"Law of nature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... acquire as little territory as possible, to leave restless natives and emigrant Boers entirely to themselves. Desperate efforts were made to stop the Kafir wars. We can now see that the tendency—one may almost call it a law of nature—which everywhere over the world has tempted or forced a strong civilised power to go on conquering the savage or half-civilised peoples on its borders, the process that has carried the English all over India and brought the Russians from the Volga to the Pamirs in one direction ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... defensible, means a mode of government bound by no written rules, and coerced by no controlling magistracies or well-settled orders in the state. But if it has no written law, it neither does nor can cancel the primeval, indefeasible, unalterable law of Nature and of nations; and if no magistracies control its exertions, those exertions must derive their limitation and direction either from the equity and moderation of the ruler, or from downright revolt on the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... manner unparalleled, except by an act of his own on another occasion, fraudulently and inhumanly endeavor to make the wife and son of the said administrator, contrary to the sentiments and the law of Nature, the instruments of his oppressions: directing, "that, if they" (the mother and son aforesaid) "could be induced to yield the appearance of a cheerful acquiescence in the new arrangement, and to adopt it as a measure ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... observations on plants, guided to a certain extent by the experience of the breeders of animals, I became convinced many years ago that it is a general law of nature that flowers are adapted to be crossed, at least occasionally, by pollen from a distinct plant. Sprengel at times foresaw this law, but only partially, for it does not appear that he was aware that there was any difference in ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... these peoples had proven belligerent in the extreme. In common with the rest of the fauna of Caprona the first law of nature as they seemed to understand it was to kill—kill—kill. And so it was that Bradley had no desire to follow up the little stream toward the pool near which were sure to be the caves of some savage tribe, but fortune played him an unkind trick, for the pool was much closer than ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... toward her as interest in his theme developed. The moonlight was now pouring upon them; her face was beautiful and fine as marble in its soft rays. For a moment he hesitated, overwhelmed by a sudden realization of her attractiveness. He had just been saying that the law of nature was the law of change, and nature itself stood ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... recalcitrant and sour old maid. Will, a healthy and normal young man, with no bad habits, was in danger of being driven to them by the emptiness and exasperation of his mind. The worst of it all was that both of the young people were, in accordance with a well-known law of nature, growing older with what seemed to them a frightful and unreasonable rapidity. The years crawled like snails. But the sum of them rose by leaps and bounds to an appalling total. Alice found two grey hairs in her red-gold locks. Will had to use glasses for reading fine print at night. From ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... loss of these commanding figures dealt a blow at the national spirit. There are usually long intervals between Caesars and Napoleons. Nations have, in obedience to some law of Nature, to pass through periods of mediocre rule, and when men of great genius and dominating qualities come to clear up the mess, they are only tolerated possibly by fear, and never for long by appreciation. A capricious public soon tires of these living heroes. It is after they ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... day except Sunday, when roast beef is provided. The same meal every day, the same clothes to wear every day and all day, and the same routine to go through. What wonder is it that in the confirmed criminal many faculties appear to have atrophied. They have obeyed a law of nature. The popular comment is no doubt—"what else do you expect? They deserve it all, they have brought it upon themselves." We expect that our criminals should at least be treated like the by-products of our mills and factories, i.e. made the most of. Bitter prejudices must give ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... good reason to be excited! In fact, as naturalists have ventured to observe, "dextrality" is a well-known law of nature. In their rotational and orbital movements, stars and their satellites go from right to left. Man uses his right hand more often than his left, and consequently his various instruments and equipment ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... universal law of Nature, and the instinct of self-preservation which leads to struggle is acknowledged to be a natural condition of existence. "Man is a fighter." Self-sacrifice is a renunciation of life, whether in the existence of ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... true, therefore, that slavery, never a right, but always a wrong, under the Constitution, as under the law of nature and revelation, is now to be no longer recognized even as a fact. To abolish it by this amendment is to abolish it entirely throughout the Union, irrespective of apparent State rights. The repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... she said. "Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and if she doesn't marry Jimmy she will very likely ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... my moral, one cannot find under heaven any animal, any being, any creature who has not his opponent. This appears to be a law of nature. It would be time wasted to seek for a reason. God does well whatever he does. Beyond that I know nothing; but I do know that people come to high words over nothing three times out of four. Ah, ye human ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... will of God. He indicates the distinction, developed more fully by Thomasius and Kant, between the legal and the