238 THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE 



SCIENTIFIC LAWS AND SCIENTIFIC TRUTH 



Scientific laws might better be termed generalizations, 

 because they are merely formulations of experience. The 

 use of the term law is misleading, if it results in belief that 

 scientific laws must be regarded as established by some 

 agency. In primitive times, the laws of social custom were 

 believed to have had divine origin; and later, civil laws 

 were known to be established by men. Hence, the popular 

 connotation of law is that of a rule, established by some 

 power, and which must be obeyed. By analogy, the laws of 

 nature are regarded as principles established for the guidance 

 of the universe. Nature thus appears to act under a sort of 

 legal necessity, whereas the fact is that we merely have so 

 constantly or so definitely observed certain sequences and 

 complexes of inter-relationship that we feel certain they will 

 reappear under similar circumstances. It is extremely 

 difficult to escape the idea of necessity in the case of the 

 relationship which is designated cause and effect. But even 

 here scientific analysis reveals no necessity, beyond the 

 relationship between phenomena which has been observed 

 in so definite a fashion that the cause may be presumed 

 always to be followed by its effect. A law in natural science 

 is a short-hand method of describing the probable order of 

 phenomena. In general, such laws are regarded by scien- 

 tists as discovered relationships, not as agencies which force 

 nature to move in particular directions. 



It is true that science holds the hypothesis of adequate 

 causation as the most fundamental tenet of its faith. The 

 reply of science to the claim that "the day of miracles has 

 passed" is that there never was a day of miracles, since 

 every phenomenon has its adequate cause. Nevertheless, 

 the exact basis of the certainties called scientific laws should 

 be held in mind. It might be stated in this wise: Suppose 

 the present represents the middle of time. There is no other 

 way of regarding the present, because time must be thought 



