d nothing is more natural than for a mistake to grow into a
miracle. In an ignorant age, history for the most part depended
upon memory. It was handed down from the old in their dotage, to
the young without judgment. The old always thought that the early
days were wonderful--that the world was wearing out because they
were. The past looked at through the haze of memory, became
exaggerated, gigantic. Their fathers were stronger than they, and
their grandfathers far superior to their fathers, and so on until
they reached men who had the habit of living about a thousand years.

In my judgment, everything in the Old Testament contrary to the
experience of the civilized world, is false. I do not say that
those who told the stories knew that they were false, or that those
who wrote them suspected that they were not true. Thousands and
thousands of lies are told by honest stupidity and believed by
innocent credulity. Then again, cunning takes advantage of ignorance,
and so far as I know, though all the history of the world a good
many people have endeavored to make a living without work.

I am perfectly convinced of the integrity of nature--that the
elements are eternally the same--that the chemical affinities and
hatreds know no shadow of turning--that just so many atoms of one
kind combine with so many atoms of another, and that the relative
numbers have never changed and never will change. I am satisfied
that the attraction of gravitation is a permanent institution; that
the laws of motion have been the same that they forever will be.
There is no chance, there is no caprice. Behind every effect is
a cause, and every effect must in its turn become a cause, and only
that is produced which a cause of necessity produces.

_Question_. What do you think of Madame Blavatsky and her school
of Theosophists? Do you believe Madame Blavatsky does or has done
the wonderful things related of her? Have you seen or known of
any Theosophical or esoteric marvels?

_Answer_. I think wonders are about the same in this country that
they are in India, and nothing appears more likely to me simply
because it is surrounded with the mist of antiquity. In my judgment,
Madame Blavatsky has never done any wonderful things--that is to
say, anything not in perfect accordance with the facts of nature.

I know nothing of esoteric marvels. In one sense, everything that
exists is a marvel, and the probability is that if we knew the
hist