272 THE VERY REV. H. WAGE, D.D._, ON SOME OP 



and our anticipations of that which will happen."* But the 

 idea of everything being subject to " laws of nature," and of 

 " violations " of them being incredible, became deeply fixed in 

 popular thought. The Reign of Law was the title of a book by 

 the late Duke of Argyll, and the phrase embodied the prevalent 

 conception. We are now told, however, by Mr. Whetham, one 

 of the most distinguished exponents of modern science, that 

 " many brave things have been written and many capital letters 

 expended on describing the Eeign of Law. Tlie laws of Kature, 

 however, when the mode of their discovery is analysed, are seen 

 to be merely the most convenient way of stating the results of 

 experience in a form suitable for future reference. The word 

 ' law ' used in this connexion, has had an unfortunate effect. 

 It has imparted a kind of idea of moral obligation which bids the 

 phenomena ' obey the law,' and leads to the notion that when 

 we have traced a law, we have discovered the ultimate cause 

 of a series of phenomena " : and again, " we must thus look on 

 natural laws merely as convenient shorthand statements of the 

 organized information that at present is at our disposal."! 



I must own that this sort of language seems to me to go too 

 far, and that there are principles in natural philosophy which 

 cannot duly be described by any other name than that of law. 

 Observations which are of a purely inductive and probable 

 character, such as the doctrine of Evolution, may appropriately 

 be described as " shorthand statements of the organized in- 

 formation at present at our disposal," and it would be well if 

 their provisional character in this respect v.'ere more clearly 

 borne in mind. But the principles laid down in Newton's 

 Princi'pia, or, as he entitled his great work, the Mathematical 

 Princijjles of Natural Philosophy, do appear to bear the 

 character of irrefragable laws. The law of gravitation rests, 

 not merely on certain observations made by Kepler of the 

 motions of the planets, but on mathematical propositions 

 established by Newton which are rigidly demonstrable ; 

 and the motion of the planets is dependent upon the 

 action of every particle in them being conformable to the 

 mathematical principles of attraction which he established. 

 Unless all the particles of matter in the visible universe are 

 subject to some controlling power, which practically subjects 

 them to a law, it would seem inconceivable that they should 



* Huxley, Science mid Christian Tradition^ p. 77. 



t Whetham, Recent Development of Physical Science, p. 31. 



