2o8 NATURE AND MAN. 



substances, the fact of such expansion might be said to be in- 

 variable ; and, as regards bodies whose gaseous condition is 

 known, the law of expansion can be stated in a form no less 

 simple and definite than the law of gravitation. Supposing 

 those exceptions, then, to be unknown, the law would be 

 universal in its range. But it comes to be discovered that water, 

 whilst conforming to it in its expansion from 39^° upwards to 

 its boiling-point, as also, when it passes into steam, to the special 

 law of expansion of vapours, is exceptional in expatiding also 

 from 39^° donmivards to its freezing-point ; and of this failure 

 in the universality of the law, no rationale can be given. Still 

 more strange is it, that by dissolving a little salt in water, we 

 should remove this exceptional peculiarity ; for ^^a-water con- 

 tinues to contract from 39^' downwards to its freezing-point 12'^ 

 or 14° lower, just as it does with reduction of temperature at 

 higher ranges. 



Thus from our study of the mode in which we arrive at those 

 conceptions of the orderly sequence observable in the phenomena 

 of Nature which we call " laws," we are led to the conclusion 

 that they are human conceptions, subject to human fallibility; and 

 that they may or may not express the ideas of the great Author 

 of Nature. To set up these laws as self-acting, and as either ex- 

 cluding or rendering unnecessary the power which alone can give 

 them effect, appears to me as arrogant as it is unphilosophical. 

 To speak of any law as "regulating" or "governing" phe- 

 nomena, is only permissible on the assumption that the law is 

 the expression of the modus operandi of a governing power. — 

 I was once in a great city which for two days was in the hands 

 of a lawless mob. Magisterial authority was suspended by 

 timidity and doubt ; the force at its command was paralyzed 

 by want of resolute direction. The "laws" were on the statute 

 book, but there was no power to enforce them. And so the 

 powers of evil did their terrible work ; and fire and rapine con- 

 tinued to destroy life and property without check, until new power 

 came in, when the reign of law was restored. 



And thus we are led to the culminating point of man's intel- 

 lectual interpretation of Nature — his recognition of the unity of 

 the power, of which her phenomena are the diversified manifesta- 



