THE SCIENTIFIC LAW 93 



itself suggests some harmony, some relation between the 

 perceptive and reasoning faculties in man — a matter to 

 which I shall return later. 



^ 8. — True Relation of Civil and Natural Lazu 



Proceeding from Austin's definition of law, we have 

 found it necessary to distinguish between two different 

 ideas frequently confused under the term " natural law," 

 namely, the mere concatenation of phenomena and the 

 mental formula which gives brief expression to their 

 sequences. Before we devote our undivided attention to 

 the latter as the scientific conception of natural law, it 

 may be of interest to clear up one or two remaining 

 points with regard to civil and scientific law. While 

 Austin, thinking especially of natural law in the old sense, 

 states that any relation between the two is merely meta- 

 phorical, both the Stoics and Hooker conceive that the 

 reason, or the lawgiver to be recognised behind pheno- 

 mena, ought to guide man's moral conduct. Now if these 

 philosophers were looking upon natural law as the pro- 

 duct of the human reason there would be little to require 

 further comment ; but, as we have seen, this is far from 

 the case. The Stoics tell us that reason cannot be two- 

 fold, that it must be the same reason in both man and 

 the universe, and that therefore the civil law of man is 

 identical with natural law.^ The inference is of course 

 unjustifiable, for the sai>ie reason may be at work in two 

 quite distinct fields. It is important to notice, however, 

 that in one sense civil and moral laws are natural pro- 

 ducts ; they are products of particular phases of human 

 growth. This growth is itself capable of treatment by 

 the scientific method, and the sequence of its stages can 

 be expressed by scientific formulae, or — looking at civil 

 and moral law as objective phenomena — by natural 

 laws. Thus civil law is a natural product, and not 



1 Up to the " sameness of the reason " there is little exception to be taken 

 to the argument, but few of us would agree with the dictum of that ancient 

 and upright judge, Sir John Powell, that " nothing is law that is not reason." 



