In the affirmation, that a man walked upon water, the idea of the subject is not contradictory of that in the predicate.  Naturalists are familiar with insects which walk on water, and imagination has no more difficulty in putting a man in place of the insect than it has in giving a man some of the attributes of a bird and making an angel of him; or in ascribing to him the ascensive tendencies of a balloon, as the “levitationists” do.  Undoubtedly, there are very strong physical and biological arguments for thinking it extremely improbable that a man could be supported on the surface of the water as the insect is; or that his organisation could be compatible with the possession and use of wings; or that he could rise through the air without mechanical aid.  Indeed, if we have any reason to believe that our present knowledge of the nature of things exhausts the possibilities of nature, we might properly say that the attributes of men are contradictory of walking on water, or floating in the air, and consequently that these acts are truly “impossible” for him.  But it is sufficiently obvious, not only that we are at the beginning of our knowledge of nature, instead of having arrived at the end of it, but that the limitations of our faculties are such that we never can be in a position to set bounds to the possibilities of nature.  We have knowledge of what is happening and of what has happened; of what will happen we have and can have no more than expectation, grounded on our more or less correct reading of past experience and prompted by the faith, begotten of that experience, that the order of nature in the future will resemble its order in the past.

The same considerations apply to the other examples of supposed miraculous events.  The change of water into wine undoubtedly implies a contradiction, and is assuredly “impossible,” if we are permitted to assume that the “elementary bodies” of the chemists are, now and for ever, immutable.  Not only, however, is a negative proposition of this kind incapable of proof, but modern chemistry is inclining towards the contrary doctrine.  And if carbon can be got out of hydrogen or oxygen, the conversion of water into wine comes within range of scientific possibility—­it becomes a mere question of molecular arrangement.

As for virgin procreation, it is not only clearly imaginable, but modern biology recognises it as an everyday occurrence among some groups of animals.  So with restoration to life after death.  Certain animals, long as dry as mummies, and, to all appearance, as dead, when placed in proper conditions resume their vitality.  It may be said that these creatures are not dead, but merely in a condition of suspended vitality.  That, however, is only begging the question by making the incapacity for restoration to life part of the definition of death.  In the absence of obvious lesions of some of the more important organs, it is no easy matter, even for experts, to say that an apparently dead man is incapable of restoration to life; and, in the recorded instances of such restoration, the want of any conclusive evidence that the man was dead is even more remarkable than the insufficiency of the testimony as to his coming to life again.