32 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



Before these methods were adopted the unbridled 

 imagination roamed through nature, putting in the 

 place of law the figments of superstitious dread. For 

 thousands of years witchcraft, and magic, and miracles, 

 and special providences, and Mr. Mozley's ' distinctive 

 reason of man,' had the world to themselves. They 

 made worse than nothing of it worse, I say, because 

 they let and hindered those who might have made 

 something of it. Hence it is, that during a single life- 

 time of this era of ' unintelligent impulse,' the progress 

 in knowledge is all but infinite as compared with that 

 of the ages which preceded ours. 



The believers in magic and miracles of a couple of 

 centuries ago had all the strength of Mr. Mozley's 

 present logic on their side. They had done for them- 

 selves what he rejoices in having so effectually done for 

 us cleared the ground of the belief in the order of 

 nature, and declared magic, miracles, and witchcraft to 

 be matters for ' ordinary evidence ' to decide. ' The 

 principle of miracles ' thus ' befriended ' had free scope, 

 and we know the result. Lacking that rock-barrier of 

 natural knowledge which we now possess, keen jurists 

 and cultivated men were hurried on to deeds, the bare 

 recital of which makes the blood run cold. Skilled in 

 all the rules of human evidence, and versed in all the 

 arts of cross-examination, these men, nevertheless, went 

 systematically astray, and committed the deadliest 

 wrongs against humanity. And why ? Because they 

 could not put Nature into the witness-box, and question 

 her of her voiceless ' testimony ' they knew nothing. 

 In all cases between man and man, their judgment was 

 to be relied on ; but in all cases between man and 

 nature, they were blind leaders of the blind. 1 



1 ' In 1664 two women were hung in Suffolk, under a sentence 

 of Sir Matthew Hale, who took the opportunity of declaring that 