moral qualities of action. The principles of international law he reduces to those of the law of nature, and combats, in so doing, many of the positions taken up by Grotius. He rejects the notion that sovereignty in any way resembles property, and makes even marriage a matter of civil contract. Barbeyrac also translated Grotius's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... mother might live under their wedded roof in terms that might have become Petruchio: "It may be stated in a word. The man should bear rule in the house, not the woman. This is an eternal axiom, the law of nature which no mortal departs from unpunished. . . . Will your mother consent to make me her guardian and director, and be a second wife to ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... earth, they produce gold. Light, gold; the same thing! From fire to the concrete state. The difference between the visible and the palpable, between the fluid and the solid in the same substance, between water and ice, nothing more. These are no dreams; it is the general law of nature. But what is one to do in order to extract from science the secret of this general law? What! this light which inundates my hand is gold! These same atoms dilated in accordance with a certain law need only be condensed in accordance with another law. How is it ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... much lower figure, and sufficiently quickly; that while steam is eminently successful in the coasting trade, it can not possibly be so in the transatlantic freighting business; and that the rapid transit of the mails, and the slower and more deliberate transport of freight is the law of nature: ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... causality as freedom with causality as rational mechanism, the former established by the moral law, the latter by the law of nature in the same subject, namely, man, is impossible, unless we conceive him with reference to the former as a being in himself, and with reference to the latter as a phenomenon- the former in pure consciousness, ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... of the names of scientific conceptions which pervades the preacher's utterance, brings me back to the proper topic of the present essay. It is the use of the word "law" as if it denoted a thing—as if a "law of nature," as science understands it, were a being endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which the phenomena expressed by that law are brought about. The preacher asks, "Might not there be a suspension of a lower law by the intervention of a higher?" He tells us ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... ourselves because we first have faith in God; and we shall discover that this Divine self-confidence is something very different from a boastful egotism which assumes a personal superiority over others. It is simply the assurance of a man who knows that he is working in accordance with a law of nature. He does not claim as a personal achievement what the Law does FOR him: but on the other hand he does not trouble himself about outcries against his presumptuous audacity raised by persons who are ignorant of the Law which he is employing. He is therefore ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... open-minded, they were still as a body the most formidable critics one would care to meet, in a long life exposed to criticism. They never flattered, seldom praised; free from vanity, they were not intolerant of it; but they were objectiveness itself; their attitude was a law of nature; their judgment beyond appeal, not an act either of intellect or emotion or of will, but a sort ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... question is to be argued. Are we free to legislate for the public good, or are we not? Is this a question of expediency, or is it a question of right? Many of those who have written and petitioned against the existing state of things treat the question as one of right. The law of nature, according to them, gives to every man a sacred and indefeasible property in his own ideas, in the fruits of his own reason and imagination. The legislature has indeed the power to take away this property, just as it has ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... commit their commercial arrangements to Congress, and to enable them to pay their debts, interest and capital. The coercive powers supposed to be wanting in the federal head, I am of opinion they possess by the law of nature, which authorizes one party to an agreement to compel the other to performance. A delinquent State makes itself a party against the rest ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... God. But when once he has said that from his heart, he begins to be justified by faith; for he has had faith in God. He has trusted God—and more—he has justified God. He has confessed that God is not a mere force or law of Nature; nor a mere tyrant and tormentor; but a Reasonable Being who will hear reason, and a Just Being who will do justice by ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... Almighty, whose law we cannot alter, has implanted it there, and we can annihilate ourselves as easily as root out this affection for ourselves. It is the first and strongest principle in our nature. Justice Blackstone calls it "The primary canon in the law of nature." That precept of our holy religion which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves does not command us to love our neighbor better than ourselves, or so well. No Christian divine has given this ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... water won't wet! S'pose fire won't burn! S'pose the sun won't shine! That's the law of nature, man! If you think I hain't got no sense at all I jest dare you to ask Doctor Carey. 