at the occurrence of what is new, as to expect the recurrence of what is old. In fact, an order of nature is at once necessary, and fatal, to miracles. If there be no order of nature, miracles cannot be considered supernatural occurrences, and have no evidential value; if there be an order of nature, the evidence for its immutability must consequently exceed the evidence for these isolated deviations from it. If we are unable rationally to form expectations of the future from unvarying experience in the past, it is still more irrational to call that supernatural which is merely different from our past experience. Take, for instance, the case of supposed exemption from the action of the law of gravitation, which Archbishop Trench calls "a lost prerogative of our race:"(1) we cannot rationally affirm that next week we may not be able to walk on the sea, or ascend bodily into the air. To deny this because we have not hitherto been able to do so is unreasonable; for, as Dr. Mozley maintains, it is a mere irrational impulse which expects that which has hitherto happened, when we have made such attempts, to happen again next week. If we cannot rationally deny the possibility, however, that we may be able at some future time to walk on the sea or ascend into the air, the statement that these phenomena have already occurred loses all its force, and such occurrences {61} cease to be in any way supernatural. If, on the other hand, it would be irrational to affirm that we may next week become exempt from the operation of the law of gravitation, it can only be so by the admission that unvarying experience forbids the entertainment of such a hypothesis, and in that case it equally forbids belief in the statement that such acts ever actually took place. If we deny the future possibility on any ground of reason, we admit that we have grounds of reason for expecting the future to be like the past, and therefore contradict Dr. Mozley's conclusion; and if we cannot deny it upon any ground of reason, we extinguish the claim of such occurrences in the past to any supernatural character. Any argument which could destroy faith in the order of nature would be equally destructive to miracles. If we have no right to believe in a rule, there can be no right to speak of exceptions. The result in any case is this, that whether the principle of the order of nature be established or refuted, the supernatural pretensions of miracles are disallowed.