which is not only an event of which no symptoms or indications
have yet appeared, but is a positive contradiction to one of the
most constant of the laws of nature that has ever come within the
observation of man.

When we extend our view beyond this life, it is evident that
we can have no other guides than authority, or conjecture, and
perhaps, indeed, an obscure and undefined feeling. What I say
here, therefore, does not appear to me in any respect to
contradict what I said before, when I observed that it was
unphilosophical to expect any specifick event that was not
indicated by some kind of analogy in the past. In ranging beyond
the bourne from which no traveller returns, we must necessarily
quit this rule; but with regard to events that may be expected to
happen on earth, we can seldom quit it consistently with true
philosophy. Analogy has, however, as I conceive, great latitude.
For instance, man has discovered many of the laws of nature:
analogy seems to indicate that he will discover many more; but no
analogy seems to indicate that he will discover a sixth sense, or
a new species of power in the human mind, entirely beyond the
train of our present observations.

The powers of selection, combination, and transmutation,
which every seed shews, are truly miraculous. Who can imagine
that these wonderful faculties are contained in these little bits
of matter? To me it appears much more philosophical to suppose
that the mighty God of nature is present in full energy in all
these operations. To this all powerful Being, it would be equally
easy to raise an oak without an acorn as with one. The
preparatory process of putting seeds into the ground is merely