chful enough, catch himself constantly
asking himself, if no one else, why _this_ has happened, and
not _that_. But in that very question he bears witness to the
law of causality. If we are consistently to deny the law of
causality, we must repudiate all observation, and particularly
all prediction based on past experience, as useless and
misleading.

"If we could imagine for an instant that the same complete
combination of causes could have a definite number of
different consequences, however small that number might be,
and that among these the occurrence of the actual consequence
was, in the old sense of the word, accidental, no observation
would ever be of any particular value."[16:1]

So long as men hold, as a practical faith, that the results which attend
their efforts depend upon whether Jupiter is awake and active, or
Neptune is taking an unfair advantage of his brother's sleep; upon
whether Diana is bending her silver bow for the battle, or flying
weeping and discomfited because Juno has boxed her ears--so long is it
useless for them to make or consult observations.

But, as Professor Thiele goes on to say--

"If the law of causality is acknowledged to be an assumption
which always holds good, then every observation gives us a
revelation which, when correctly appraised and compared with
others, teaches us the laws by which God rules the world."

By what means have the modern scientists arrived at a position so
different from that of the heathen? It cannot have been by any process
of natural evolution that the intellectual standpoint which has made
scientific observation possible should be derived from the spiritual
standpoint of polytheism which rendered all scientific observation not
only profane but useless.

In the old days the heathen in general regarded the heavenly host and
the heavenly bodies as the heathen do to-day. But by one nation, the
Hebrews, the truth that--

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"

was preserved in the first words of their Sacred Book. That nation
declared--

"All the gods of the people are idols: but the Lord made the
heavens."

For that same nation the watchword was--

"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."

From these words the Hebrews not only learned a great spiritual truth,
but derived intellectual freedom. For by these words they were