6 INTRODUCTION. 



We are not to push too far the analogy thus 

 suggested. There is undoubtedly a wide differ- 

 ence between the circumstances of man legislating 

 for man, and God legislating for matter. Still 

 we shall, it will appear, find abundant reason to 

 admire the wisdom and the goodness which have 

 established the Laivs of Nature, however rigor- 

 ously we may scrutinize the import of this ex- 

 pression. 



CHAPTER II. 



On Laws of Nature. 



WHEN we speak of material nature as being 

 governed by laws, it is sufficiently evident that 

 we use the term in a manner somewhat meta- 

 phorical. The laws to which man's attention is 

 primarily directed are moral laws; rules laid 

 down for his actions ; rules for the conscious ac- 

 tions of a person ; rules which, as a matter of 

 possibility, he may obey or may transgress ; the 

 latter event being combined, not with an impos- 

 sibility, but with a penalty. But the Laws of 

 Nature are something different from this ; they 

 are rules for that which things are to do and 

 suffer ; and this by no consciousness or will of 

 theirs. They are rules describing the mode 

 in which things do act; they are invariably 



