Law of nature

“ But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong ‘the Law of Nature’, they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation, and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law—with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it. ”

“ It is the use of the word "law" as if it denoted a thing—as if a "law of nature," as science understands it, were a being endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which the phenomena expressed by that law are brought about.... All I wish to remark is that such a conception of the nature of "laws" has nothing to do with modern science.... A law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind than colour has. ”

“ Now by a law of nature is meant any regular, or uniform action which we observe in nature. For example, it is called a law, or rule of nature that (with certain exceptions) heat should expand bodies, which merely means that we see that it does so. ”

“ A phenomenon is explained when it is shown to be a case of some general law of Nature; but the supernatural interposition of the Creator can, by the nature of the case, exemplify no law, and if species have really arisen in this way, it is absurd to attempt to discuss their origin. ”

“ Nature's laws are God's laws. All nature, the universe itself, is an expression of God's thoughts or desires in accordance with His laws. This one controlling force, this principle of law, is at the bottom of everything in nature and art. ”

“ A law of nature is simply a universal method of the Lord's operation in nature; it is the way in which the forces constantly emanating from Him operate to produce their effects. Whether these forces originate in nature and are of and from her, or have their constant source in a Divine Being by whom they are exerted, does not touch the fact that they are simply the ways in which causes produce their effects. ”

“ This lucid explanation of the phenomena we had witnessed appeared to me quite satisfactory. However great and mighty the marvels of nature may seem to us, they are always to be explained by physical reasons. Everything is subordinate to some great law of nature. ”

“ Natural laws, on the other hand, are not commands but assertions respecting the invariable order of nature; and they remain laws only so long as they can be shown to express that order. To speak of the violation, or the suspension, of a law of nature is an absurdity. ”

“ The law of nature, is of the highest possible authority, being established by the supreme Lawgiver himself. It is called the law of nature, because it is right in itself--right in the nature of things, and ought to be obeyed, though no positive command had ever been given to men. ”

“ Although the law of nature, as expressed in the law of revelation, is a correct rule of human conduct; yet, as much of this law consists of general principles from which particular duties can not always be deduced, positive human enactments are necessary to define the law of nature and revelation. ”

“ And so the development of our Metaphysics of Nature will enable us, before we are done, to sketch an hypothesis as to the meaning of the processes known to us men, at present, under the now favorite name Evolution. The sense in which Nature is a realm of fixed law will also engage our attention; and in the same connection we shall prepare the way for our theory of the Freedom of the Will. ”

“ A great multitude of people are continually talking of the law of nature; and they go on giving you their sentiments about what is right and what is wrong, and these sentiments, you are to understand, are so many chapters and sections of the law of nature. Instead of the phrase, law of nature, you have sometimes law of reason, right reason, natural justice, natural equity, good order. ”

“ One of the most striking generalizations of recent science is that even Laws have their Law. Phenomena first, in the progress of knowledge, were grouped together, and Nature shortly presented the spectacle of a cosmos, the lines of beauty being the great Natural Laws. ”

“ In the progress of connected natural phenomena, from East to West, that great law of nature is plainly revealed which has so often and evidently manifested itself in the earth’s organism, as well as in the state of nations dependent upon it. ”

“ Even with our present imperfect faculties we frequently arrive at the highest confirmation of our views of the laws of Nature by tracing their action under singular circumstances." "A miracle may be only an exact fulfilment of a general law of Nature, under such singular circumstances that, to those imperfectly acquainted with that law, it appears to be in direct opposition to it." ”

“ From these several considerations and from the many special facts which I have collected, but which I am not here able to give, I am strongly inclined to suspect that, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, an occasional intercross with a distinct individual is a law of nature. ”

“ Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a Universal Law of Nature. ”

“ Natural law points to a Nature Fore as well as a Nature Back, to a Nature Up and Beyond as well as a Nature Down and Behind. The Nature that was yesterday will not do for to-morrow, any more than a man is willing to give up his nature aspirations for the careless, animal ways of romping childhood. ”

“ "Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise to
God. ”

“ The first branch, of which Rule, containeth the first, and Fundamentall Law of Nature; which is, "To seek Peace, and follow it." ”

“ Such is however the condition of mortality, that the first law of nature is, "Eat or be eaten." We cannot long exist without the destruction of other animal or vegetable beings, either in their mature or their embryon state. Unless the fruits, which surround the seeds of some vegetables, or the honey stolen from them by the bee, may be said to be an exception to this assertion. See Botanic Garden, P. I. Cant. I. l. 278. Note. Hence, from the necessity of our nature, we may be supposed to have a right to kill those creatures, which we want to eat, or which want to eat us. ”

“ We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of Nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation. ”

“ But we believe it in such an extensive, thorough, and unhesitating manner because the universal experience of mankind verifies it, and we can verify it ourselves at any time; and that is the strongest possible foundation on which any natural law can rest. ”

