hat the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good
pasture makes fat sheep: and that a great cause of the night is lack of
the sun," and upon the strength of this knowledge is pronounced by the
clown to be "a natural philosopher." Well, is not in truth the "science"
of the mere physicist, however accomplished, _in pari materia_ with that
of honest Corin? He observes certain sequences of facts, certain
antecedents and consequents, but of the _nexus_ between them he knows no
more than the most ignorant and foolish of peasants. He talks, indeed,
of the laws of Nature, but the expression, convenient as it is in some
respects, and true as it is in a sense--and that the highest--is
extremely likely to mislead, as he uses it ordinarily. What he calls a
law of Nature is only an induction from observed phenomena, a formula
which serves compendiously to express them. As Dr. Mozley has well
observed in his Bampton Lectures, "we only know of law in Nature, in
the sense of recurrences in Nature, classes of facts, _like_ facts in
Nature:"[41]

"In vain the sage with retrospective eye
Would from the apparent what conclude the why;"

physical "science has itself proclaimed the truth that we see no causes
in nature"[42]--that is to say, in the phenomena of the external world,
taken by themselves. We read in Bacci's "Life of St. Philip Neri" that
the Saint drew men to the service of God by such a subtle irresistible
influence as caused those who watched him to cry out in amazement,
"Father Philip draws souls, as the magnet draws iron." The most
accomplished master of natural science is as little competent to explain
the physical attraction as he is to explain the spiritual. He cannot get
behind the _fact_, and if you press him for the reason of it--if you ask
him why the magnet draws iron--the only reason he has to give you is,
"Because it does." It is just as true now as it was when Bishop Butler
wrote in the last century that "the only distinct meaning of the word
[natural] is, stated, fixed, or settled," and it is hard to see how he
can be refuted when, travelling beyond the boundaries of physics, he
goes on to add, "What is natural as much requires and presupposes an
intelligent agent to render it so--_i.e._, to effect it continually, or
at stated times--as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it
for once."[43] Then, again, the indications of design in the universe
may well speak to us of a Designer,