LAW IN POLITICS. 433 



than those which concern the definition, and the 

 function and the power of " Law." Instead of 

 regarding the Constancy of Nature as incompatible 

 with the energies of Will, we must learn to see in 

 it the most powerful stimulus' to inquiry, and the 

 most cheering encouragement to exertion. 



The superstition which saw in all natural pheno- 

 mena the action of capricious Deities was not more 

 irrational than the superstition which sees in them 

 nothing but the action of Invariable Law. Men 

 have been right and not wrong, when they saw 

 in the facts of Nature the Variability of Adjust- 

 ment even more clearly and more surely than 

 they saw the Constancy of Force. They were 

 right when they identified these phenomena with 

 the phenomena of Mind. They were right when 

 they regarded their own faculty of Contrivance as 

 the nearest and truest analogy by which the Con- 

 stitution of the Universe can be conceived and 

 its Order understood. They were right when 

 they regarded its arrangements as susceptible of 

 Change ; and when they looked upon a change 

 of Will as the efficient cause of other changes 



without number, and without end. It was well to 



2 E 



