Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/259

Rh be affirmed or to be denied. In some senses Nature is obviously not uniform. Take the case of the weather: what can have less of the character of uniformity? Take the seasons: and observe the apparently absolute absence of all rule as to the sequence of fruitful and unfruitful years. Take almost any instance of natural phenomena that you please: and the variety, the eccentricity, the lawlessness, will probably be quite as striking as any characteristic which can be described by the word uniformity. Anyhow, in commencing a discussion, we ought to know precisely what the phrase to be discussed means, or at least what it is held to mean by the disputants engaged in the argument.

I observe that one of the interlocutors of the Metaphysical Society, Mr. Walter Bagehot, affirms that experience can not prove the uniformity of Nature, because it is impossible to say what the uniformity of Nature means. If this be so, and I am not just now contradicting the assertion, all serious discussion must be at an end. It is very well to say that, although experience can never prove the absolute uniformity of Nature, it ought to "train us to bring our expectations into something like consistency with the uniformity of Nature." But why should we expect Nature to be uniform, unless we can give some good reason for believing in this uniformity? And why should we trouble ourselves with a principle of uniformity, the meaning of which, by hypothesis, we are unable to assign?

On the other hand, Mr. Ruskin could scarcely hope to carry many of the company with him when he avowed his disbelief in uniformity altogether, and affirmed that if told that the sun had stood still he would reply: "A miracle that the sun stands still? Not at all—I always expected it would," This view of the matter would seem to imply that there is no principle in Nature which can in any way be described as law or uniformity—a conclusion which is opposed to all our knowledge.

In default of a clear definition of the thesis proposed to the Metaphysical Society, the prevailing thought in the minds of the disputants seems to me to have been, how far the belief in abnormal phenomena, commonly spoken of as miraculous, is consistent with such a belief concerning the laws of Nature as scientific men find themselves compelled to hold. The discussion had clearly an underlying theological character: to more than half the disputants (so at least it seems to me) the theological consequences of an alleged uniformity of Nature were the uppermost thought, and the feature of most pressing interest in the argument. It would be well, perhaps, if this theological bearing of the question could be avoided in discussion. We should be more likely to arrive at a conclusion as to what the uniformity of Nature means, and to what extent the principle is true, if we could regard it entirely as a natural question, and one to be answered upon the ordinary grounds of observation and induction: and I