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Updated: June 15, 2025
If, therefore, from the laws of space and number, we were able to deduce uniformities of any other description, this would be conclusive evidence to us that those other uniformities possessed the same degree of rigorous certainty. But this we cannot do. From laws of space and number alone, nothing can be deduced but laws of space and number.
The general Science of Society, as contrasted with the branches, shows, not what effect will follow from a given cause under given circumstances, but what are the causes and characteristic phenomena of States of Society generally. It is a condition of the whole organism; and, when analysed, it exhibits uniformities of coexistence between its different elements.
So much, then, for the case in which the alleged fact conflicts, or appears to conflict, with a real law of causation. But a more common case, perhaps, is that of its conflicting with uniformities of mere co-existence, not proved to be dependent on causation; in other words, with the properties of Kinds.
It is in this way that most of those uniformities of succession are generated, which are not cases of causation.
When, therefore, it appeared that any of the uniformities which were observed in nature, would result spontaneously from certain other uniformities, no separate act of creative will being supposed necessary for the production of the derivative uniformities, these have not usually been spoken of as laws of nature.
These uniformities of myth and custom are explained by the identical workings of the uncivilised intelligence on the same materials, and, in some cases, by borrowing, transmission, imitation. Now, some features in witchcraft admit of this explanation.
An eclipse of the sun to us, and an eclipse of the earth to a spectator situated in the moon, are in like manner phenomena invariably co-existent; and their co-existence can equally be deduced from the laws of their production. It is an obvious question, therefore, whether all the uniformities of co-existence among phenomena may not be accounted for in this manner.
If this be true of chemical combinations, it is still more true of those far more complex combinations of elements which constitute organised bodies; and in which those extraordinary new uniformities arise, which are called the laws of life.
If there be ... certain absolute uniformities in nature; if these uniformities produce, as they must, absolute uniformities in our experience; and if ... these absolute uniformities in our experience disable us from conceiving the negations of them; then answering to each absolute uniformity in nature which we can cognize, there must exist in us a belief of which the negation is inconceivable, and which is absolutely true.
The world before us is governed by uniformities as far as we can judge, but above and behind all these uniformities is the supreme uniformity, the eternal law of right and wrong, and all other laws, of whatever kind, must ultimately be harmonised by it alone. The Moral Law would be itself unjust if it bade us disregard all physical laws, and yet was itself subordinate to those physical laws.
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