79. It is not enough to say that we cannot see any foundation for this hypothesis introduced by certain theologians regarding these events. It is certainly necessary to add, as we have already done (Art. 36), that such a method of regarding them is essentially opposed to the genius of Christianity. Whatever may be thought of the person of Christ, it cannot for a moment be said that He was above law. He speaks of himself, and is spoken of by the apostles, as bound in all respects by the laws of the universe. Nor will it suffice to say that He obeyed the moral and spiritual, but broke occasionally the physical, laws of the universe, or had them broken for Him. In fine, we conceive that the New Testament plainly asserts that what Christ accomplished was not in defiance of law, but in fulfilment of it; and that His ability to do so much was simply due to the fact that His position with reference to the universe was different from that of any other man. 80. Of late years, however, a vastly better method of explanation has been introduced. Charles Babbage, the designer of the well-known calculating engine, showed (in a very remarkable book which he called a ninth Bridgewater treatise) that it would be possible to design and construct a machine which, after having worked for a long time according to a particular method of procedure, should suddenly manifest a single breach in its method, and then resume and for ever afterwards keep to its original law. He argued from this that an apparent breach in the physical procedure of the universe is quite consistent with the fundamental idea of law. Jevons also, commenting upon these speculations of Babbage, remarks thus in his _Principles of Science_ (vol. ii. p. 438), ‘If such occurrences can be designed and foreseen by a human artist, it is surely within the capacity of the Divine artist to provide for similar changes of law in the mechanism of the atom, or the construction of the heavens.’ 81. While we think that this is a very distinct and important advance upon the old idea, we venture to pronounce it altogether incomplete without some further explanation and modification. The power of the Divine Being is surely unlimited, but, nevertheless, we have perfect trust that God, whom we believe to have given us intelligence, will work in such a way as not to put us to permanent intellectual confusion. Yet even on this hypothesis, and with this trust, a single apparent exception to the usual procedure may be supposed to occur, if it be allowed that this may be made use of in order to deduce from it the great general law of working which includes both the usual course and the apparent exception. But it appears obvious to us that if the exception be of such a nature that it must for ever confound all the intelligences of the universe who regard it, then we gain nothing by the supposition that it was allowed for in the secret counsels of God.