OP THE PERSONALITY OP THE BEIT'/. 237 



liced * and we must here notice again, the misapplication 

 of the term ** law," and the mistalve concerning the idea 

 which that term expresses in physics, whenever such idea 

 is made to take the place of power, and still more of an in- 

 telligent power, and, as such, to be assigned for the cause 

 of any thing, or of any property of any thing that exists. 

 This is what we are secretly apt to do when we speak of or- 

 ganized bodies (plants for instance, or animals,) owing their 

 production, their form, their growth, their qualities, their 

 beauty, their use, to any law or laws of nature ; and when we 

 are contented to sit down with that answer to our inquiries 

 concerning them. I say once more, that it is a perversion 

 of language to assign any law as the efficient, operative 

 cause of any thing. A law pre-supposes an agent, for it is 

 only ^he mode according to which an agent proceeds : it 

 implies a power, for it is the order according to which that 

 power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which 

 are both distinct from itself, the " law" does nothing — is 

 nothing. 



What has been said concerning *' law," holds true of 

 jnechanism. Mechanism is not itself power. Mechanism 

 without power, can do nothing. Let a watch be contrived 

 and constructed ever so ingeniously ; be its parts ever so 

 many, ever so complicated, ever so finely wrought, or arti- 

 ficially put together, it cannot ^o without a weight or spring ; 

 i. e. without a force independent of, and ulterior to its me- 

 chanism. The spring acting at the centre will produce 

 different motions and different results, according to the 

 variety of the intermediate mechanism. One and the self- 

 same spring, acting in one and the same manner, viz. by 

 simply expanding itself, may be the cause of a hundred dif- 

 ferent, and all useful movements, if a hundred different and 

 well devised sets of wheels be placed between it and the 

 final effect, e. g. may point out the hour of the day, the 

 day of the month, the age of the moon, the position of the 

 planets, the cycle of the years, and many other serviceable 

 notices ; and these movements may fulfil their purposes 

 with more or less perfection, according as the mechanism 

 is better or worse contrived, or better or worse executed, 

 or in a better or worse state of repair ; but, in all cases, it 

 is necessary that the spring act at the centre. The course 

 of our reasoning upon such a subject would be this. By 

 inspecting the watch, even when standing still, we get a 



^ Chap. I. sec. vii. 

 W 3 



