CHAPTER 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 gener- 

 ation 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 dis- 

 orders 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 



