1879.J 14D [Chase. 



if he intends to assert that the material universe is sustained by an internal 

 necessity which is independent of any supernatural influences, he is simply 

 begging the question. 



What are called " the laws of nature " are merely the generalizations of our 

 own minds. They represent facts, of order, and harmony, and mutual rela- 

 tionship, which have been observed so often that we look upon them as in- 

 variable, and nearly every provision which we make for future contingencies 

 is grounded upon our confident belief in such invariability. If we were to 

 ask how a religious or political organization is governed, we should think 

 it a very unsatisfactory answer to be told that "the laws of the organization 

 rule." It is equally unsatisfactory to be told that the laws of nature rule, 

 when we ask, what governs nature ? We are not children, to be stopped 

 in our questionings by a simple "because," or to be contented with the as- 

 surance that certain orders of fact occur because those orders of fact always 

 occur. Yet what more do they offer us who talk of " the sway of the un- 

 changeable laws of nature?" Who will say that protoplasm or chemical 

 affinity rules the conscious movements of the infusoria, or the amoeba, or 

 the higher organizations which use nerves and ganglia as the instruments 

 of consciousness. 



However we may try to account for the origin of consciousness, we can- 

 not divest ourselves of the belief that consciousness is the ruling power of 

 its own polity. Even if we can bring ourselves to think that the ' ' cell- 

 soul" is the product of the material forces which organized the cell, we 

 cannot help thinking that, after it is "developed," it rules the cell ; even if 

 we define matter so as to include all phenomena, the only ruling force that 

 is self-evident is the force of will. Seeing an established or perma- 

 nent rule in the material universe, which resembles the "established or 

 permanent rule prescribed by the supreme power of a state to its subjects, ' ' 

 we reason from analogy and call the natural rule, as well as the human 

 rule, a law. Extending the analogy, we look upon the "laws of nature " 

 as rules prescribed by the supreme power of nature. The Christian philoso- 

 pher extends the analogy still further, and finds that all his questionings are 

 satisfactorily answered by a simple acceptance of the revelation, that the 

 supreme power is an Omnipresent, Almighty, " Eternal Reason, " and Will, 

 and Love. According to the only intelligible conception which he is able to 

 frame, of the laws of nature and the eternal reason, we have no grounds for 

 saying that "the two would be involved in conflict every moment. " On the 

 contrary, any conflict is an absolute impossibility. " The sway of the un- 

 changeable laws of nature, a sway which we cannot call a rule," continues 

 only so long as God wills ; the laws are unchangeable only while their 

 Author does not wish to change them ; there can be nosuch thing as "con- 

 flicting personal interference," because at the moment when there would 

 be an interference, provided the laws had an independent existence, the 

 change in the Divine Will makes a corresponding change in the laws. 



In this conception all the terms are used in their simplest, most obvious, 

 and most general acceptation. If the teachers of a different doctrine have 



