379 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Law 

 Laws 



isolated, nor as the isolated result of speci- 

 fically economic forces having natural laws 

 peculiar to itself. The industrial life is a 

 free product of the human spirit; the total 

 industrial activity of a people is only one 

 side of the national life standing in the 

 closest causal relations with the other phe- 

 nomena of the national spirit; the indus- 

 trial forces are general forces working in 

 man and in Nature, which are only produ- 

 cing particular forms, and in these forms 

 particular effects. Above all things we em- 

 phasize that our dealings are with persons, 

 with people who, being active in the family, 

 the state, and society, are also active indus- 

 trially; but with people who are not some- 

 thing else in this department than they are 

 elsewhere. And for that reason we do not 

 recognize any motives that are peculiarly 

 industrial, and cannot admit that industrial 

 life is a domain to which the general moral 

 teachings and the categorical imperative of 

 moral duty do not apply. On the contrary 

 we affirm that the moral law and devotion 

 to moral duty must become the determining 

 force here also as well as in the remainder 

 of the national life, if society is to develop 

 prosperous conditions. 



Our so-called laws are historic and rela- 

 tive, our solutions are relative, only possible 

 of execution by means of exact information, 

 of consideration of the actual concrete cir- 

 cumstances. SCHONBEBG Die Volkswirth- 

 schaftslehre (Sammlung wissenschaftlicher 

 Vortrdge, Serie viii). (Translated for Scien- 

 tific Side-Lights.) 



1854. LAWS OF HISTORY LIKE 

 THOSE OF SCIENCE Merely Statements of 

 Cause and Effect. It is folly, then, to speak 

 of the " laws of history " as of something 

 inevitable, which science has only to dis- 

 cover, and whose consequences any one can 

 then foretell, but do nothing to alter or avert. 

 Why, the very laws of physics are condi- 

 tional and deal with ifs. The physicist does 

 not say, " The water will boil, anyhow " ; he 

 only says it will boil if a fire be kindled 

 beneath it. And so the utmost the student 

 of sociology can ever predict is that if a 

 genius of a certain sort show the way, so- 

 ciety will be sure to follow. JAMES Essays 

 in Popular Philosophy, p. 244. (L. G. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



1855. LAWS OF NATURE Con- 

 trasted with Laws of Man A Deadlock Re- 

 sults in Public Misfortune. The laws of 

 man are also laws of Nature when founded 

 on a true perception of natural tendencies 

 and a just appreciation of combined results. 

 On the other hand, human laws are at vari- 

 ance with or antagonistic to the laws of 

 Nature when founded either on the desire 

 of attaining a wrong end, or on the attempt 

 to reach a right end by mistaken means. 

 In either of these cases positive institution 

 and natural law become opposed, and thus a 

 bad contrivance in legislation, like a bad 

 contrivance in mechanics, comes always to 



some deadlock at last. Time and natural 

 consequence are great teachers in politics 

 as in other things. Our sins and our ig- 

 norances find us out. Both in conduct and 

 in opinion natural law is ever working to 

 convict error, to reveal and to confirm the 

 truth. ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 7, p. 212. 

 (Burt.) 



1850. 



Never Subverted 



by Human Agency Moral Ends Proposed 

 in^ Life of Man. If, then, an intelligent 

 being, after observing the order of events 

 for an indefinite series of ages, had witnessed 

 at last so wonderful an innovation as this 

 [the introduction of man upon the planet], 

 to what extent would his belief in the regu- 

 larity of the system be weakened? Would 

 he cease to assume that there was perma- 

 nency in the laws of Nature? Would he no 

 longer be guided in his speculations by the 

 strictest rules of induction ? To these ques- 

 tions it may be answered that had he pre- 

 viously presumed to dogmatize respecting 

 the absolute uniformity of the order of Na- 

 ture he would undoubtedly be checked by 

 witnessing this new and unexpected event, 

 and would form a more just estimate of the 

 limited range of his own knowledge and the 

 unbounded extent of the scheme of the uni- 

 verse. But he would soon perceive that no 

 one of the fixed and constant laws of the 

 animate or inanimate world was subverted 

 by human agency, and that the modifications 

 now introduced for the first time were the 

 accompaniments of new and extraordinary 

 circumstances, and those not of a physical 

 but of a moral nature. The deviation permit- 

 ted would also appear to be as slight as was 

 consistent with the accomplishment of the 

 new moral ends proposed, and to be in a 

 great degree temporary in its nature, so that 

 whenever the power of the new agent was 

 withheld, even for a brief period, a relapse 

 would take place to the ancient state of 

 things; the domesticated animal, for ex- 

 ample, recovering in a few generations its 

 wild instinct, and the garden-flower and 

 fruit-tree reverting to the likeness of the 

 parent stock. LYELL Principles of Geology, 

 bk. i, ch. 9, p. 152. (A., 1854.) 



1857. 



Not Agents Hu- 



man Generalizations from Phenomena Ori- 

 gin of Force Unknown. The laws of Nature 

 are merely mental generalizations of our 

 own, and so far as they go show a remark- 

 able harmony between our mental nature 

 and that manifested in the universe. They 

 are not themselves powers capable of pro- 

 ducing effects, but merely express what we 

 can ascertain of uniformity of action in 

 Nature. The law of gravitation, for ex- 

 ample, gives no clue to the origin of that 

 force, but merely expresses its constant 

 mode of action in whatever way that may 

 have been determined at first. Nor are 

 natural laws decrees of necessity. They 

 might have been otherwise nay, many of 

 them may be otherwise in parts of the uni- 



