Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/54

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AW, in it’s mot general and comprehenive ene, ignifies a rule of action; and is applied indicriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we ay, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is precribed by ome uperior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.

when the upreme being formed the univere, and created matter out of nothing, he impreed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would ceae to be. When he put that matter into motion, he etablihed certain laws of motion, to which all moveable bodies mut conform. And, to decend from the greatest operations to the mallet, when a workman forms a clock, or other piece of mechanim, he etablihes at his own pleaure certain arbitrary laws for it’s direction; as that the hand hall decribe a given pace in a given time; to which law as long as the work conforms, o long it continues in perfection, and anwers the end of it’s formation.

we farther advance, from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we hall find them till governed by laws; more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. The whole progres of plants, from the eed to the root, and from thence to the eed again;—the method of animal nutrition, digetion, ecretion,