'Twouldn't take him long to comb ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... those that are his, at his speedy coming, a kindred deliverance from the lower gloom, an investiture with spiritual bodies, and an admission into the kingdom of God. According to Paul, then, physical death is not the retributive consequence of Adam's sin, but is the will of the Creator in the law of nature, the sowing of terrestrial bodies for the gathering of celestial bodies, the putting off of the image of the earthy for the putting on of the image of the heavenly. The specialty of the marring ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Callicles. And Socrates is always playing between the two points of view, and putting one in the place of the other. In this very argument, what Polus only meant in a conventional sense has been affirmed by him to be a law of nature. For convention says that 'injustice is dishonourable,' but nature says that 'might is right.' And we are always taming down the nobler spirits among us to the conventional level. But sometimes a great man will rise ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... after his son as be might have stared at some phenomenon which violated a law of nature; for instance, as he might have stared at the sun rising in the west, at a stream flowing uphill, at Newton's apple remaining suspended in air instead of falling properly to the ground. He was not angry—yet. That personal and individual emotion would come later; what he experienced now was ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... quakeresses; while the frippery shops will become the haunts of men alone, and "browches, pearls and owches be consecrate to the nobler sex?" There are signs already, in the dress of our young gentlemen, of such a return to the law of nature from the present absurd state of things, in which the human peahens carry about the gaudy trains which are the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... gives rise to what is called the radical antagonism of classes; that it creates, and makes to clash, two opposite interests—that of the capitalists and that of the "proletaires." But we ought to begin by proving that this antagonism exists by a law of nature; and afterwards it would remain to be shown how far the arrangements of restraint are superior to those of liberty, for between liberty and restraint I see no middle path. Again, it would remain to be proved that restraint would always operate to your advantage, and to the prejudice ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... the things that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate, knowledge. To them "the voice of nature was the voice of God." Their revelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and extended, but not suspended, by the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... had been brought up by philosophers, he was not theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature. If he had been, perhaps he would have been prepared for this. Not being prepared, however, it alarmed him the more; so away he went like the wind, with the old gentleman and the two boys roaring ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the scientific distinction between man and the brute creation—it is the law of nature in the human kind, which the Poet is getting out scientifically here, in the face of that terrific failure and degeneration in the kind—which he paints so vividly, for the purpose of inquiring whether there is not, perhaps, after all, some more ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... but the law of Nature working in response to the law of God, which is Love! The child was healed of his infirmity by the power of unselfish prayer. Are we not told 'Ask and ye shall receive'? But the asking must be pure! The prayer must be untainted by self-interest! God does not answer prayer that is paid ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... that boasted power of man over nature? Where the fruits of long-continued efforts and fostering protection? The Bos Scoticus is as untameable now as it was centuries ago, simply for this reason, that it is in accordance with an unalterable law of nature; a law by which one type in every circular group is to represent the worst passions of mankind—fierceness, or cruelty, or horror. In the Urus we consequently have the type of the wild and untameable Ferae among quadrupeds, the eagles among birds, and the innumerable analogies which all ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... out something about capillary attraction, suppose that you should go to the imaginary switchboard again and tamper with some other law of nature. An innocent-looking switch, right above the capillary attraction switch, would be labeled ADHESION. Suppose you ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... characters and in their practical importance, from other natural events, but that they do not follow in that definite order which characterises the succession of all other occurrences, and the statement of which we call a law of nature. ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... different varieties, or between individuals of the same variety but of another strain, gives vigour and fertility to the offspring; and on the other hand, that CLOSE interbreeding diminishes vigour and fertility; that these facts alone incline me to believe that it is a general law of nature that no organic being fertilises itself for a perpetuity of generations; but that a cross with another individual is occasionally—perhaps at long ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... displayed, is from its very essence, moral. Strictly speaking, how can there be any courage except moral courage? If a man braves death or physical suffering, the quality that enables him to brave it is certainly not physical; certainly it does not pertain to the physical body. The "first law of nature" impels him to escape or yield; and it impels him with a powerful force. If this force be not successfully resisted, the man ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... composed of at least two, usually three or four, substances, intimately mingled with each other in the form of small grains or crystals, and giving the rock a more or less speckled or mottled look, according to the size of the crystals and their variety of color. It is a law of nature, that whenever rocks are to be employed on hard service, and for great purposes, they shall be thus composed. And there appear to be two distinct ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Beyond it, just over the frozen river which lay white and silent before him, stretched that endless desolation of romance and mystery which he had grown to love, a world of deep snows, of silent-tongued men, of hardship and battle for life where the law of nature was the survival of