Now the peculiar point of view which at present belongs to Natural Philosophy, and especially to the departments of it which have been most successfully cultivated, is, that nature, so far as it is an object of scientific research, is a collection of facts governed by laws: our knowledge of nature is our knowledge of laws; of laws of operation and connexion, of laws of succession and co-existence, among the various elements and appearances around us. And it must therefore here be our aim to show how this view of the universe falls in with our conception of the Divine Author, by whom we hold the universe to be made and governed.
Nature acts by general laws; that is, the occurrences of the world in which we find ourselves, result from causes which operate according to fixed and constant rules. The succession of days, and seasons, and years, is produced by the motions of the earth; and these again are governed by the attraction of the sun, a force which acts with undeviating steadiness and regularity. The changes of winds and skies, seemingly so capricious and casual, are produced by the operation of the sun’s heat upon air and moisture, land and sea; and though in this case we cannot trace the particular events to their general causes, as we can trace the motions of the sun and moon, no philosophical mind will doubt the generality and fixity of the rules by which these causes act. The variety of the effects takes place, because the circumstances in different cases vary; and not because the action of material causes leaves anything to chance in the result. And again, though the vital movements which go on in the frame of vegetables and animals depend on agencies still less known, and probably still more complex, than those which rule the weather, each of the powers on which such movements depend has its peculiar laws of action, and these are as universal and as invariable as the law by which a stone falls to the earth when not supported.
The world then is governed by general laws; and in order to collect from the world itself a judgment concerning the nature and character of its government, we must consider the import and tendency of such laws, so far as they come under our knowledge. If there be, in the administration of the universe, intelligence and benevolence, superintendence and foresight, grounds for love and hope, such qualities may be expected to appear in the constitution and combination of those fundamental regulations by which the course of nature is brought about, and made to be what it is.
If a man were, by some extraordinary event, to find himself in a remote and unknown country, so entirely strange to him that he did not know whether there existed in it any law or government at all; he might in no long time ascertain whether the inhabitants were controlled by any superintending authority; and with a little attention he might determine also whether such authority were exercised with a prudent care for the happiness and well-being of its subjects, or without any regard and fitness to such ends; whether the country were governed by laws at all, and whether the laws were good. And according to the laws which he thus found prevailing, he would judge of the sagacity, and the purposes of the legislative power.
By observing the laws of the material universe and their operation, we may hope, in a somewhat similar manner, to be able to direct our judgment concerning the government of the universe: concerning the mode in which the elements are regulated and controlled, their effects combined and balanced. And the general tendency of the results thus produced may discover to us something of the character of the power which has legislated for the material world.
We are not to push too far the analogy thus suggested. There is undoubtedly a wide difference between the circumstances of man legislating for man, and God legislating for matter. Still we shall, it will appear, find abundant reason to admire the wisdom and the goodness which have established the Laws of Nature, however rigorously we may scrutinize the import of this expression.
[CHAPTER II.]
On Laws of Nature.
When we speak of material nature as being governed by laws, it is sufficiently evident that we use the term in a manner somewhat metaphorical. The laws to which man’s attention is primarily directed are moral laws; rules laid down for his actions; rules for the conscious actions of a person; rules which, as a matter of possibility, he may obey or may transgress; the latter event being combined, not with an impossibility, but with a penalty. But the Laws of Nature are something different from this; they are rules for that which things are to do and suffer; and this by no consciousness or will of theirs. They are rules describing the mode in which things do act; they are invariably obeyed; their transgression is not punished, it is excluded. The language of a moral law is, man shall not kill; the language of a Law of Nature is, a stone will fall to the earth.