MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 23 



' Thus, step by step/ says Mr. Mozley, with the em- 

 phasis 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 founda- 

 tion 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 1-egard this 

 belief in connection with science, 'in which connec- 

 tion it receives a more imposing name, and is called the 

 inductive principle,' the result is the same. ' The in- 

 ductive principle is only this unreasoning impulse ap- 

 plied to a scientifically ascertained fact Science 



has led up to the fact; but there it stops, and for con- 

 verting this fact into a law, a totally unscientific prin- 

 ciple comes into play, the same as that which gener- 

 alises the commonest observation of nature.' 



The eloquent pleader of the cause of miracles passes 

 over without a word the results of scientific investiga- 

 tion, as proving anything rational regarding the prin- 

 ciples 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 unin- 

 telligent impulse with which Mr. Mozley credits them, 

 and which shall show, by illustration, the surrepti- 

 tious method whereby they climb from the region of 

 facts to that of laws. 



Before the sixteenth century it was known that 

 water rises in a pump; the effect being then explained 

 by the maxim that ' Nature abhors a vacuum.' It 

 was not known that there was any limit to the height 

 to which the water would ascend, until, on one occa- 



