His examination of the alleged impossibility of miracles may be described as a very subtle turning the tables on Hume and the empirical philosophy. For when it is said that it is contrary to reason to believe in a suspension of the order of nature, he asks on what ground do we believe in the order of nature; and Hume himself supplies the answer. There is nothing of which we have a firmer persuasion. It is the basis of human life and knowledge. We assume at each step, without a doubt, that the future will be like the past. But why? Hume has carefully examined the question, and can find no answer, except the fact that we do assume it. "I apprehend," says Mr. Mozley, accepting Hume's view of the nature of probability, "that when we examine the different reasons which may be assigned for this connection, i.e. for the belief that the future will be like the past, they all come at last to be mere statements of the belief itself, and not reasons to account for it." Let us imagine the occurrence of a particular physical phenomenon for the first time. Upon that single occurrence we should have but the very faintest expectation of another. If it did occur again once or twice, so far from counting on another recurrence, a cessation would come as the more natural event to us. But let it occur a hundred times, and we should feel no hesitation in inviting persons from a distance to see it; and if it occurred every day for years, its recurrence would then be a certainty to us, its cessation a marvel. But what has taken place in the interim to produce this total change in our belief? From the mere repetition do we know anything more about its cause? No. Then what have we got besides the past repetition itself? Nothing. Why, then, are we so certain of its _future_ repetition? All we can say is that the known casts its shadow before; we project into unborn time the existing types, and the secret skill of nature intercepts the darkness of the future by ever suspending before our eyes, as it were in a mirror, a reflection of the past. We really look at a blank before us, but the mind, full of the scene behind, sees it again in front....