24

IS IT EVER A DUTY TO DISREGARD THE NATURAL LAWS?

at defiance as when a man rushes into the water to rescue a drowning fellow-creature, or on a railroad-track to remove from it a child, or deaf or blind person, who, but for such assistance, would be smashed to pieces by an advancing train. The benevolent agents in such enterprises occasionally lose their own lives, either saving or not those of the objects of their generous care; and it is argued, that in these instances we applaud the self-devotion which set at nought the physical action of the waves and the train, and risked life to perform a disinterested act of humanity.

But these cases are no exceptions to my doctrine that even virtuous aims do not save us from the consequences of disregarding the natural laws. A few explanations will, I hope, remove the difficulty apparently presented by these and similar instances.

Unless the benevolent actors are able successfully to encounter the waves and escape the train, there is little chance of their realising their generous intentions, or accomplishing the objects of their solicitude. Obedience to the physical laws until they succeed is indispensable, otherwise both they and those whom they try to save will perish, and so the calamity will be aggravated.

No man, for example, is justifiable in leaping into the water even to rescue a fellow-creature, unless he is confident that, by his skill in swimming, or by the aid of a boat or other mechanical means at his command, he can comply with the physical law which regulates floatation. If he do go into the flood deliberately, and with the knowledge that he cannot perform the conditions of that law, he commits suicide. If, under the impulse of generous emotion, he plunges into the water, miscalculating his strength and skill, and is overcome; although we may admire and applaud his humane intention, we must lament the mistake he made in the estimate of his ability to swim. In the case of the railway train, if the kind and disinterested adventurer, after removing his fellow-creature from the rail, is himself overtaken by the engine and killed; while we give the tribute of our esteem to his humanity, we must regret his miscalculation. In no case is it possible to set the physical laws at defiance with impunity. Cases, such as those before alluded to, may occur, in which, with probability of success on our side, it may be justifiable to risk the sinister influence of a physical or organic law for the sake of a moral object of

paramount importance: but even in such instances we are bound to use every possible precaution, and to make every possible effort to obey those laws; because our success in attaining the object pursued will depend on the extent of our obedience. We cannot escape their influence, if we do infringe them; and if, while saving a fellow-creature, we perish ourselves, our object will be only half attained.

I have endeavoured to exhibit the administration of the present world in a light calculated to arrest attention, and to draw towards it that degree of consideration to which it is entitled. This proceeding will be recognised as the more necessary, if a principle, largely insisted on in the following pages, shall be admitted to be sound-viz., that religion operates on the human mind, in subordination, and not in contradiction, to its natural constitution. If this view be correct, it will be indispensable that all the natural conditions required by the human constitution as preliminaries to moral and religious conduct be complied with, before any purely religious teaching can produce its full effects. If, for example, an ill-constituted brain is unfavourable to the appreciation and practice of religious truth, it is not an unimportant inquiry, whether any, and what, influence can be exercised by human means in improving the size and proportions of the mental organs. If certain physical circumstances and occupations-such as insufficient food and clothing, unwholesome workshops, dwelling-places, and diet, and severe and long-protracted labour-have a natural tendency, in consequence of their influence on the nervous system in general, and on the brain in particular, to blunt all the higher feelings and faculties of the mind, and if religious emotions cannot be experienced with full effect by individuals so situated, the ascertainment, with a view to removal, of the nature, causes, and effects of these impediments to holiness, is not a matter of indifference. This view has not been systematically adopted and acted on by the religious instructors of mankind in any age, or any country; and, in my humble opinion, for these reasons: that the state of moral and physical science did not enable them either to appreciate its importance, or to carry it into effect; and that their own dogmas led them to undervalue the influence of natural forces on human wellbeing. By presenting Nature in her simplicity and strength, a new impulse and direction may perhaps be given to their understandings; and they may

be induced to consider whether their universally-confessed failure to render men as virtuous and happy as they desired, may not, to some extent, have arisen from their non-fulfilment of the natural conditions instituted by the Creator as preliminaries to success. They have complained of war waged, openly or secretly, by philosophy against religion; but they have not duly considered whether religion itself warrants them in treating philosophy and all its dictates with neglect, in their instruction of the people. True philosophy is a revelation of the Divine Will manifested in nature; it harmonizes with all truth, and cannot, with impunity, be neglected.