“ If man is a part of nature, we can see how it is that he conforms to natural law, not merely in his bodily organization and capabilities, but in his mind and habits of thought, so that he can comprehend nature and employ it for his purposes. ”

“ It is true that we may not understand the law that the so-called miracle comes under, but the Author of all natural law does. We do not pretend to dispute but that the Power that made nature's laws can change them if He sees fit ”

“ In the investigation of Nature at large, at least in the organic world, nobody would undertake to apply this principle as a test of the validity of any theory or supposed law. But naturalists of enlarged views will not fail to infer the principle from the phenomena they investigate—to perceive that the rule holds, under due qualifications and altered forms, throughout the realm of Nature; although we do not suppose that Nature in the organic world makes no distinct steps, but only short and serial steps—not infinitely fine gradations, but no long leaps, or few of them. ”

“ The stars and suns swinging through infinite space, all earthly forms of life and existence whether mineral, vegetable or animal come under the dominion and control of natural law. Man through scientific knowledge and power rules nature and utilizes her laws to do his bidding. ”

“ Add to this that many of the laws of nature have only to be expressed to be admitted—laws whose concretes were objects of observation to our earliest ancestors away back in the youth of life upon our globe, and are, to us at least, intuitive—and we see how natural the attribution of necessity to them appears. Besides this, the word law conveys a meaning entirely outside its scientific acceptation. ”

“ Thus guarded, we much prefer the second of the two conceptions of causation, as the more philosophical as well as Christian view—a view which leaves us with the same difficulties and the same mysteries in Nature as in Providence, and no other. Natural law, upon this view, is the human conception of continued and orderly Divine action.
We do not suppose that less power, or other power, is required to sustain the universe and carry on its operations, than to bring it into being. ”

“ Here a realm of natural law is secured to him covering all that he has ever effectively occupied. And indeed it has been quite as much the purpose of our discussion to secure such a realm where scientific method may work unhindered, as to deal with the nature of that part of our experience which lies beyond it. ”

“ Nature's great law, and law of all men's minds?—
To its own impulse every creature stirs;
Live by thy light, and earth will live by hers! ”

“ I understand the laws of nature to be those forms, modes, or methods according to which it necessarily operates in its various developments. When any tendency or action of nature is observed to be uniform under given circumstances throughout the sphere of our knowledge, we infer that a certain law or necessity governs it. ”

“ The law determines the instrument it is to use, and the instrument it is to use determines the world. Why, then, should the law be regular and not variable? Why, because it is the instrument of a being who is not variable. The schoolmen tell us that Nature has an appetite, a desire to accomplish its ends. They say of Nature "appetit," "desiderat." ”

“ The bearing of these discriminations upon the supposed universality of the law of evolution may now be seen if we attend to the further inquiry whether that law obtains throughout all the phenomena of any one department of Nature as the sole cause of the phenomena in that department. ”

“ The fact that substance is everywhere subject to eternal movement and transformation gives it the character also of the universal law of evolution. As this supreme law has been firmly established and all others are subordinate to it, we arrive at a conviction of the universal unity of nature and the eternal validity of its laws. ”

“ A true natural law is an universal rule, and, as such, admits of no exceptions.
Again, human laws have no meaning apart from the existence of human society. Natural laws express the general course of nature, of which human society forms only an insignificant fraction. ”

“ There is no question between them as to natural religion. Both admit that; supernaturalists believe all that naturalists believe, only they believe something more.
But how is nature to be defined? What is meant by nature? Various definitions are given; but we wish for one now which shall really express the issue taken in this controversy. So we may define nature as law. All the nexus or web of existing substances and forces which are under law belong to nature. ”

“ If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. ”

“ We so willingly believe in the simplicity of laws of nature, that the rigorous accuracy of such a law, known to be at least approximately true, was taken for granted, till some ground for suspecting the contrary should appear. ”

“ For, it must be remembered, that nature everywhere acts by Law, and that the process of purification we have been describing in the visible material body, also takes place in those which are interior, and not visible to the scientist by modifications of the same process. ”

“ He supplies the missing factor in “an innate law imposed on nature, by which new and definite species, under definite conditions, emerged from a latent and potential being into actual and manifest existence;” and, so far as can be judged, he considers that the origin of man himself is an instance of the operation of this law. ”

“ If we define Nature as phenomena governed by physical and chemical laws and forces, then life becomes supernatural and miraculous—because higher than Nature as we define it. If we reduce the phenomena of life to law and include these also in our definition of Nature but limit it there, then the free, self-determined phenomena357 of reason become supernatural because above our definition of Nature. ”

“ The materialist objects that if the physical side of nature is the essential one, the psychical cannot be essential. On what grounds is this claim based? Is the color of an object not essential to it because its shape is essential, or do the actual existence and change of color according to natural law interfere with the actual existence and change of shape according also to natural law? Does only one of our senses give us truth? ”