ABSTRACT
The only reason for believing that the laws of motion will remain in operation is that they have operated hitherto, so far as our knowledge of the past enables people to judge. It is true that people have a greater body of evidence from the past in favour of the laws of motion than people have in favour of the sunrise, because the sunrise is merely a particular case of fulfilment of the laws of motion, and there are countless other particular cases. Food that has a certain appearance generally has a certain taste, and it is a severe shock to our expectations when the familiar appearance is found to be associated with an unusual taste. The belief in the uniformity of nature is the belief that everything that has happened or will happen is an instance of some general law to which there are no exceptions.
