THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 229 



the iron links of necessity, massive or fine, in these 

 unvarying connections and inseparable conjunctions of 

 facts which constitute the universe on the scientific 

 showing of it ? In a word, is not the full accomplish- 

 ment of science, and the complete establishment of the 

 reign of law in matter, in mind, in the human body, in 

 human societies, only the completion of our subjection to 

 necessity and fate ? Not so, replies the positive thinker ; 

 less now than ever does necessity press upon men, and it 

 is to the universal reign of law, and to science which has 

 found and demonstrated it, that we owe our deliverance. 

 For though the universe is indeed, in a sense, a huge 

 machine, though the order of the world is invariable and 

 ascertained, though fire invariably ignites gunpowder, 

 though lead sinks in water, though all animals die, and 

 the dead do not rise again ; though all this be true, yet 

 we find that the laws of Nature are not our tyrannical 

 masters, and the empire of necessity does not oppress us. 

 On the contrary, we find that even while we act under 

 laws, we can bend their action indefinitely to our will 

 and pleasure and advantage. And this is practical 

 freedom, the only real freedom, the freedom to pursue 

 what we desire. We can set the laws to act together or 

 in opposition to each other. We can set two or more 

 causes in action together, and make them to unite, or 

 alter, or cancel their special effects. We can increase, 

 vary, modify, neutralize the operation of laws, but only 

 by the action of other laws. We can summon one law 

 to our aid to deliver us from the evil effect of another 

 law. We can get one cause to counteract another cause, 

 water to extinguish a conflagration, quinine to cure an 

 ague or fever. In like manner we may link together 

 several instances of laws with their effects into a series in 

 a machine, as the steam-engine, which is but the con- 



