XA\VS OF MOTION. 421 



the law, they are the mere manifestations of 

 the power of the law. The voluntary muscles 

 of my body are made to move by the power of 

 my will ; the motion which is made to take 

 place, does not constitute the law, it is the 

 : accomplishment of the law, but is not the law 

 itself. 



The laws which different societies, or nations 

 have established, for the moral government of 

 the whole, are rules of action which the indi- 

 viduals are bound to obey ; the obedience of the 

 individual to those rules of action, is a proof 

 of the power of the law ; the power of the law 

 does not originate, but ends in the act of obe- 

 dience ; the one is as separate from the other, 

 &s the power of my foot is separate and distinct 

 from the shoe which it moves ; as the hand 

 from the pen, and the pen from the paper ; the 

 paper constitutes the passive recipient of the 

 impressions which, through the medium of my 

 hand, it is made to receive, from my will, the 

 prime mover of the whole.* 



The gradation which exisls in the common 



* Although it is very apparent that the thing done is not the 

 Jaw, but is the effect which is produced by the law, I am 

 somewhat surprised to find the late Archdeacon Paley, say, 

 " that it is a perversion of language to assign any law as the 

 efficient operative cause of any thing ;" and yet he very pro- 

 perly declares " that a law presupposes an agent, for it is 

 only the mode according to which an agent proceeds." 



