nection
between the idea of prison and the idea of picking pockets.
And we know what the idea is. We can say why we take liberty
from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg can
turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn
into a fairy prince. As IDEAS, the egg and the chicken are further
off from each other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in
itself suggests a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears.
Granted, then, that certain transformations do happen, it is essential
that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales,
not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the "Laws of Nature."
When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn,
we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer
if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes
fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answer that it is MAGIC.
It is not a "law," for we do not understand its general formula.
It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening
practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen.
It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we
count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it;
we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we
do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet.
We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore
an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore
an exception. All the terms used in the science books, "law,"
"necessity," "order," "tendency," and so on, are really unintellectual,
because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess.
The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the
terms used in the fairy books, "charm," "spell," "enchantment."
They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.
A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill
because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched.

I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical.
We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language
about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way
I can express in words my clear and definite perception that one
thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical
connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who
talks about "a law" that he has never seen