 Shaftesbury holds that the occurrence of miracles would contradict rather than support proper theological belief. The essential feature of the observable world on which proper theological belief is based is its order, the operation of myriad different systems according to elegant and harmonious natural laws. But a miracle is an occurrence that violates that order, something defined as a contradiction of natural law. As such, a miracle would undermine belief in a Creator who works by “just and uniform” laws (C 2.334). A miracle would evince not a single great and good God but “either the Chaos and Atoms of the Atheists, or the Magick and Daemons of the Polytheists” (C 2.335–6). As Theocles says in The Moralists to a character who has made a plea for miracles: