and could not have been predicted by any one who had a sufficient
insight into the order of Nature? If they do, it is they who are
the inheritors of antique superstition and ignorance, and whose
minds have never been illumined by a ray of scientific thought.
The one act of faith in the convert to science, is the confession
of the universality of order and of the absolute validity in all
times and under all circumstances, of the law of causation. This
confession is an act of faith, because, by the nature of the
case, the truth of such propositions is not susceptible of proof.
But such faith is not blind, but reasonable; because it is
invariably confirmed by experience, and constitutes the sole
trustworthy foundation for all action.

If one of these people, in whom the chance-worship of our remoter
ancestors thus strangely survives, should be within reach of the
sea when a heavy gale is blowing, let him betake himself to the
shore and watch the scene. Let him note the infinite variety of
form and size of the tossing waves out at sea; or of the curves
of their foam-crested breakers, as they dash against the rocks;
let him listen to the roar and scream of the shingle as it is
cast up and torn down the beach; or look at the flakes of foam as
they drive hither and thither before the wind; or note the play
of colours, which answers a gleam of sunshine as it falls upon
the myriad bubbles. Surely here, if anywhere, he will say that
chance is supreme, and bend the knee as one who has entered the
very penetralia of his divinity. But the man of science knows
that here, as everywhere, perfect order is manifested; that there
is not a curve of the waves, not a note in the howling chorus,
not a rainbow-glint on a bubble, which is other than a necessary
consequence of the ascertained laws of nature; and that with a