The Limits of Natural Law. 41 



an inseparable part of the instance. " All laws and 

 explanations are in a certain sense hypothetical, and 

 apply exactly to nothing which we can know to 

 exist." * 



Throughout all nature there is not found a straight 

 line, or a perfect circle, or an exact ellipse : these are 

 abstract notions, not real things. Nor does nature 

 furnish an example of motion in a straight line, or 

 in a perfect circle or ellipse, or in a curve whose law 

 may be mathematically expressed. The earth does 

 not in its orbit round the sun move in an ellipse 

 whose form is mathematically exact, nor does it trace 

 the same line in each succeeding year. No two plants 

 are exactly alike ; nor in inanimate nature are there 

 ever found two instances of absolute sameness. 



Did we know the totality of laws and know each 

 and the whole perfectly, we should then, no doubt, see 

 the entire concrete fact and comprehend it : but such 

 knowledge implies omniscience. So far as discernible 

 by us, the action of every concrete object is more or 

 less erratic, and is not perfectly conformable to any 

 one law or to all known laws. " Only a mind which 

 stood at the centre of this real world, not outside 

 individual things, but penetrating them with its 

 presence, could command such a view of reality as 

 left nothing to look for, and was therefore the perfect 

 image of it in its own being and activity. But the 



* Jevon's Principles of Science, Book IV., Chap. XXI. 



