The Laws of Nature

It is easy to understand how the term law was transferred from the moral order (that is, the order of free and responsible human activity) to the physical order. For we apprehend law as a directive force or instrument; and when we observe the regularity and order with which bodily things maintain their being and exercise their natural operations, we recognize the fact that their essential constitution determines and directs (so to speak) this constancy and harmony. So we say that bodies are under the control of “a law” by which their connatural activity is required of them. Further, we are aware, by plain reason, that the Creator of natural bodies has made them for a purpose and has equipped them to achieve it; thus He has “set the law” for their being and operations.

b) CLASSIFICATION AND FORCE OF LAWS

I. In so far as the law which governs creatures is understood as the decree of the Creator, it may be defined as the ordinance of Divine Wisdom which directs all activities and movements. This is the Eternal Law. It governs all creatures, bodily and spiritual. It governs man in his free activities (thoughts, words, deeds, desires, omissions) as well as bodies in their necessitated activities. But it governs man through his reason; it governs by suasion. The same law governs natural bodies by necessitation. In so far as the Eternal Law is applied in the world to the shaping of activities, free and necessitated, for the welfare of man, it is called Divine Providence-—The Eternal Law is of absolute force; it is never set aside; it knows no exceptions. In its ultimate aim, it is never futile, never defeated. It directs (as we have seen) all creatures, free and without freedom, to their absolutely ultimate end, nor can it be in any wise thwarted in its resistless force, its complete success. Man alone, of bodily creatures, is capable of using and abusing freedom; man alone can refuse to obey the Eternal Law as it applies to his moral activities (that is, his free and responsible conduct) ; but man’s sin does not thwart the Eternal Law in its essential objective ; man’s sin merely ruins man’s own endless happiness, the secondary end of creation; the primary end of creation is absolutely achieved.

2. In so far as the Eternal Law is recognized by sound human reason in the domain of man’s free conduct, it is called the natural law. This is an electroplate phrase; it is unchanging and unchangeable, even to the definite article: it is the natural law. It is manifest that the natural law is a moral law; indeed, it is the moral law, in so far as this law is discoverable by human reason unaided by divine revelation. When the moral law is emphasized or clarified by divine revelation, it is, in so far, the supernatural moral law. In so far as the natural law is applied by sound reason for the temporal welfare of men, it takes the form of just and reasonable statutes in Church and State, and thus we have the ecclesiastical law and the civil law—The natural law is a moral law, and hence it indicates the domain of good conduct as marked off from evil conduct. Man recognizes the moral law by reason, and applies it in each instance by the judgment of reason which we call conscience. Now, the rule of good conduct can know no exception; evil conduct is never permitted; hence the force of the natural law, and of certain and unwavering conscience, is an absolute force from which there is no appeal for exception or dispensation. In its positive prescriptions, the natural law binds, as the saying is, semper sed non pro semper, “always but not at every moment.” That is, a positive prescription of the natural law, such as the requirement that children honor and obey their parents, binds always; but it does not exact some special positive activity at every moment; children may be engaged in many lawful pursuits for hours on end without actively thinking of obedience and without performing positive activities expressive of obedience. In its negative prescriptions (that is, in its prohibitions) the natural law binds semper et pro semper, “always and at every moment.” That is, there is no moment at which what is forbidden becomes permissible. Thus, the prescription, “Do not disobey” binds the child at every moment, no matter what its occupation or preoccupation.

3. In so far as the Eternal Law stands manifested in the regular and harmonious activities of bodies, it is called the law of nature. Notice once more the need of careful use of like-sounding terms: the law of nature is discerned in the regularity and manifest purpose of bodily activity; the natural law is the moral law which regulates rational human conduct, inasmuch as this may be known by man’s unaided powers of mind. Since the law of nature applies to many various bodies, each with its special mode of functioning, we usually make the term plural and speak of the laws of nature. These laws, in so far as they are manifested in individual bodies, and in special classes and groups of bodies, are called physical laws. In so far as these laws touch the whole universe in its unified harmonies and tendencies, they are called cosmic laws. The laws of nature (physical and cosmic) may be defined as the rule of operation or function set by the Creator for bodily things, to govern their activity and their undergoing of action in such wise that they tend, in a constant, consistent, and uniform manner, to their respective proper ends, and that all tend to their one absolutely ultimate end. —The laws of nature are said to necessitate bodily activity. Does this mean that the laws themselves are so necessary in being and in application that they cannot, even conceivably, fail, in any case, to have their full and complete effect, even as regards external things which feel their influence? Certain philosophers have answered this question with an uncompromising ‘“‘Yes!” The pantheists, the materialists, the atheists, the naturalists, and the so called (and miscalled) rationalists, have all answered it so. But these persons are demonstrably wrong. There is need, in answering this question, to make a clean distinction: we must distinguish the laws as they stand revealed and active in the creatures which they regulate, and the same laws as they stand with reference to the Creator. We assert,—and shall pause upon the point presently to offer proof,—that the laws of nature are not necessary (that is, inevitably and normally efficacious) with reference to God; in relation to God these laws are contingent things, dependent things. We assert further that the laws of nature are not subject to the control of the creatures which operate under their sway or guidance, and hence these laws may rightly be called necessary or non- contingent with reference to these creature causes. The philosopher puts the matter thus, in technical language: “The laws of nature are contingent with reference to God, the First Cause ; they may be called necessary with reference to proximate causes.” We must look into this truth in a manner slightly more detailed:

