THEOLOGY AND LAW. 233 



present. Thus, like Theology, it is open to the 

 reproach, if it be a reproach, that it is a derived 

 science, and with Theology it offers its strong but 

 silent protest against the narrowing of the term 

 science to the inductive method. 



(ii.) Law is a derived science, but that is not all. 

 It claims authority, an authority which is not 

 ephemeral, but eternal ; a majesty which the 

 present can neither give nor take away. Its 

 appeal is not to its usefulness, its fitness to the 

 present condition of things, but to men's reverence 

 for authority, to their obedience, to their loyalty. 

 And in this, while its likeness to Theology is 

 obvious, its contrast with the popular science of 

 nature is no less obvious. For both deal with law, 

 yet the one is as anxious to assert, as the other is 

 to disavow, the claim to authority for law as law. 

 \Ye have outgrown the confusion which is to be 

 found even in Blackstone. We know that a law 

 of nature is "an observed uniformity of sequence 

 or coexistence," a fact universally true within the 

 limits of scientific observation. But it lays claim 

 to no necessity, it repudiates even "a tacit refer- 

 ence to the will of a superior." It speaks in the 

 indicative, not in the imperative. No real student 

 of nature will go beyond the "is" and "is not" of 

 fact. " Must " and " cannot " lie beyond his range, 

 except when they are illicitly smuggled in for use 

 against the Christian miracles. But Law, in its 



