134 THE INSUFFICIENCY OF PHYSICAL LAW. 



mortar, but that would not bed the bricks in it. Had in 

 some way the timber been cut, and had the metals needed 

 for the nails, the pipes and the roof, been extracted from 

 their ores, and then gathered by the winds and laid 

 down in separate piles ready for use, all physical laws 

 combined would be helpless to put them in their places. 

 Gravitation could do no more than hold the various 

 materials on the ground. Cohesion could merely keep 

 them from falling to pieces. Chemical afl3.nity has done 

 its formative work, and now strives to the best of its 

 ability to form new combinations useless, or worse, for 

 this use. Electricity may scatter and destroy, but can- 

 not raise a stick, or lay a brick, and light and heat have 

 no part to play in reference to our building except to aid 

 chemical affinity in its leveling work. Yet the edifice 

 exists, and so do houses and streets, railroads and canals 

 and innumerable other things for which physical law and 

 natural forces fail to account. However far we extend our 

 examination we find the same result, buildings, railroads, 

 canals, machinery, statuary, paintings and innumerable 

 other things, to which physical law is necessary indeed, 

 but which it is utterly insufficient unaided to produce. 

 All our investigation brings us back to the truth already 

 stated. There is another force outside of, and in rank 

 superior to, the laws of nature. We know of but one 

 such force, and we call it the will power — a power which 

 reaches its highest efficiency when guided by intellect. 

 It is found in all living creatures, but most of all in man. 

 But how can this will power connect itself with the 

 outer world ? 



Given man endowed with all his faculties of mind and 

 body, how does he make nature's powers work for him ? 

 First, by learning their laws, and strictly obeying them, 

 he makes them his servants. By obedience he com- 

 mands, by submission he conquers. This is that knowl- 

 edge of which it is truly said, knowledge is power. 



7S 



