ON LAWS OF NATURE. 9 



It will be our business to show that the laws 

 which really prevail in nature are, by their form, 

 that is, by the nature of the connexion which 

 they establish among the quantities and proper- 

 ties which they regulate, remarkably adapted to 

 the office which is assigned them ; and thus offer 

 evidence of selection, design, and goodness, in 

 the power by which they were established. But 

 these characters of the legislation of the universe 

 may also be seen, in many instances, in a manner 

 somewhat different from the selection of the law. 

 The nature of the connexion remaining the same, 

 the quantities which it regulates may also in 

 their magnitude bear marks of selection and 

 purpose. For the law may be the same while 

 the quantities to which it applies are different. 

 The law of the gravity which acts to the earth 

 and to Jupiter, is the same ; but the intensity of 

 the force at the surfaces of the two planets is dif- 

 ferent. The law which regulates the density of 

 the air at any point, with reference to the height 

 from the earth's surface, would be the same, if 

 the atmosphere were ten times as large, or only 

 one tenth as large as it is; if the barometer at the 

 earth's surface stood at three inches only, or if it 

 showed a pressure of thirty feet of mercury. 



Now this being understood, the adaptation of a 

 law to its purpose, or to other laws, may appear 

 in two ways: either in the form of the law, 

 or in the amount of the magnitudes which it 



