COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. 
159 
Predictions of the Weather. —There is nothing more com¬ 
mon than to predict the future state of the season, from some single 
appearance in the early part of it, and yet there is nothing more un- 
philosophical or fallacious. An early blossom, an early bee, or an 
early swallow, or the early appearance of any other appearance ot 
nature, is no evidence whatever of the kind of weather that is to 
come, though the belief that it is so is both very general and very 
obstinate. The appearance of these things is the effect of the wea¬ 
ther, not the cause; and it is what we may call an external effect; 
that is, it does not enter into the chain of causation. The weather 
of to-day must always have some influence upon the weather of to¬ 
morrow; but its effects will not be altered in the smallest tittle, whe¬ 
ther 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 consequeuce of the fine weather of last autumn, which ripened 
the wood, or forwarded the bud; and the early insect may be evi¬ 
dence that the winter has been mild : but not one of these, or any 
thing unconnected with plants or animals, taken in itself, throws 
light upon one moment of the future; and for once to suppose that 
it does, is to reverse the order and cause of effect, and put an end to 
all philosophy—to all common sense. 
And are we to draw no conclusions from the phenomena 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 roasting 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 the keeping and command¬ 
ing of the weather. These actions of theirs, and very many (per¬ 
haps all) phenomena of plants and animals, are produced by certain 
existing states of the weather ; and it is for man to apply his ob¬ 
servation, and find out by what other states these are followed. 
The cat does not wash her face because it is to rain to-morrow; 
that, in the first place, would be “throwing philosophy to the 
