LAW; — ITS DEFINITIONS. 115 



wholly new in respect to Space and Time. Yet, 

 after all, can we express those ideas, or can we 

 indicate the questions they suggest in any lan- 

 guage which approaches in power to the majestic 

 utterances of David and of Job ? We know more 

 than they knew of the magnitude of the Heavenly 

 Bodies ; but what more can we say than they said 

 of the wonder of them, — of Orion, of Arcturus, 

 and the Pleiades?* We know that the Earth 

 moves, which they did not know ; and we know 

 that the rapid rotation of a globe on its own axis 

 is a means of maintaining the steadiness of that 

 axis in its course through Space. But what effect, 

 except that of increasing its significance, has this 

 knowledge upon the praise which David ascribes 

 to that ultimate Agency which has " made the 

 round world so sure that it cannot be moved ? " f 



And so of other departments of Science. Even 

 the modern idea of Law, of the constancy and 

 therefore the trustworthiness of Natural Forces, 

 has been known, not indeed scientifically but 

 instinctively, to Man since first he made a Tool, 

 and used it as the instrument of Purpose. What 



* Job ix. 9. f Ps. xciii. 2. 



