I Believe in Miracles, Not....

I had to read a book of essays by Montaigne when I was an 18-year-old college freshman, much too young to appreciate the man. Now, having spent most of my life as an amateur naturalist, I keep stumbling across his wisdom. I think I'll go find a copy of "Montaigne's Essays" and read them again. I am incurably curious, especially about natural phenomena - is there any other kind? Yesterday, as I was musing about Groundhog Day [By the way, Happy Groundhog Day; according to the tame one in Punxsatawny, PA, we're in for 6 more weeks of winter.] I ran across this one by Montaigne: "Miracles arise from our ignorance of nature, not from nature itself." Amazing that he could have that insight before Darwin's and Wallace's findings. Over 200 years before them, in fact! In an era when Galileo could be punished for simply stating his observations, most people were afraid to even think such a thought, much less state it openly.