The next day in the laboratory, perhaps, the same individuals watch the circulation of the blood in the thin membrane of a frog's foot, or measure the transformation of energy in a chemical reaction, or examine the nerve-tissue of the human brain, and another outlook forms itself. They see a world of harmonious movements, of gigantic forces, of delicate adjustments, of slow birth and quick decay. The sentiment of law, the feeling for fact, the sense of nature grow upon them. For the time being, they are the conscious spectators of an immense reality it would be meaningless to set aside. The complexity and autonomy of nature thrusts all thought of superpersonal agency into the background. Thus the pendulum swings back and forth from supernaturalism to naturalism. They believe, and yet disbelieve. What answer must be given to these troubled minds?
Now the question, Do miracles happen? presupposes a single, unambiguous meaning for the term, miracle. Yet to secure such a single meaning requires an effort. It is so tempting for the advocate of miracles to make qualifications when the argument goes against him, to say that he did not mean an act of a supernatural agent but only an extraordinary event, something marvelous and not easily accounted for. We shall concern ourselves primarily with what may be called a theological miracle, an occurrence confidently assigned to the will of a divine agent. Incidentally, however, we shall discuss the logical attitude to take toward marvels which cannot easily be fitted into the usual scheme of events.
To understand the ideas and sentiments associated with our term, we must go back to the past. We are sufficiently acquainted by now with the setting of the religious view of the universe to know that the gods were at first forces _in_ nature and only slowly became spiritual agents _outside_ of nature. We cannot too often remember that man had no instinctive knowledge of what energies operated in the world and what were the conditions of their operation. He peopled woods and fields and sky with invisible agents who could do almost all they wanted to do, and with no hindrance from distance. We may put it this way: man had no idea of spatial process but thought of all events as acts of will. The gods had _mana_, or power, just as the medicine man had, only greater. And miracles were, for ages, only extraordinary events due to the power of gods or other power-possessing beings. So long as this primitive view of things was prevalent, miracles were only especially significant events assigned to the will of the gods. They were events which transparently revealed their anger, or favor, or purposes. There was nothing illogical or puzzling about them.