CHAPTEE VII 



THE ORDER OF NATURE: MIRACLES 



IF our beliefs of expectation are based on our 

 beliefs of memory, and anticipation is only in- 

 verted recollection, it necessarily follows that every 

 belief of expectation implies the belief that the 

 future will have a certain resemblance to the past. 

 From the first hour of experience, onwards, this 

 belief is constantly being verified, until old age is 

 inclined to suspect that experience has nothing 

 new to offer. And when the experience of genera- 

 tion after generation is recorded, and a single book 

 tells us more than Methuselah could have learned, 

 had he spent every waking hour of his thousand 

 years in learning; when apparent disorders are 

 found to be only the recurrent pulses of a slow 

 working order, and the wonder of a year becomes 

 the commonplace of a century; when repeated 

 and minute examination never reveals a break in 

 the chain of causes and effects; and the whole 

 edifice of practical life is built upon our faith 

 in its continuity; fhe belief, that that chain has 



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