Laws of Nature Are Not Causes

Everything that we know about the powers and properties of natural objects may properly be termed a law of nature. But it is desirable to remember that which is very often forgotten, that the laws of nature are not the causes of the order of nature but only our way of stating as much as we have made out of that order. Stones do not fall to the ground in consequence of the law just stated as people sometimes carelessly say,. The law is a way of asserting that which invariably happens when heavy bodies at the surface of the earth, stones among the rest, are free to move. A law of man tells what we may expect society will do under certain circumstances, and a law ofnature tells