efinitions of Natural Law. The Duke of Argyll[3] indicates five senses
in which the word is used, but we may content ourselves here by taking
it in its most simple and obvious significance. The fundamental
conception of Law is an ascertained working sequence or constant order
among the Phenomena of Nature. This impression of Law as order it is
important to receive in its simplicity, for the idea is often corrupted
by having attached to it erroneous views of cause and effect. In its
true sense Natural Law predicates nothing of causes. The Laws of Nature
are simply statements of the orderly condition of things in Nature, what
is found in Nature by a sufficient number of competent observers. What
these Laws are in themselves is not agreed. That they have any absolute
existence even is far from certain. They are relative to man in his many
limitations, and represent for him the constant expression of what he
may always expect to find in the world around him. But that they have
any causal connection with the things around him is not to be conceived.
The Natural Laws originate nothing, sustain nothing; they are merely
responsible for uniformity in sustaining what has been originated and
what is being sustained. They are modes of operation, therefore, not
operators; processes, not powers. The Law of Gravitation, for instance,
speaks to science only of process. It has no light to offer as to
itself. Newton did not discover Gravity--that is not discovered yet. He
discovered its Law, which is Gravitation, but tells us nothing of its
origin, of its nature or of its cause.

The Natural Laws then are great lines running not only through the
world, but, as we now know, through the universe, reducing it like
parallels of latitude to intelligent order. In themselves, be it once
more repeated, they may have no more absolute existence than parallels
of latitude. But they exist for us. They are drawn for us to understand
the part by some Hand that drew the whole; so drawn, perhaps, that,
understanding the part, we too in time may learn to understand the
whole. Now the inquiry we propose to ourselves resolves itself into the
simple question, Do these lines stop with what we call the Natural
sphere? Is it not possible that they may lead further? Is it probable
that the Hand which ruled them gave up the work where most of all they
were required? Did that Hand divide the world into two, a cosmos and a
chaos, the higher being the chaos? With Na