The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life. 65 
be the fact with all falling bodies. If a farmer in this latitude should plant 
his corn in January we would say he had departed from the law governing the 
germination of seed. When an oak tree is cut down and begins to decay we 
say that tree is dead, and will appear as a live-oak tree no more forever, 
as that has been the observed fact or law of oak trees since the time when they 
were first felled. A similar experience includes all the different trees of the 
forest, and we say that is a fact or law of all trees which are severed from their 
roots. All these and a thousand others which might be mentioned are facts 
of common observation. No one disputes them or deems them worthy of a 
moment’s discussion; and yet, so far as they go, they embody what we call 
“laws of nature.” Upon such beliefs and similar facts of observation each 
individual acts, and always has. No sort of intelligent life could go on with- 
out a belief in the orderly sequence of all the common movements of nature. 
The same recurrence of events under the same circumstances is all that is 
meant by this term. Why it isso we do not know. All people in past ages, 
and a majority in this, could give you a complete answer to the ‘why’ but as 
science offers no opinion about things it cannot demonstrate, it simply says I 
don’t know. But we do know that chemists, astronomers, mechanics and all 
the workers in the exact sciences, base their work upon this principal of uni- 
formity; without it the ship could never find its way over the trackless ocean. 
Upon land no one would know in the evening that he would find the home he 
‘left in the morning; without it everything would be chaos. The brain of 
man would lose its equilibrium and the human race would disappear. So 
much for adefinition. It is not obscure, needs no man of science to explain 
it, or a learned man to assure you of its truth. 
So far, I think, you will give your ready assent to what I have stated. Now 
I desire to make you see and feel that this orderly sequence of the ways of 
matter and man, is not only true in the common affairs of life, but is equally 
true throughout the whole universe; not only in the starry heavens above, but 
in the earth beneath our feet, and in all there is in it or of it, including the 
grandest movements of nature, and the feeblest efforts of men. 
It seems strange that this conclusion should not have been reached at an 
earlier age, from the very logic of things always known since man began to 
think or reason. Not until Sir Isaac Newton published his “ Principia,” just 
two hundred years ago (which Laplace pronounced “ preéminent above all 
other productions of the human intellect’), was there any general assent even 
among the most learned, to any such universal principle governing even ma- 
terial things. For the first time since the advent of man on earth, the move- 
ments of the sun and planets were known to observe a uniform movement in 
obedience to a law, called the force of gravity. The majesty of this discovery 
is beyond the power of language to describe, yet it was simply a logi®al de- 
duction from his observance of little things, verified by numerous experi- 
ments, and many mathematical calculations. 
James Watts’ observation of the effect of boiling water in his mother’s tea- 
kettle, led to his applying the same principle or law to a propelling engine. 
A little over a hundred years have passed, and to-day it would take an ency- 
clopedia to enumerate its wonderful benefits to mankind. Many of the grand- 
est discoveries have been made by unlearned and unlettered men, but whether 
they knew it or not, the mental process was the same: applying the facts of 
observation to some other thing, or other circumstances which is purely a sci- 
entific mode of reasoning. 
It is often said that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the 
result of accident, but it is not true. The logical deduction from our premises 
says there is no such thing as accidents, and that the word ‘‘luck”’ is the lan- 
guage of ignorance. Does what are called accidents teach the fool anything? 
No, though you bray him ina mortar he is still a fool, and only knows he has 
