end from the
beginning," can know what is _to be_, and no expression can be made, no
words employed which will positively declare a future action. We may see
a present condition of things, and from it argue what is _to be_, or
take place hereafter; but all that knowledge is drawn from the past and
deduced from a review of the present relation and tendencies of things.

I hold the paper near the fire and you say it _will_ burn, and you say
truly, for it has a _will_, or what is the same, an inherent tendency
_to burn_. It is made of combustible matter, like paper which we have
seen burn, and hence we argue this has the same tendency to be consumed.
But how does your mind arrive at that fact? If you had never seen a
substance like it burn, why should you conclude this _will_? Does the
child know it _will_ burn? No; for it has not yet learned the quality of
the paper. It is not till the child has been burned that it dreads the
fire. Suppose I take some asbestus, of the kind called amianthus, which
is a mineral, and is formed of slender flexible fibres like flax; and in
eastern countries, especially in Savoy and Corsica, is manufactured into
cloth, paper, and lamp wicks. It was used in making winding sheets for
the dead, in which the bodies were burned, and the ashes, retained in
the incombustible sheet, were gathered into an urn, and revered as the
manes of the dead. Suppose I take some of this incombustible paper or
cloth, and present to you. You say it _will_ burn. Why do you say thus?
Because you have seen other materials which appear like this, consume to
ashes. Let us put it into the fire. It _will not_ burn. It has no
_tendency_ to burn; no quality which will consume. But this is a new
idea to you and hence your mistake. You did not know it _would_ burn,
nor could you _indicate_ such a fact. You only told your opinion derived
from the present appearance of things, and hence you made an assertion
in the _indicative_ mood, present tense, and added to it an _infinitive_
mood, in order to deduce the consequence of this future action--it
_wills_, or has a _tendency_ to burn. But you were mistaken, because
ignorant of the _nature_ of things. This amianthus looks like flax, and
to a person unacquainted with it, appears to be as truly combustible;
but the mineralogist, and all who know its properties, know very well
that it _will_ not--wills nothing, has no inclination, or tendency, to
burn.

Take another example. Here is a