LAW IN POLITICS. 407 



the same fallacy which has already been pointed 

 out in the language used in the name of Physical 

 Science. It is often said that the conduct and 

 condition of men are governed by invariable laws ; 

 and the conclusion is that the evils which arise by 

 way of natural consequence out of the action of 

 those laws, are evils against which the struggles 

 of the Will are hopeless. But the facts on which 

 this conclusion is founded, are, as usual, inaccu- 

 rately stated. The conditions of human life and 

 conduct, like the conditions of all natural pheno- 

 mena, are never governed by those separate and 

 individual forces which alone are invariable, but 

 always by combinations among those forces — 

 which combinations are of endless variety, and of 

 endless capability of change. Different motives 

 arise out of the inborn gifts of character, and 

 out of the conditions of external circumstance. 

 It is true, indeed, that there are in the mind of 

 Man, as there are in Nature, certain forces ori- 

 ginally implanted, which are unchangeable in this 

 sense, that they have an invariable tendency to 

 determine conduct in a particular direction. But 

 as in Nature we have a power of commanding her 

 elementary forces by the methods of adjustment, 