a) Physical and cosmic laws (that is, the laws of nature) are creatural things. And, like all creatures, they depend absolutely upon their Creator. No creature is, or becomes, independent of God. It is therefore inconceivable that bodily creatures, which owe their being and their powers and capacities to God, should set up a kind of independence on their own account and constitute an obstacle to the free activity, and free intervention, of the Almighty. Creatures have nothing of their very own, nothing unreceived ; they are essentially and entirely entia ab alio, that is, contingent beings. Hence, if creatures could exercise a compelling or restraining force upon God, it would come, in last analysis, to a force exerted by God upon Himself,—a silly and self-contradictory notion. It is manifest, then, that the requirements imposed upon bodies by their being and constitution are necessitating with reference to the bodies, but not necessitating to the Creator. God did not have to make the bodies so; He does not have to keep them so; He is not constrained so that He may not interpose an influence to prevent the effect of their connatural functions, even while their being and tendencies remain unchanged. The rationalists and those others who oppose this truth are compelled to their unwarranted and false conclusion by the ugly rigidity of their own false philosophies. They are like the old man of the hills who looked upon the works and pomps of “industrial civilization” for the first time. He studied, with manifest awe, a mighty monster called a locomotive. When told what this great machine could do, he shook his head and said, “It will never, never start.” Presently his wide eyes beheld the locomotive moving smoothly off, drawing a lengthy train of cars along the track. Wider and wider grew the eyes as the train gained speed. Then, as the wonder disappeared around a distant curve, the old man shook his head a second time, and said, “It will never, never stop.” Certainly the rationalists, and the rest of the materialistic philosophers we have listed, could never have envisioned the existence and play of the laws of nature. They are the type of persons who, if given advance information of a world of active bodies, would indubitably have declared that such a thing could not be, that it could never start. Faced now with the actual marvel of nature and her laws, they insist that these could not have been, and cannot now be, otherwise than we find them; they declare that natural processes cannot be in any wise interfered with or stopped.

a) Physical and cosmic laws (that is, the laws of nature) are creatural things. And, like all creatures, they depend absolutely upon their Creator. No creature is, or becomes, independent of God. It is therefore inconceivable that bodily creatures, which owe their being and their powers and capacities to God, should set up a kind of independence on their own account and constitute an obstacle to the free activity, and free intervention, of the Almighty. Creatures have nothing of their very own, nothing unreceived ; they are essentially and entirely entia ab alio, that is, contingent beings. Hence, if creatures could exercise a compelling or restraining force upon God, it would come, in last analysis, to a force exerted by God upon Himself,—a silly and self-contradictory notion. It is manifest, then, that the requirements imposed upon bodies by their being and constitution are necessitating with reference to the bodies, but not necessitating to the Creator. God did not have to make the bodies so; He does not have to keep them so; He is not constrained so that He may not interpose an influence to prevent the effect of their connatural functions, even while their being and tendencies remain unchanged. The rationalists and those others who oppose this truth are compelled to their unwarranted and false conclusion by the ugly rigidity of their own false philosophies. They are like the old man of the hills who looked upon the works and pomps of “industrial civilization” for the first time. He studied, with manifest awe, a mighty monster called a locomotive. When told what this great machine could do, he shook his head and said, “It will never, never start.” Presently his wide eyes beheld the locomotive moving smoothly off, drawing a lengthy train of cars along the track. Wider and wider grew the eyes as the train gained speed. Then, as the wonder disappeared around a distant curve, the old man shook his head a second time, and said, “It will never, never stop.” Certainly the rationalists, and the rest of the materialistic philosophers we have listed, could never have envisioned the existence and play of the laws of nature. They are the type of persons who, if given advance information of a world of active bodies, would indubitably have declared that such a thing could not be, that it could never start. Faced now with the actual marvel of nature and her laws, they insist that these could not have been, and cannot now be, otherwise than we find them; they declare that natural processes cannot be in any wise interfered with or stopped.

