MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 359 
all -important for the purposes of life, but solely practical, 
ami possesses no intellectual character. . . . The 
proper function," continues Mr. Mozlev, " of the inductive 
principle, the argument from experience, the belief in the 
order of nature by whatever phrase we designate the 
same instinct is to operate as a practical basis for the 
affairs of life and the carrying on of human society/' To 
sum up, the belief in the order of nature is general, but it 
is " an unintelligent impulse, of which we can give no 
rational account." It is inserted into our constitution 
solely to induce us to till our fields, to raise our winter 
fuel, and thus to meet the future on the perfectly 
gratuitous supposition that it will be like the past. 
" Thus, step by step," says Mr. Mozley, with the em- 
pkasis of a man who feels his position to be a strong one, 
" has philosophy loosened the connection of the order of 
nature with the ground of reason, befriending in exact 
proportion as it has done this the principle of miracles." 
For " this belief not having itself a foundation in reason, 
the ground is gone upon which it could be maintained 
that miracles, as opposed to the order of nature, are 
opposed to reason." When we regard this belief in con- 
nection with science, " in which connection it receives a 
more imposing name, and is called the inductive principle," 
the result is the same. " The inductive principle is only 
this unreasoning impulse applied to a scientifically ascer- 
tained fact. . . . Science has led up to the fact; but 
there it stops, and for converting this fact into a law, a 
totally unscientific principle comes into play, the same as 
that which generalizes the commonest observation of 
nature." 
The eloquent pleader of the cause of miracles passes over 
without a word the results of scientific investigation, as 
proving anything rational regarding the principles or 
method by which such results have been achieved. Here,. 
as elsewhere, he declines the test, "By their fruits shall 
ye know them." Perhaps our best way of proceeding will 
be to give one or two examples of the "mode in which men 
of science apply the unintelligent impulse with which Mr. 
Mozley credits them, and which shall show, by illustration, 
the surreptitious method whereby they climb from the region 
of facts to that of laws. 
Before the sixteenth century it was known that water 
