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The so-called "Laws" of nature are simply the modes of action,
the sequence of cause and effect which,having been by observation
determined to obtain invariably, are for us as sure as though we
knew their action to be imposed and maintained by an external,
unchangeable,Almighty,authority. We can depend upon their action,
and can base our own action upon them as certainly,nay,much more
certainly than we can upon the most positive enactment of human authority.

Put your trust not in Princes or in any child of man is as trye to the student of Nature, as to the believer in God

The character of these laws of Science,then-and it is
upon this point that I wish to fix your attention-is there invaria-
bleness ,their certainty,which to us is absolute. So great is our
conviction of their invariableness,and our reliance upon their cer-
tainty,that if any marked interruption should take place in them,
it would never occur to us to ascribe it to any irregularity in
Nature's action,but simply to the fact that a cause had come into
play of which we had hitherto been ignorant,but which we should
hope to understand by further close observation.

So much for Science-for pure Science,if I may so call
that part of the subject which is concerned only with observation
and induction,withdeduction-with the acquisition of knowledge through these means,-
and with the enunciation of those processes which,for convenience
sake,we will henceforth style without qualification ^by their colloquial description the "Laws of
Nature.