50 
assumed axiom, rejected by Newton, that the reduction of the 
phenomena of nature to established laws compels the rejection 
° f wLTwTcdUlaw of nature is nothing more than a ^general 
formula enabling us to class together under one » 
number of observed phenomena. We must not let this te 
“law” lead us into metaphysical or illogical conclusions. Because 
we class together a certain number of facts under what we 
term a law we have no certamty that that law is a necessary, 
SterS, unchangeable power, controlling ; the observed 
nhenomena. That because the law of gravitation enables us 
[o account for certain motions of the planetary bodies then- 
satelliTesand the comets of our system, the proved existence 
of this L must compel us to believe that it, as well as the 
bodies it controls, existed through the infinite ages of he 
past without a creator: a law without a 
matter without a creator;gravitation be^““a g, 
self-evolving power of self-existent, uncreated matter. I put 
this proposition in this startling point of view, because it is 
ureckelv the point of view in which it has been imported ft 
the disputes P of rationalistic theologians into the domain of 
3= “ -33S1S 
kws h of S could prove 
£ assertion that the^hain of endless causation can never be 
br What we call a law of nature is but the observation of a 
certain number of facts which we class under a certain 
„ „™tain number of facts, for instance, under the law of grav 
tion But Ration is U, for anything we > know, a necessary 
law a necessary and invariable property of what we call gr 
vitatino- matted Phenomena might present themselves whic 
micht refuse to be classed under this law, and £ 
x ^ it Tibs lias not only been conceded; but tne 
i:. 
The acceptance of such a position as a ch 
This “chain of endless causation was PP . ,i - , 
£ purpose of spreading the results of rationalism m this 
