If I act in willing
conformity with the civil law, I also act in obedience to it, in some
way coerced by its authority and its sanctions. The law is really a
cause of my action; because it represents the fixed will and effectual
power of the ruler. But when this conception and name is transferred by
analogy to physical uniformities of action, an event which conforms to
the observed law or regularity of sequence, is not really caused by the
law unless we suppose that law to be representative of something
equivalent to a fixed will from which it originates. Yet we say loosely,
such an event happens _in consequence of_ the law of attraction; meaning
only, _in conformity with_ the law, so as to verify the law, to follow
from it logically. Thus again the law comes to be mistaken for an
effectual power of some kind, whereas it is merely a sort of regularity
that might result either from an intelligent will or from something
equivalent. But in thus adroitly slipping-in the conception of a
governing force or tendency, or even in openly asserting it, with
Schopenhauer or Hartmann, and in explaining the graduated resemblances
of species by the origin of one from the other, and in extending this
mode of Evolution in all directions from the known to the unknown so as
to make it pervade the universe, we at once cease to be faithful
positivists and, becoming philosophers, must submit to philosophic
criticism, since these problems cannot be settled merely by an appeal to
facts.
Pages:
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353