the fittest, and that of man, "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you." Never did Philip Steele's heart throb with the wild, free pulse of life and joy as in such moments as these, when his fortune, his clubs, and his friends were a ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... entire people who were my friends. Moreover, when I recollected what hazards I had run for the same people of Baetica in my earlier championship of them, I thought I had better preserve their gratitude for the old favour by granting them a new one. For it is a law of nature that people soon forget an old benefit, unless you keep on renewing it by later ones, for however often you oblige them, if you refuse them one request, they only remember the refusal. Another motive was that Classicus was dead, and so there ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... a law of nature that progress, as well as time, should be marked by periods of alternate light and darkness—day ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... regard. He was merely to tell them of his Majesty's heavy expenses in this land, and the many hardships endured by the Spaniards in going to civilize them, and to teach them how to live in accordance with the law of nature, so that they might understand the chief requirements—namely, to become Christians and recognize the true God, who created and redeemed them; and in order that they might cease to do evil to their neighbors, and to commit ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... but it had been at times when he had not wanted it; now that he did, they would bargain hard, or not let him have it at all. Who could tell why that should be so? It was a law of nature that landlords and peasants were ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... to the limitations imposed by nature upon what it is possible for government to accomplish. We all know of course that we cannot abolish all the evils in this world by statute or by the enforcement of statutes, nor can we prevent the inexorable law of nature which decrees that suffering shall follow vice, and all the evil passions and folly of mankind. Law cannot give to depravity the rewards of virtue, to indolence the rewards of industry, to indifference the rewards of ambition, ...
— Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution • Elihu Root
... of the coat at the time of purchase, when it hung exposed for sale over the white-headed Welshman's little finger, became according to the law of nature and nations, as James Batter wisely observed, part and pendicle of the property of me, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... all this remedy, is its want of universality; forasmuch as the shaving part of it, upon which so much stress is laid, by an unalterable law of nature excludes one half of the species entirely from its use: all I can say is, that female writers, whether of England, or of France, must ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... "to inflict my presence upon you for a moment longer in order to tell you what my attitude in the future is to be, and what feelings are to guide you. I shall continue to think of you as my wife according to the law of nature, and of the man who has come between us as your lover. I will not give you up to him, whatever happens; and if he tries to take you away, or if you try to go to him, you must be prepared to find that I offer ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Aniela dances exquisitely, and she danced this waltz as a woman should, with a certain vehemence and self-abandon at the same time. I noticed that the violets on her breast rose and fell far quicker than the quiet step of the dance warranted. I understood that she felt agitated. Love is a law of nature, kept under control by a careful bringing-up. But once the girl is told that she may love this one or that, the chance is she will obey very readily. Aniela evidently expected that after I had been bold enough to write those few words I would allude to it further, but I kept aloof on purpose ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... poor to be honest so that the rich can do all the stealing. They say that the moral code is "dope" given by the strong to paralyze the weak and keep them down. It is not so. Honesty is the power that lifts men and nations up to greatness. It is a law of nature just as surely as gravity is a natural law. But one is physical nature and the other moral nature. A fool can see that physical laws are eternal and unbreakable. The wise can see that the moral law is just as ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... now has he land and beefs. Well, I'll be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard but I'll make him a philosopher's two stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... reserve till the slaves return from the field at night. To this we may add that the slaves are social beings, and that during the day, silence is generally enforced by the whip of the overseer or driver.[3] When they return at night, their pent up social feelings will seek vent, it is a law of nature, and though the body may be greatly worn with toil, this law cannot be wholly stifled. Sharers of the same woes, they are drawn together by strong affinities, and seek the society and sympathy of their fellows; even "tired nature" will joyfully forego for a time ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of the Vedic passage which refers to the origin of caste.