NATURAL LAW AND MIRACLE. 



41 



For the elucidation of this sentence we mention some well- 

 known psychological facts. 



An old man, looking among his time-stained documents, 

 setting them in order before he dies, suddenly liglits on a long- 

 forgotten faded lock of hair ; at once the precious vision of his 

 early love starts up before his mind's eye. He lives again in 

 that glad May morning on which he cut the lock from the girl's 

 head. He sees again her smile, and the words they exchanged, 

 forgotten for sixty years, awaken in his memory. 



Another instance : we have all suffered from a wound. 

 Every sight of a wound hereafter forces upon our imagination 

 the sense of pain. If we look at a bit of iron, we expect — and 

 that for the same reason — to find it heavy. The observation of 

 a piece of iron, that is, always excites in us on the ground of 

 previous experience the conscious impression of weight. 



The " association of ideas " is, in opposition to the sense of 

 causality, an involuntary mental act. It rests on strong instinct 

 and operates mechanically. 



(h) A second equally psychological root of the idea of 

 causation is the instinct of inquiry, possessed by 

 every healthy human being. 



This sense is developed in people just as is the power of 

 speech. As people carry their power of speech to varied 

 degrees, so with the instinct of inquiry. 



The human mind is so fashioned that it is always asking 

 " Why ? " This fact, like that of the association of ideas, is one 

 that cannot be explained or traced to its origin, but can only 

 and simply be recognized. 



The instinct of inquiry lends itself to confirmation most clearly 

 in the case of novel experiences which occur in the sphere of 

 humati life. 



We may see it specially distinctly, for instance, in children of 

 three or four years. As to these every object and occurrence is 

 novel, their inquiring instinct finds most energetic play. They 

 plague us adults a hundred times a day with their stereotyped 

 repetition, " What is that ? " " Why is this made so ? " 



As the human mind by reason of its make-up is under the 

 necessity of exercising its will in the direction of reasonable 

 objects, so is it compelled in the same way to seek the cause of 

 every object or occurrence. 



(c) The last root of the causal principle is that of a 

 constantly repeated experimental fact : our instinct 

 of inquiry finds satisfaction in constant experience : 



