II. LETTER from those phantoms which once degraded it; and now, in friendly association with the science, taste and virtues which are peculiarly congenial with it, and which it has always fostered, and especially in our own enlightened country, we may hope that both superstition and atheism are generally banished or are departing from us for ever; and that, as they are both noxious to society, and very apt to create each other, that neither will, as knowlege advances and judgment improves, be attached to the mind of any educated, philanthropic or well-meaning individual. influence roused the later Platonists of the Alexandrian School, and even Porphyry and Julian to make many improvements, both in the theory and practice of the Pagan worship, which they endeavoured to uphold. LETTER III. ON THE LAWS OF NATURE-WHAT THEY REALLY ARE- III. By steadily regarding all things as the designed LETTER and purposed creation of God, we shall form juster notions than we commonly do on what are called the Laws of Nature; and as these are what are almost only taken into consideration, in the modern writings on the physical sciences, as the causes of the phenomena they describe, it will be important to our due comprehension of the Sacred History of the World, that we should endeavour to establish in our minds a correct perception of what they really are; especially if we desire to avoid attaching to them any atheistical signification, or wish not to use them as mere words or forms of phrase. Both of these applications would be unworthy of an intellectual man. Whoever values rightness of thought or advancement of knowlege, will not willingly make use of any terms without a distinct and clear meaning in his own mind when he chuses the verbal expressions by which he denotes and imparts it. Nothing more perpetuates error than the repetition of words of course, without just ideas being connected with them. The Laws of Nature have been stated to be the properties of material things; the modes of their mutual action and the rules of their causations:1 ''Laws of Nature. In this phrase are included all properties of the portions of the material world; all modes of action and rules of III. LETTER and in this largeness of sense they imply the acting powers of nature, the direction or regulation of these powers in their operation, and the effects produced by them. 2 But this extent of meaning makes them almost synonymous with external nature altogether, for that is but a series of causes and effects; of operating powers governed in their agency, and producing consequential results. Adding to this the fact, that they have been established by the Deity himself, and therefore originate from him, we have the Creator and the creation displayed before us in this description of the laws of nature. Nothing can be more comprehensive and satisfactory. These laws must be as numerous as the parts and composition of nature are diversified, and they are fitly so represented to us.3 In considering the laws of nature thus, we are contemplating the Deity in His creating and conserving operations; and all the phenomena which we witness and admire, are the consequences of His perpetual agency, by the instrumentality of these His appointed, governed and continued laws. The laws of nature are thus His laws; the science which they causation, according to which they operate on each other. The whole course of the visible universe, therefore, is but the collective result of such laws. Its movements are only the aggregate of their working.'— Whewell's Bridgw. Treat. Astron. p. 7. 6 2 Mr. Whewell divides his subject into two portions: cosmical arrangements and terrestrial adaptations. The former may be best suited to introduce to us the DEITY as the institutor of laws of nature; tho the latter may afterwards give us a wider view and clearer insight into one province of his legislation.'-Whewell, ib. p. 16. 36 The number and variety of the laws which we find established in the universe is so great, that it would be idle to endeavour to enumerate them. In their operations they are combined and intermixed in incalculable and endless complexity; influencing and modifying each others effects in every direction.'-Ib. p. 12. III. display is His science; their universal operation is LETTER His universal agency; the effects which they occasion are His intended and produced results. The laws of nature thus exhibit to us the will, the decisions, the ordainments, the meaning and the purposes of the Divine intellect in their principles, their rules or regulations, their applications and their co-operations. These they are always manifesting to us in the phenomena which they are producing; which phenomena must be what they were intended to occasion; as all causes are used for the sake of the effects which they produce, and these must be such as were meant to follow from the causing action. Let us keep these principles always in our view when we talk or think of the laws of nature, and we shall not then get into the habit of using the phrase without any thought of their Divine Author, or as something quite independent of Him, and with which He has no concern, and which would have subsisted without Him; or as what do not proceed from Him. By some they have been spoken of in this erroneous sense; and by a too careless omission of all reference to Him, they often seem to be so used, when the real meaning of the author, if fairly asked, would be found quite contrary to such an impu tation. Let us, then, remember, that whenever a law of nature operates, a Power in nature is so operating. The enunciation of the law is but a designation of the power, and that particular power must either originate from itself, or from a superior Power, which can only be the general Creator. But all laws act in a regulated manner, and to specific effects, and are in adjusted or governed. LETTER harmony and coincidence with each other. They III. must, then, either regulate, adjust and govern them selves, or they must be arranged and guided by some power extraneous to themselves, which can arrange and guide them; but no power can do so which has not mind, thought, intention, will and determination, and so much of these as is adequate to do what is performed. The superior Power from which all the laws of nature originate, and by which they are regulated, must, then, be an intelligent Being, of a largeness of mind more than equal to all which the laws of nature exhibit or imply, as it comprehends, has derived, and established, and actuates all. This leads us to the same inference as before. This Being can only be the admirable and all-wise Creator.1 The operating powers or laws of nature are moving powers; as such, they must either be self-moving, or be put into their motions by a power greater than their own. But if they be self-moving, all must be so, one as much as another; and this idea would give us as many self-moving powers in nature as there are moving forces; but if the active laws of nature are innumerable, we shall then have an innumerable quantity of self-moving forces. Now we find, as already noticed, that all the laws and powers of nature are acting in a regulated manner, and producing each its specific effect, and Of such laws, HE is the law-giver. At what an immeasurable interval is HE thus placed above every thing which the creation of the inanimate world alone would imply; and how far must HE transcend all ideas founded on such laws as we find there!'-Whewell, Astron. p. 373. |