LETTER XX. 



215 



to get within the veil behind which the Creator works 

 in secret. It is to come into contact with His mind, 

 and see Him thinking and planning and ordering as 

 seemeth unto Him good, in regard to that which forms 

 the subject of the law.* 



4. The happiest expression of this view is that 

 given by QErsted : The Laws of Nature are the 

 thoughts of Nature, and these are the thoughts of 

 GodJ' That, 1 apprehend, is the proper notion of a 

 Law of Nature. The term law, it seems to me, bears 

 or should bear tiie same import in natural science that 

 it does in ordinary jurisprudence. A law of this realm 

 of England is an expression of the mind and will of 

 the people of England, as declared through the legis- 

 lature; and when doubt or difficulty arises in the 

 interpretation of it, reference is continually made to 

 the known or supposed design of the legislature in 

 the enacting of it. To say of the laws which regulate 

 the succession to property that they are statutes, of 

 which no other account can be given than that they 

 form part and parcel of the laws of the land, and 

 depend on the will of the legislature, would probably 

 be regarded as not altogether a satisfactory account 

 of them by a student of English history, intent on 

 getting at the root or principle, and mastering the 



* See, for a fuller elucidation of this view, Dialogues on Natural 

 and Revealed Religion, by the late Rev. Robert Morehead, D.D. 

 (1830) — Preliminary Inquiry, 



