ADDRESS. Ixxxiii 



Bufflcient to give him an imperishable renown, it was his still greater glory 

 to divine that the fall of the Moon towards the Earth — that is, the deflection 

 of her path from a tangential line to an ellipse — is a phenomenon of the same 

 order as the fall of a stone to the ground ; and thus to show the applicability 

 to the entire Universe, of those simple Dynamical conceptions which consti- 

 tute the basis of the Geometry of the Principia. 



Thus, then, whilst no " Law " which is simply a generalization of 

 Phenomena can be considered as having any coercive action, we may assign 

 that value to Laws which express the universal conditions of the action of a 

 i^orce whose existence we learn from the testimony of our own consciousness. 

 The assurance we feel that the Attraction of Gravitation miist act under all 

 circumstances according to those simple Laws which arise immediately out of 

 our Dynamical conception of it, is of a veiy diiferent order from that which 

 we have in regard (for example) to the Laws of Chemical Attraction, which 

 are as yet only generalizations of phenomena. And yet even in that strong 

 assurance, we are required by our examination of the basis on which it rests, 

 to admit a reserve of the possibility of something different ; a reserve which we 

 may well believe that Newton himself must have entertained. 



A most valuable lesson as to the allowance we ought always to make for 

 the unknown " possibilities of Nature," is taught us by an exceptional phe- 

 nomenon so familiar that it does not attract the notice it has a right to 

 claim. Next to the Law of the Universal Attraction of Masses of Matter, 

 there is none that seems to have a wider range than that of the Expansion of 

 Bodies hj Heat and their Contraction by Cold. Excluding Water and one or 

 two other substances, the fact of such expansion might be said to be invariable ; 

 and, as regards bodies whose Gaseous condition is known, the Law of Ex- 

 pansion can be stated in a form no less simple and definite than the Law of 

 Gravitation. Supposing those exceptions, then, to be unknown, the Law 

 would be universal in its range. But it comes to be discovered that Water, 

 whilst conforming to it in its expansion from 39|° xipivards to its boiling- 

 point, as also, when it passes into Steam, to the special law of Expansion of 

 Vapours, is exceptional in expanding also from 39|° doivnwards to its Freez- 

 ing-point ; and of this failure in the Universality of the Law, no rationale can 

 be given. StiU more strange is it, that by dissolving a little scdt in water, 

 we should remove this exceptional peculiarity ; for sea-water continues to con- 

 tract from 39|° downwards to its Freezing-point 12° or 14° lower, just as it 

 does with reduction of temperature at higher ranges. 



Thus from our study of the mode in which we arrive at those conceptions 

 of the Orderly Sequence observable in the Phenomena of Nature which we 

 call " Laws," we are led to the conclusion that they are Human conceptions, 

 subject to Human fallibility; and that they may or may not express the 

 Ideas of the Great Author of Nature. To set up these Laws as self-acting, 

 and as either excluding or rendering unnecessary the Power which alone 

 can give them effect, appears to me as arrogant as it is unphilosophical. To 

 speak of any Law as "regulating" or "governing" phenomena, is only per- 

 missible on the assumption that the Law is the expression of the modus 

 operandi of a Governing Power. — I was once in a great City which for two 

 days was in the hands of a lawless mob. Magisterial authority was sus- 

 pended by timidity and doubt : the force at its command was paralyzed by 

 want of resolute direction. The " Laws " were on the Statute book, but there 

 was no Power to enforce them. And so the Powers of evil did their terrible 

 work; and fire and rapine continued to destroy life and property without 

 check, until uew Power came in, when the Ileigu of Law was restored. 



