THE LAWS OF NATURE. 547 



instance) externa, to ourselves, which would exist wnether we were 

 here or not. and which are part of the order of nature? Apparently, 



yes. but part of the laws of nature, no! 



The phrase even yet exercises a wide influence, though it has seemed 

 to me that a significant change is taking place in the leaders of com- 

 mon opinion with regard to the meaning thai the words convey. 



I presume that tin 1 greater proportion of us here are interested in 

 science. I may indeed assume that we all are; and 1 want to inquire 

 what lesson for us, as students of nature, there lies in the fact that we 

 are no longer impressed by her 'laws* as were the scientific men of a 

 former generation. 



It is convenient to measure the distance we have passed over by the 

 fact that one hundred and fifty years ago, one of the acutest of reason- 

 ers. David Hume, published a still celebrated argument against mir- 

 acles which within my own recollection was held to be so formidable 

 that those who were reluctant to believe in his conclusions were still 

 unable to offer a good refutation. The immense number of attempted 

 refutations and their contradictory character is perhaps the best testi- 

 mony for this. 



Hume defines a miracle as a violation of the "laws of nature." and 

 his argument, concisely stated, is that there must 'be a uniform expe- 

 rience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not 

 merit that appellation, and as a uniform experience amounts to a 

 proof, there is here a direct and full proof from the nature of the fact 

 against the existence of any miracle. 1 



Xow. while his argument is logically as conclusive as ever, it to-day 

 convinces only those who are anxious to accept its conclusion. 



What is the reason for this great change? 



We may ask what the laws of nature really are. and pass from what 

 they were thought to be by Hume, to what they are beginning to be 

 understood to be by us. without here inquiring into the intermediate 

 steps which brought the change about. 



It seems to me that the argument which was conclusive not merely 

 to the learned, but to the common cultivated thought of Hume's time, 

 has never been expressly refuted when its premises were admitted, 

 (and the generation following him admitted them); and yet this com- 

 pelling argument, as it once seemed, is gradually losing its force to 

 most minds, not throng!) counter argument, but by an insensible 

 change of opinion in the attitude of the thinking part of our public as 

 compared with his. a change about certain fundamental assumptions 

 on which the argument rested, and from his own views of the universe. 

 to those we are beginning to take. 



In the first place, the immensely greater number of things we know 

 in almost every department of science beyond those which were 

 known one hundred and fifty years ago has had an etfect which 