b) But, though the laws of nature are contingent before God and under His all-accounting power, these same laws are not dependent upon, or subject to what might be called the caprice of, the bodies which they normally regulate. In relation to bodies themselves, the laws of nature observed to be at work in them may be called necessary and necessitating. For the laws of any particular nature are an expression and a kind of outpouring in activity of the very essence of the body in question. A body is constituted in such and such a way and, in strict consequence, it is normally fitted and inclined for such and such activity. Its activity is directly consequent upon its essential being, and,—unless prevented by a power other and higher than that of the being itself,—this activity will infallibly follow. What a thing is is the determining factor in what it can do, in what it is normally inclined to do, and in what it normally succeeds in doing. Agere sequitur esse is an old maxim of philosophers, and it is almost selfevidently true: “Function follows essence.” Hence it is abundantly clear that so long as an essence endures the activities which follow from that essence will (so far as the influence of the essence itself is concerned ) preserve their character unchanged. The essence which manifests the play of natural laws may be called the proximate cause of the exercise of these laws. Thus we say that, with reference to proximate causes, the laws of nature may be called necessary and necessitating—As we have seen, God could transform the essence of a body into another essence. So much is surely within the power of the Almighty. And God could leave the essence of a body unchanged, with its enduring inclinations or tendencies, and yet prevent the outward effect of these tendencies. Thus God could, and did, enable the Hebrew youths to walk unharmed in the midst of the fiery furnace, their feet unscorched, their garments swayed as in a pleasant breeze. This miracle (and we shall discuss miracles directly in the next Article) did not consist in the fact that God transformed the fire into something else that merely resembled fire but had not its activity of burning, that is, of consuming combustible substances that are put into it. This He might surely have done, and it would have been a work of wonder. But this He did not, as a fact, do. The fire remained fire; its essence was left unchanged ; and therefore its normal tendencies and operations were, in themselves, unchanged ; we know this from the fact that the fire burned up the men who had cast the youths into the furnace. What God did was to prevent the activities of actual fire from having their normal outward effect upon the three young men. Or, we might put the matter the other way about, and say that God prevented the capacity for being burned (which the youths certainly had) from being actualized in fact. Here the laws of na- ture (on the part of the fire or on the part of the combustible objects) were prevented from having their final and outer effect. Thus the laws of nature are contingent with reference to God. But the fire could not remain fire and not have the tendency to burn up combustible material; it could not be the thing that it is, and not have the capacity to burn such material; there is nothing in the essence of fire itself to make possible any exception to its normal activity. And thus we say that the laws of nature are necessary with reference to proximate causes.

b) But, though the laws of nature are contingent before God and under His all-accounting power, these same laws are not dependent upon, or subject to what might be called the caprice of, the bodies which they normally regulate. In relation to bodies themselves, the laws of nature observed to be at work in them may be called necessary and necessitating. For the laws of any particular nature are an expression and a kind of outpouring in activity of the very essence of the body in question. A body is constituted in such and such a way and, in strict consequence, it is normally fitted and inclined for such and such activity. Its activity is directly consequent upon its essential being, and,—unless prevented by a power other and higher than that of the being itself,—this activity will infallibly follow. What a thing is is the determining factor in what it can do, in what it is normally inclined to do, and in what it normally succeeds in doing. Agere sequitur esse is an old maxim of philosophers, and it is almost selfevidently true: “Function follows essence.” Hence it is abundantly clear that so long as an essence endures the activities which follow from that essence will (so far as the influence of the essence itself is concerned ) preserve their character unchanged. The essence which manifests the play of natural laws may be called the proximate cause of the exercise of these laws. Thus we say that, with reference to proximate causes, the laws of nature may be called necessary and necessitating—As we have seen, God could transform the essence of a body into another essence. So much is surely within the power of the Almighty. And God could leave the essence of a body unchanged, with its enduring inclinations or tendencies, and yet prevent the outward effect of these tendencies. Thus God could, and did, enable the Hebrew youths to walk unharmed in the midst of the fiery furnace, their feet unscorched, their garments swayed as in a pleasant breeze. This miracle (and we shall discuss miracles directly in the next Article) did not consist in the fact that God transformed the fire into something else that merely resembled fire but had not its activity of burning, that is, of consuming combustible substances that are put into it. This He might surely have done, and it would have been a work of wonder. But this He did not, as a fact, do. The fire remained fire; its essence was left unchanged ; and therefore its normal tendencies and operations were, in themselves, unchanged ; we know this from the fact that the fire burned up the men who had cast the youths into the furnace. What God did was to prevent the activities of actual fire from having their normal outward effect upon the three young men. Or, we might put the matter the other way about, and say that God prevented the capacity for being burned (which the youths certainly had) from being actualized in fact. Here the laws of na- ture (on the part of the fire or on the part of the combustible objects) were prevented from having their final and outer effect. Thus the laws of nature are contingent with reference to God. But the fire could not remain fire and not have the tendency to burn up combustible material; it could not be the thing that it is, and not have the capacity to burn such material; there is nothing in the essence of fire itself to make possible any exception to its normal activity. And thus we say that the laws of nature are necessary with reference to proximate causes.

