386 NATURE AND MAN. 



corresponding differences in the results. And it is from obser- 

 vation and comparison of the conditions of the phenomena of 

 nature, that the materials are obtained for those general expres- 

 sions of them which are termed laws. Thus, by letting fall 

 weights from different stories of the leaning tower of Pisa, and 

 accurately noting the times of their respective descents, Galileo 

 was able to frame that very simple expression of the uniform 

 relation between the space fallen through, and the square of the 

 time occupied in the fall, which constitutes the law of Terrestrial 

 Gravitation. This enables us to predict, with what we call scien- 

 tific certainty, how many feet a heavy body will tall through in 

 a given period of time ; but this certainty has no other basis than 

 our own confident expectation, that what has always (so far as 

 our knowledge extends) proved true in the past, will prove equally 

 true in the future. For the " law " has no power iti itself; only 

 by a false analogy with the law of a State, can it be said to 

 "govern" or "regulate" the phenomena which it enables us to 

 predict. In short, though perhaps ninety-nine persons out of a 

 hundred would reply to the question why a stone falls to the 

 ground, " because of the law of gravitation," this answer would 

 be only tantamount to saying, " Because all other stones, if un- 

 " supported, similarly fall to the ground," which is obviously no 

 explanation at all. But when we express this general fact "in 

 terms of force," taking as a fundamental fact of human experi- 

 ence the downward pull which we feel the earth to exert upon 

 every body which we raise above it by our own effort, we bring 

 it home to our own consciousness of personal agency, which, as 

 I shall presently show, constitutes the connecting link between 

 the scientific and the theological conceptions of Nature. 



The attributing to "properties of matter" the phenomena 

 which we witness in the universe around us, is only another mode 

 of expressing the fact of those uniformities, which science finds it 

 convenient to employ, and does not give any other " explanation " 

 of any one of them, than that which consists in showing it to be 

 a particular case of a general flict. Thus, when the genius of 

 Newton recognized in the deflection of the moon's motion from 

 the straight path into an elliptic orbit round the earth, a pheno- 

 menon of the same order as that which brings to the ground in 



