MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 361 
mitted to experiment. Torricelli took a glass tube a yard 
or so in length, closed at one end and open at the other, 
and filling it with mercury, he stopped the open end with 
his thumb, and inverted it into a basin filled with the 
liquid metal. One can imagine the feeling with which 
Torricelli removed his thumb, and the delight he experi- 
enced on finding that his thought had forestalled a fact 
never before revealed to human eyes. The column sank, 
but it ceased to sink at a height of thirty inches, leaving 
the Torricellian vacuum overhead. From that hour the 
theory of the pump was established. 
The celebrated Pascal followed Torricelli with another 
deduction. He reasoned thus: if the mercurial column be 
supported by the atmosphere, the higher we ascend in the 
air, the lower the column ought to sink, for the less will 
be the weight of the air overhead. He caused a friend to 
ascend the Puy de Ddme, carrying with him a barometric 
column; and it was found that during the ascent the column 
sank, and that during the subsequent descent the column 
rose. Between the time here referred to and the present, 
millions of experiments have been made upon this subject. 
Every village pump is an apparatus for such experiments. 
In thousands of instances, moreover, pumps have refused 
to work: but on examination it has infallibly been found 
that the well was dry, that the pump required priming, or 
that some other defect in the apparatus accounted for the 
anomalous action. In every case of the kind the skill of 
the pump-maker has been found to be the true remedy. In 
no case has the pressure of the atmosphere ceased; con- 
stancy, as regards the lifting of pump-water, has been 
hitherto the demonstrated rule of nature. So also as 
regards Pascal's experiment. His experience has been the 
universal experience ever since. Men have climbed moun- 
tains, and gone up in balloons; but no deviation from 
Pascal's result has ever been observed. Barometers, like 
pumps, have refused to act; but instead of indicating any 
suspension of the operations of nature, or any interference 
on the part of its Author with atmospheric pressure, 
examination has in every instance fixed the anomaly upon 
the instruments themselves. It is this welding, then, of 
rigid logic to verifying fact that Mr. Mozley refers to an 
" unreasoning impulse." 
Let us now briefly consider the case of Newton. Before 
