of a new one. Such results are produced by fortuitous combinations taking place, in the manner which I have already illustrated, at the right time and place. The fortuitous combination of forces in nature is capable of producing a new order “contrary to” the previous order of nature. This, as I have shown, is still more evidently the case if we include the phenomena of mind in nature. But it is affirmed, “if the interruption be due to a cause either beyond, beside, or above nature, the interruption cannot be caused by nature.” This is of course a self‐evident truth. But then it is inferred that such interruption is a disturbance of the order of nature; and that every disturbance of its order is contrary to nature. The inference which the reader is left to draw, and which is directly stated in other parts of the work, is, that what is contrary to nature is contrary to reason; that a miracle is thus contrary to nature, and therefore contrary to reason. I observe that, although the interruption here referred to cannot be caused by nature (for it is contrary to the conditions of the case that it should be), yet it by no means follows that it is a breach of the order of nature in any other sense than that which I have already discussed. Such disturbances occur every day. It is, therefore, misleading to designate them as contrary to nature, as they neither necessarily suspend any natural force nor violate any natural law. I have already proved that there is nothing in such disturbances, or, if we persist in so designating them violations of the order of nature, that is contrary to reason. Such a use of the terms “course and order of nature” is full of ambiguities and certain to betray us into fallacious reasonings. But, adds the writer, “it is clearly unnatural that the ordinary course of nature should be disturbed.” Here the ambiguity of the expressions used, and the consequent fallacy of the reasonings, are brought to a culmination.