MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 21 



which he flatly denies rationality. His reasoning, in 

 fact, cuts two ways-if it destroys our trust in the orde 

 3 nature, it far more effectually abolishes the basis 

 on which Mr. Mdzley seeks to found the Christian i 

 ligion. 



Over this argument from experience, which at bottom 

 is his argument, Mr. Mozley rides rough-shod. 



dash of scorn in the energy with which he tramples 

 on it. Probably some previous writer had made too 

 m ch of it, and thus invited his powerful assault. 

 Finding the difficulty of belief in miracles to rise from 

 their being in contradiction to the order of nature, he 

 sets himself to examine the grounds of our belief in 

 that order. With a vigour of logic rarely equalled, and 

 with a confidence in its conclusions never surpassed, he 

 disposes of this belief in a manner calculated to startle 

 those who, without due examination, had come 

 conclusion that the order of nature was secure 



What we mean, he says, by our belief in the order 

 of nature, is the belief that the future will be like the 

 past. There is not, according to Mr. Mozley, the slight- 

 est rational basis for this belief. 



<Thafc any cause in nature ia more permanent than its 

 exilg and Lown effects, extending further^ and about to 

 product other aud more instances besides what it ha. pro 

 duced already, we have no evidence. Let us imagine 1 

 the occurrence of a particular physical pheno- 



