LAWS OF GOD IN NATURE. 
21 
fixed and invariable as regards any one definite substance. Law 3.— 
Different substances containing the same element as one component 
of their structures contain that element in exact multiple pro¬ 
portions. Thus a few elements compose and a very few simple 
laws govern the composition of all material things, the same laws 
governing those changes in all material things which take place 
within plants, within animals, within all fires and flames, or which 
lie at the base of much of the art and most of the manufactures 
carried on by man. 
In the region of art, indeed, human skill occupies so prominent 
a place that, at the first glance, nature and superhuman law appear 
to have been left outside. Closer inspection, however, shows that 
here also nature and nature’s laws hold supreme sway. The 
painter must look to nature for canvas, pigment, and brush; he 
himself, eye and hand, body and brain, is a grand combination of 
matter and force governed by superhuman law; while the effects 
he may produce are dependent on the force and laws of light. 
Something else no doubt contributes to the production of a work of 
art—that wonderful will which is so suggestive of higher "Will. 
Nature, including her matter, forces, and laws, gives to the sculptor 
his marble and then guides his arm and his chisel. Gravitation 
gives to the architect’s plummet the whole of its guiding power. 
Natural law governs the strings of the harp and the violin no less 
than it governs the vocal cords of the human throat. In the 
mechanical arts, too, no movement can be effected, no work can 
be done, that has not the sanction of superhuman laws. Nature 
and natural law are as active in art as elsewhere; in short, art is 
for the most part only a phase of nature. 
The author’s task, or labour of love, is accomplished. The matter 
of which the universe is formed has not been considered in this 
Address, or only incidentally. That energy in nature which in our 
imperfect human language we regard as force, or as a system 
of correlated forces, has only been cursorily considered, while the 
chief subject of the Address, namely, the laws and leading attributes 
of matter and of force, is so great and grand a subject that the time 
and power at disposal have barely sufficed, but perhaps have 
just sufficed, to introduce the subject to those before whom 
this Address has been delivered. To comprehend the beginning or 
the end of nature would seem to be impossible to man, at all events 
as he is at present constituted; but to understand very much 
respecting the materials and the energies of nature and the laws by 
which all nature is governed is both possible and practicable. We 
know far far more of nature than was known a single century ago, 
