Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/565

 564 N. PEARSON : So far, however, the mischief is not very serious ; and, if this superfluous verbiage adds but little to the strength of the scientific position, it does not, prirna fcic, weaken it against external attack. Indeed it may be admitted that it has had its uses in the past. A priori theories of the universe and its operations were enemies far more dangerous to the dawning conception of Natural Law than they are now ; and it was at one time a positive necessity for science to exclude resolutely from its realm the whole host of unverified and uu verifiable assumptions conjured up by the disorderly imaginings of theology. But at the present time this danger has practically disappeared. Erroneous views of the meaning of Natural Law no doubt exist, and in abundance ; but they are not often to be found now in high places ; and, as a general rule, the educated theological view of Natural Law is quite in accordance with the view of science. At the same time there is a good deal of antagonism on the subject between theology and science, which, perhaps, is partly due to this notion of Ascertainment on which scientific disputants insist as essential to Natural Law. And upon this point I venture to think that scientific disputants are wrong. Admitting, as of course we must, that before we can describe any process of phenomena as uniform wo must first succeed in observing its uniformity, I nevertheless think that the insertion of the ascertainment-clause into the definition of Natural Law is really illegitimate ; and it is illegitimate because, at the very least, it obscures the point which science is concerned to enforce. It is perfectly accurate to describe all known natural laws as observed uniformities of process : but surely the essence of a law is its n a (fur in it i/, and not the accidental fact that it has been <,I,.<,-ITCirli><lji' of natural laws, but it is not the least necessary to their <.i-iti'n<-i'. Nor is this distinction a mere fastidious nicety of criticism. The ascertainment-clause may be, and often is, a positive obstacle to an increase of knowledge, because we are incurably apt to infer, in the case of the moi-e familiar natural laws, that we are acquainted with nil the possible antecedents of their operation. To every Englishman it is a familiar experience that, under requisite conditions, water will lose its fluidity and become ice. But to the Saracen in Tlic T'it>.nt. such a phenomenon appeared an impossible portent, and he very logically hesitated to lirlicvc in it. It is perfectly true that this objection does not strictly affect the current definition of Natural Law. which only asserts that from certain antecedents, ////?// // more nor /'>-, certain consequents, m-!lln'i- murr >// Aw, will follow ; but, as I have said, this is apt to be forgotten, and a long and unbroken experience