NATURE AND LAW. 3^7 



strictly scientific conception of law, and by examining into the 

 theological bearing of each. And if, in so doing, I go over 

 ground which has been trodden until it seems perfectly familiar, 

 and use illustrations that may be thought to have been worn to 

 triteness, it is because I believe that the best lessons are often to 

 be drawn from the most familiar things, // they be looked at from 

 the rigJit point of view. 



I. When we speak of the " laws " of a State, we mean the 

 rules laid down by the Governing Power of that State for the 

 conduct of its members; which rules, its Executive is charged 

 with enforcing by the power it wields. But there may be laws 

 which a Government regards as obsolete, and thinks it inexpedient 

 to enforce (as is the case with many of those still inscribed on our 

 Statute-book) ; or others of recent enactment, which a Govern- 

 ment may be deterred from carrying into execution by the antago- 

 nistic force of public opinion (as happened many times in regard 

 to the " fugitive slave law " of the United States). Or, again, the 

 Executive may itself be paralyzed by a panic, which allows mob- 

 force for the time to reign supreme (as in the riots of London in 

 1780, and the riots of Bristol in 1831); or may be overthrown 

 by a Revolution which subverts its authority, leaving anarchy to 

 prevail until a new Government shall have been constituted. 

 Thus it is clear that state-made laws have no coercive action in 

 themselves ; that action being entirely dependent upon the enforce- 

 ment of them by the governing power, of whose will they are to 

 be regarded as the expressions. The very term " government," 

 indeed, carries with it the idea of a governing power on the one 

 hand, and of a people controlled by it on the other. And when 

 we speak of a State as " governed by law," we mean no more than 

 that its controlling Power " governs according to law ; " or, in 

 other words, that it acts — not on the arbitrary dictation of its own 

 will — but in accordance with certain fixed and determinate rules, 

 in which that will is expressed, and within which it limits its 

 exercise. 



It is thus that when we pass from the sphere of human 

 government to that of the Divine, and speak of the universe 

 as " governed " by the " laws " of a supreme Ruler, we mean that 

 his power is exerted, not like that of an arbitrary potentate who 



