256 
it is the delight, the reward, the goal, of Science.”* Hooker, 
on the alternate supposition, exclaims: “Now, if Nature 
should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though 
it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; 
if those principal and mother elements of the world, 
whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose 
the qualities which now they have ; if the frame of that 
heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dis- 
solve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted 
motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way 
as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, 
which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, 
as it were through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and 
to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten 
way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by 
disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their 
last gasp, the clouds yield no l’ain, the earth be defeated of 
heavenly influence, the fruits of tho earth pine away, as chil- 
dren at the breast of their mother, no longer able to afford 
them relief ; what would become of man himself, whom these 
things do now all serve ? See we not plainly, that obedience 
of creatures unto the Law of Nature is the stay of the whole 
world ? 
51 . Law is not itself a cause but an effect. There must 
have been an antecedent reason, in other words a Lawgiver, 
and of course the conception of any other than an unlimited, 
unconditioned God, is wholly inadmissible. 
52. Although “ Order ” is “ heaven’s first law,” and 
is universal so far as can be observed, reaching to the 
deepest recesses of earth and ocean, to the farthest height in 
the azure above, yet the mind refuses to rest in the mere 
fact of order. It inevitably springs to the conclusion of an 
Ordainer. Our own consciousness is the foundation of this 
conviction. We can analyze it no further, nor is it necessary 
that we should do so. Personal experience of the workings 
of our own intelligence leads us to apply at once to conscious- 
ness to explain the phenomena. We do not know all that is 
demanded of us when we are asked, “ How came these things 
so ? ” but we know, that whatever else may be involved that 
we do not know, we do know, from our own experience, that 
the “ How ” contains an intelligent cause. 
53. If all things are limited by law, and that law is 
* Reign of Law, chapter ii. 
t Book i. p. 206. 
