Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore

A mere custom of Nature. We see the same phenomenon happen a great many times; and we infer from thence that it has a custom of happening; and therefore we call it a law: but we have not seen the law; all we have seen is the phenomenon which we suppose to indicate the law. We have seen things fall: but we never saw a little flying thing pulling them down, with “gravitation” labelled on its back; and the question, why things fall, and how, is just where it was before Newton was born, and is likely to remain there. All we can say is, that Nature has her customs, and that other customs ensue, when those customs appear: but that as to what connects cause and effect, as to what is the reason, the final cause, or even the causa causans, of any phenomenon, we know not more but less than ever; for those laws or customs which seem to us simplest (“endosmose,” for instance, or “gravitation”), are just the most inexplicable, logically unexpected, seemingly arbitrary, certainly supernatural— miraculous, if you will; for no natural and physical cause whatsoever can be assigned for them; while if anyone shall argue against their being miraculous and supernatural on the ground of their being so common, I can only answer, that of all absurd and illogical arguments, this is the most so. For what has the number of times which the miracle occurs to do with the question, save to increase the wonder?