June 13, 1902.] 



SCIENCE: 



923 



which they deified in print with 

 capital letters— as we sometimes do still, 

 though these 'Laws' now are shorn of 'the 

 glories of their birth and state ' which they 

 once wore, and are not turning out to be 

 ' substantial things. ' 



But are there not really things (like the 

 fact of gravitation, for instance) external 

 to ourselves, which would exist whether 

 we were here or not, and which are part of 

 the order of nature? Apparently, yes, 

 but part of the laws of nature no! 



The phrase even yet exercises a 

 wide influence, though it has seemed 

 to me that a significant change is 

 taking place in the leaders of common 

 opinion with regard to the meaning that 

 the words convey. 



I presume that the greater proportion of 

 us here are interested in science. I may 

 indeed assume that we all are ; and I want 

 to inquire what lesson for us, as students of 

 nature, there lies in the fact that we are no 

 longer impressed by her 'laws' as were 

 the scientific men of a former generation. 



It is convenient to measure the distance 

 we have passed over, by the fact that one 

 hundred and fifty years ago, one of the 

 acutest of reasoners, David Hume, pub- 

 lished a stiU celebrated argument against 

 miracles, which within my own recollection 

 was held to be so formidable that those 

 who were reluctant to believe in his con- 

 clusions, were still unable to offer a good 

 refutation. The immense number of at- 

 tempted refutations and their contradict- 

 ory character are perhaps the best testi- 

 mony for this. 



Hume defines a miracle as a violation of 

 the 'laws of nature,' and liis argument, 

 concisely stated, is that there must 'be a 

 uniform experience against every miracu- 

 lous event, otherwise the event would not 

 merit that appellation, and as a uniform 

 experience amounts to a proof, there is 

 here a direct and full proof from the na- 



ture of the fact against the existence of any 

 miracle. ' 



Now while his argument is logically as 

 conclusive as ever, it to-day convinces only 

 those who are anxious to accept its conclu- 

 sion. 



What is the reason for this great change ? 



We may ask what the laws of nature 

 really are, and pass from what they were 

 thought to be by Hume to what they are 

 beginning to be understood to be by us, 

 without here inquiring into the interme- 

 diate steps which brought the change about. 



It seems to me that the argument which 

 was conclusive not merely to the learned, 

 but to the common cultivated thought of 

 Hume's time has never been expressly re- 

 futed when its premises were admitted 

 (and the generation following him admit- 

 ted them) ; and yet this compelling argu- 

 ment, as it once seemed, is gradually losing 

 its force to most minds, not through counter 

 argument, but by an insensible change of 

 opinion in the attitude of the thinking part 

 of our public as compared with his, a 

 change about certain fundamental assump- 

 tions on which the argniment rested, and 

 from his own views of the universe to those 

 we are beginning to take. 



In the first place, the immensely greater 

 number of things we know in almost every 

 department of science beyond those which 

 were known one hundred and fifty years 

 ago, has had an effect which doubtless could 

 have been anticipated, but yet which we 

 may not have wholly expected. It is, that 

 the more we know, the more we recognize 

 our ignorance, and the more we have a 

 sense of the mystery of the universe and 

 the limitations of our knowledge. 



I believe it may be said that, if not to 

 Hume, at any rate to the majority of these 

 about him, and to his later contemporaries, 

 there was very much less mystery in the 

 world than we see in it, and if it were then 

 still occasionally said that there were 