c) THE ORDER OF NATURE

Order is defined as a fit arrangement of a plurality of things in view of some end to be served or attained. Thus order is essentially a good arrangement. And the arrangement is good if it is desirable. A man is said to have his affairs “in order” when his bills are paid, his books are balanced, his requirements provided. Spiritually, a man is said to be “in order” when he is ready for judgment, his sins pardoned, his life marked by works of penitence and positive virtue. So a room is “in order” when it is well arranged, not only in point of that neatness which pleases the eye, but when the objects in the room are arranged in a manner that suits the purposes of the occupant. Usually it is possible to combine neatness with order, but the two are not to be identified. A business man may not be able to arrange the papers on his desk in neat piles, putting all documents of a size together, or all of one color ina single pile. No, his papers are in good order when they are properly and readily available for his purposes. A housekeeper might find the desk unpleasing, and might call it “without order,” whereas, as a fact, despite its appearance, it would be in perfect order. And if the housekeeper, with the fine spirit of her kind, were to “make order” out of the apparent chaos of the desk, it is likely that the man of business, when he comes to his work, “won’t be able to find a thing” ; and the desk will not be in true order until he has upset the neat stacks and brought out again the various unsightly objects which the housekeeper has tucked so carefully away. Order is a suitable arrangement of things in view of the purpose for which they are to be used; it is not merely a neat appearing arrangement of things.

Now, natural bodies are things with final tendency, as we have already learned. They tend to their proper and proportionate ends. In view of these ends they are inclined and regulated by the laws of their nature. Therefore, the order of a particular nature is the fit arrangement of a nature (a working essence), according to set laws, for the attaining of its end. And the order of nature in general, the order that we may call universal, is the fit arrangement of bodies in the material world, by which they all tend harmoniously, through their tendency towards their respective ends, to achieve the common end of the universe. The arrangement and balance of parts and of functions in any plant or animal illustrate the order of a particular nature. The harmony and consistent activity of all the various bodies in the world, in their relations to one another as well as in their respective tendencies, illustrate the general order or universal order of nature. It is the recognition of this universal order of nature which justifies us in calling the world a cosmos (a thing well regulated) and a mundus (a thing orderly and clean).

The universal order of nature is not to be regarded as essential and necessary, but as contingent. The factors of this order are the multitude of various objects in the world, their mutual influence or interaction, their arrangement in the general scheme. But these things (multiplicity, variety, interaction, arrangement) are not essential to the world itself; if one individual, or one class or species of individuals, were suddenly to perish and disappear, the world would not be essentially upset. Nor can we say that the arrangement of things on earth, the disposition of heavenly bodies, the movements of planets, the recurrence of day and night and of seasons, are things that constitute the essence of the world; for we can well envision a true and orderly world in which all these items would be different. After all, the actual order of the universe which we behold is the outer and ulterior effect of the bodies which make up the world, each acting under its physical laws. And, as we have seen, while it is necessary that bodies have their essential tendencies and their essential modes of action, it is not necessary that the action itself, as an outer achievement, should actually follow. That a tree should tend to grow to maturity and fruitfulness, is of its essence. That it should actually achieve maturity and fruitfulness is not of its essence. Tendency to definite activity is essential in a body; actual and complete realization of activity is not essential, but contingent. The order of the universe is the expression of actual and complete realization of activity. Therefore the order of the universe is not essential or necessary; it is contingent. In other words, the order of the universe happens to be what it is; it might well be another arrangement without inducing essential change in the world itself or making the universe disordered.

d) THE COURSE OF NATURE

The course of nature may be briefly described as the actual working out of the order of nature; or it may be called the actual exercise of the laws of nature. The laws of nature explain the constancy, consistency, and uniformity to be observed in the operations of natural bodies. The order of nature explains the arrangement (in individual bodies and in the general scheme of the world) which characterizes bodies active under the regulation of their laws. The course of nature is the constant and harmonious succession of effects produced by bodies (arranged by order; regulated by Jaws) in the world. Since the course of nature is the actual working out of the order of nature, or the actual ulterior and outer achievement of applied laws of nature; and since the order of nature, and the outer and ulterior effect of the laws of nature are not necessary but contingent, it follows that the course of nature itself is contingent.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have studied the meaning of law, and have seen how the term was transferred from its normal field of application in the moral order to the order of bodily beings which we call the physical order. We have classified laws, and have defined the Eternal Law, the natural law, and laws of nature, physical and cosmic. We have discussed the necessity of each type of law, notably of the laws of nature, which we have seen to be contingent with reference to God, and necessary with reference to proximate causes. We have defined and explained the order of nature and the course of nature.