CHAPTER XXIY. 



LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY. 



IN the light of the foregoing remarks respecting the order, 

 successive developments, and relations of the organic tribes, 

 let us now press to a final and more specific decision, the 

 question, whether the system of Creation, as it now stands, 

 came to exist, in any sense, through the operations of Law 1 

 and if so, in what sense, and with what accompanying con- 

 clusions relative to the doctrine of Providences, or of Divine 

 interpositions ? 



But that we may pursue this inquiry intelligibly, we must 

 obviously first define precisely what we mean by the term 

 " Law." Law, as it is jinderstood by the best authorities, 

 means simply a rule of action, or a definite mode or method 

 in which force and motion proceed toward the accomplish- 

 ment of an end. It is not, therefore, of itself, either force or 

 motion, but only the rule of action which these, in their 

 operations, are made to observe. 



Now it may be safely asserted that there is no force or 

 motion, either in the universe of matter or the universe of 

 mind, which, in its operations, does not observe some rule, 

 some method, and hence some law. If, indeed, there could be 

 any action or motion without method or law, that action or 

 motion would necessarily be chaotic, and would tend directly 

 to the total subversion of all law and order, and thus to reduce 

 all things to chaos. It is impossible for a man to conceive a 



