Nothing individual accomplishes anything in the universe save in so far as it obeys and exemplifies some universal law.
 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). copy citation

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Author William James
Source The Varieties of Religious Experience
Topic law universe
Date 1902
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/621/621-h/621-h.html

Context

“Now science, on the other hand, these positivists say, has proved that personality, so far from being an elementary force in nature, is but a passive resultant of the really elementary forces, physical, chemical, physiological, and psycho-physical, which are all impersonal and general in character. Nothing individual accomplishes anything in the universe save in so far as it obeys and exemplifies some universal law. Should you then inquire of them by what means science has thus supplanted primitive thought, and discredited its personal way of looking at things, they would undoubtedly say it has been by the strict use of the method of experimental verification.” source