CAUSES OF ERROR. 87 



in the smallest tittle, whether it does or does not call 

 out of the cranny in which it has been hybernated, 

 some wasp, or some swallow that was too weak for the 

 autumnal migration. Birds, blossoms, and butterflies 

 do not come in expectation of fine weather ; if they 

 did, the early ones would show that they see not far 

 into futurity, for they generally come forth only to be 

 destroyed. They come in consequence of the good 

 weather which precedes their appearance, and they 

 know no more of the future than a stone does. Man 

 knows of to-morrow only as a rational being ; and 

 were it not that he reasons from experience and 

 analogy, he would have no ground for saying that the 

 sun of to-day is to set. The early leaf and the early 

 blossom of this spring may be a consequence of the 

 fine weather of last autumn, which ripened the wood 

 or forwarded the bud, and the early insect may be 

 evidence that the winter has been mild ; but not one 

 of these, or any thing connected with plants or ani- 

 mals, taken in itself, throws light upon one moment 

 of the future ; and for once to suppose that it does, 

 is to reverse the order of cause and effect, and put an 

 end to all philosophy to all common sense. 



And are we to draw no conclusions from the pheno- 

 mena of plants and animals, which have been popular 

 prognostics of the weather from time immemorial, not 

 from the face-washing of the cat, or the late-roosting 

 of the rook, which have been signs infallible time out 

 of mind ? No, not a jot from the conduct of the animals 

 themselves, unless we admit that cats and crows have 

 got the keeping and command of the weather. These 

 actions of theirs, and very many (perhaps all) pheno- 



