The same remark applies to the other three cases. To the second of them the author has himself supplied the answer: “Lead cannot of itself remain suspended in the air.” Doubtless, it cannot _of itself_. Who ever supposed that it could? But it can be suspended when a force adequate to counteract that of gravitation is present. So fire will always consume wood, or be extinguished by water, as long as no other forces but the usual ones are in operation. But man has already invented the means of producing combustion under water. No violation of nature’s laws is required in any of these cases. Nor is there any required in a miracle. The fact is, that there is an assumption in all arguments of this kind, which for obvious reasons is not openly avowed, but which alone imparts to them an apparent validity. “No such force can exist,” which translated into other language is identical with the proposition, “There is no God.” To keep this assumption in the background, when the very basis of the argument for miracles is the assumption that there is one, is a course which can lead to no good result. But the author remarks further: “There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event could not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is hence a direct and full proof from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, by any opposite proof which is superior.” Here again we encounter the same faults of reasoning, which amount to a virtual assumption of the point at issue. “There must be a uniform experience against any miraculous event, otherwise it would not merit the appellation—doubtless.” But what is the nature of this uniform experience? Exactly this, that the ordinary forces acting around us being present, and none other, the event has not, and therefore cannot take place. But this is not involved in the idea of a miracle. It assumes the presence of another force, viz. God. But what then? The objector will urge that we have had no experience of the existence of any such force. Is it to be urged, that no force can exist, except those of which we have had experience, or any combination of forces now in action, different from the present? The men of a former century were equally entitled to make the same assumption. If they had done so, it would follow, that if the discoverers of America had found our present railway system in full operation, and reported it to be so, the contemporaries of Columbus would have been justified in treating him as an impostor.