If we can persuade the people that the course of nature, which determines their condition at every moment of their lives, "is the design-law-command-instruction (any word will do), of an all-powerful, though unseen Ruler, it will become a religion with them; obedience will be felt as a wish and a duty, an interest and a necessity." The friend from whose letter I quote these words adds, "But can you persuade mankind thus? I mean, can you give them a practical conviction?" I answer-In the present unsatisfactory condition of things, the experiment is, at least, worth the trying, for the purpose of investing the ordinary course of providence with that degree of sanctity and reverence which can be conferred on it only by treating it as designedly fitted to instruct, benefit, and delight us.

These views will be better understood and appreciated after perusing the subsequent chapters, the object of which is to unfold and apply them; the aim of these introductory remarks being merely to prepare the reader for travelling over the more abstruse portions of the work with a clearer perception of their scope and tendency.

CHAPTER I.

ON NATURAL LAWS.

In natural science, three subjects of inquiry may be distinguished: 1st, What exists? 2dly, What is the use of what exists? and, 3dly, Why was what exists constituted such as it is?

It is matter of fact, for instance, that arctic regions and the torrid zone exist; that a certain kind of moss is abundant in Lapland in winter,-that the rein-deer feeds on it, and enjoys health and vigour in situations where most other animals would die; that camels exist in Africa,-that they have broad hoofs, and stomachs fitted to retain water for a considerable time,—and that they flourish amid arid tracts of sand, where the rein-deer would hardly live for a day. All this falls under the inquiry, What exists?

In contemplating these facts, the understanding is naturally led to infer that one object of the Lapland moss is to feed the rein-deer; and that broad feet have been given to the camel to qualify it to walk on sand, and a retentive stomach to fit it for arid places in which water is found only at wide intervals. By these arrangements, the rein-deer and camel are fitted to assist Man. These conclusions result from inquiries into the uses or purposes of what exists; and such inquiries constitute legitimate exercises of the human intellect.

But, further, we may ask, Why were animals formed of organised matter? Why were trackless wastes of snow and burning sands called into existence? Why were all the elements of nature created such as they are? These are inquiries why what exists was made such as it is; or into the will of the Deity in creation.

Now, Man's perceptive faculties are adequate to the first inquiry, and his reflective faculties to the second: but it may

well be doubted whether he has powers suited to the third. My investigations are confined to the first and second, and I do not discuss the third.

The Creator has bestowed on physical nature, on Man and on the animals, definite constitutions, which act according to fixed laws. A law of nature is, as I have said, a fixed mode of action; it implies a subject which acts, and that the actions or phenomena of that subject take place in an established and regular manner; and this is the sense in which I shall use the phrase when treating of physical substances and beings. Water, for instance, when at the level of the sea, and cooled to 32° of Fahrenheit's thermometer, freezes or becomes solid; when, under a certain pressure, it is heated to 212° of that instrument, it rises into vapour or steam. Here water is the substance, and the freezing and rising in vapour are the phenomena presented by it; and when we say that they take place according to a law of nature, we mean only that these modes of action appear, to our intellects, to be established in the very constitution of the water and in its natural relationship to heat; and that the processes of freezing and rising in vapour always occur when, in the same circumstances, the temperature of the water is 32° and 212°.

The points chiefly to be kept in view are, 1st, That all substances and beings have received definite natural constitutions ; 2dly, That every mode of action which is inherent in the constitution of the substance or being, may be said to take place according to a natural law and, 3dly, That the modes of action are universal and invariable wherever and whenever the substances or beings are found in the same circumstances. For example, water boils at the same temperature in China, in France, in Peru, and in England; and there is no exception to the regularity with which it undergoes the change, when all its other conditions are the same. This qualification, however, must constantly be attended to; as it must be in all departments of science. If water be carried to the top of a mountain 10,000 feet high, it will boil at a far lower temperature than 212°; but this also takes place according to fixed and invariable laws. The atmosphere exerts a pressure on water at the level of the sea the pressure is everywhere nearly the same, and in that situation the boiling point is the same all over the world; but on the top of a high