COINCIDENCES AND SUPERSTITIONS. 393 



coincidence of the paths as well of the November as of 

 the August meteors with the paths of known comets, 

 by mere accident. 



It may possibly be considered that the circumstances 

 of the two last cases are not altogether such as to 

 assure us that special intervention was not in question 

 in each instance. Indeed, though astronomers have 

 not recognised anything supernatural in the series of 

 events which led to the recognition of the association 

 between meteors and comets, some students of archae- 

 ology have been disposed to regard the events narrated 

 by Dr. Young as strictly providential dispensations. 

 ' It seems to the reflective mind,' says the author of the 

 Ruins of Sacred and Historic Lands, 'that the 

 appointed time had at length arrived when the secrets 

 of Egyptian history were at length to be revealed, and 

 to cast their reflective light on the darker pages of 

 sacred and profane history . . . The incident in the 

 labours of Dr. Young seems so surprising that it might 

 be deemed providential, if not miraculous.' The same 

 will scarcely be thought of such events (and their 

 name is legion) as De Morgan has recorded ; since it 

 requires a considerable stretch of imagination to con- 

 ceive that either the discovery of the name of a certain 

 editor, or the removal of De Morgan's difficulties 

 respecting the siege of Boston, was a nodus worthy of 

 miraculous interposition. 



For absolute triviality, however, combined with sin- 

 gularity of coincidence, a circumstance which occurred 

 to me several years ago appears unsurpassable. I was 



