t free to move as they tend to do, either in consequence
of an obstacle, or of a contrary impulse from some other source of
energy than that to which we give the name of gravitation, they either
stop still, or go another way.

Scientifically speaking, it is the acme of absurdity to talk of a man
defying the law of gravitation when he lifts his arm. The general
store of energy in the universe working through terrestrial matter is
doubtless tending to bring the man's arm down; but the particular
fraction of that energy which is working through certain of his
nervous and muscular organs is tending to drive it up, and more energy
being expended on the arm in the upward than in the downward
direction, the arm goes up accordingly. But the law of gravitation is
no more defied, in this case, than when a grocer throws so much sugar
into the empty pan of his scales that the one which contains the
weight kicks the beam.

The tenacity of the wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are
agents, instead of being, as they really are, a mere record of
experience, upon which we base our interpretations of that which does
happen, and our anticipation of that which will happen, is an
interesting psychological fact; and would be unintelligible if the
tendency of the human mind towards realism were less strong.

Even at the present day, and in the writings of men who would at once
repudiate scholastic realism in any form, "law" is often inadvertently
employed in the sense of cause, just as, in common life, a man will
say that he is compelled by the law to do so and so, when, in point of
fact, all he means is that the law orders him to do it, and tells him
what will happen if he does not do it. We commonly hear of bodies
falling to the ground by reason of the law of gravitation, whereas
that law is simply the record of the fact that, according to all
experience, they have so fallen (when free to move), and of the
grounds of a reasonable expectation that they will so fall. If it
should be worth anybody's while to seek for examples of such misuse of
language on my own part, I am not at all sure he might not succeed,
though I have usually been on my guard against such looseness of
expression. If I am guilty, I do penance beforehand, and only hope
that I may thereby deter others from committing the like fault. And I
venture on this personal observation by way of showing that I have no
wish to bear hardly on the preacher for falling into an e