[53] He maintained that this distinction of caste was as much a law of nature and divine appointment as the separation of different classes of animals. The prominence accorded to the Brahmans was nothing short of divine. "Even when Brahmans employ themselves in all sorts of inferior occupations ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... organized itself on the basis of the dissimilarity of individuals, is now organizing itself on the basis of their similarity, and the one exclusive principle is about as true as the other. Art no doubt will lose, but justice will gain. Is not universal leveling-down the law of nature, and when all has been leveled will not all have been destroyed? So that the world is striving with all its force for the destruction of what it has itself brought forth. Life is the blind pursuit of its own negation; as has been said of the wicked, nature also works for her own disappointment, she ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... still even among us a small group who held themselves aloof from the beginning, and even locked themselves up. But what lock can stand against a law of nature? Daughters will grow up even in the most careful families, and it is essential ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a man in a state of nature consists in his being subject to no law but the law of nature; and the liberty of a man in a state of society consists in his being subject to no law but to the law enacted by the general will of the society to which he belongs. And to what other law is any man in Great Britain subject? The king, we are all justly persuaded, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... of a woman," he said to Brian, "I don't care who she is, it's absurdly Quixotic. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and if my neck was in danger I'd spare neither man, woman, nor child to ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... that they will not force me to appeal to the laws of a foreign nation, or to the tribunal of the public in Europe, for the recovery of my right, and for justice to my character, which the great and first law of nature will oblige me to do, unless immediately relieved by those who owe me, and more who owe to their own character, and to that of their country, the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... in them the soul enters its native province and acts in that sphere which is its own for all eternity. Yet how do they all lead the mind up to its great Creator! Not a single discovery in science, not an investigation of the simplest law of nature, not an examination of the most insignificant bud or flower or leaf; and, above and beyond all, not an inquiry in the great truths of morals, of ethics, of religion, or of the very constitution of the mind itself, but at once, and in the most natural consequence, reveals the power ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... brethren." This virtue must prevail among Christians everywhere. They are to manifest toward one another the love and faithfulness of brothers according to the flesh. It is a law of nature that brothers have a peculiar confidence in one another, being of the same blood and flesh and having a common inheritance. Particularly is this true when in distress. Although they may not be united in other respects, yet when stranger blood assails and necessity comes, they ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... Taylor, an Episcopal Clergyman of New Haven, Connecticut, made a speech at a Union Meeting, in which he deprecates the agitation on the law, and urges obedience to it; asking,—"Is that article in the Constitution contrary to the law of Nature, of nations, or to the will of God? Is it so? Is there a shadow of reason for saying it? I have not been able to discover it. Have I not shown you it is lawful to deliver up, in compliance with the laws, fugitive slaves, for the high, the great, the ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... the same prairie, or two male eagles cover the same nest? No. Yet numerous stars appear during night, all joined together, and obedient to the moon. Blackbirds and parrots will unite their numerous tribes and take the same flight to seek altogether a common rest a shelter for a night; it is a law of nature. The Red-skin knows none but the laws of nature. The Shoshone is an eagle on the hills, a bright sun in the prairie, so is an Arrapahoe; they must both struggle and fight till one sun is thrown into darkness, or one eagle, blind and winged, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... street, some twenty or thirty of them, and asked each other what it meant. Content with the supposed success of the abduction, they had made no attempt to prevent the dinner. And now Livingston, who by every law of nature should be five miles out in the country, was presiding at the feast and moving his audience ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... which society embodies, my good cannot be complete unless, to the extent of my ability, their good is included in my own. Hence we have the maxims laid down by Kant: "Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature." "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of another, in every case as an end, never as a means only." Or as Professor Royce puts the same thought; "Act as a being would act who included thy will and ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... flowers which cannot possibly be crossed, and these alone, to the exclusion of the ordinary flowers, have as yet been known to yield seed.[195] A few additional and analogous cases could be advanced. But these facts do not make me doubt that it is a general law of nature that the individuals of the same species occasionally intercross, and that some great advantage is derived from this act. It is well known (and I shall hereafter have to give instances) that some plants, both ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... for the life of the world." "I am the resurrection and the life; if any man shall believe in Me, if he were dead he shall live"—unless he were God incarnate. The miracles of Jesus were not violations of the laws of nature; they were the divine proofs that that God whose hand is behind every law of nature had come into the world to help those who needed help. When He multiplied bread in His hands, He did of His own will that which God does when He multiplies the wheat in the harvest. When He created the wine of Cana, He did that of His own will which He ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... life and labor of inferior animals, to question God's authority to govern man or beast. If the experience of several thousand years may be admitted in evidence the subserviency of the minor to the major intelligence is an immutable law of nature. Only equal minds can be accorded equal authority without doing ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... high diet, gratify all their sexual appetites, immerse them in sensualities, nourish their passions, let every thing bend before them, and banish whatever might lead them to think, and in a few generations they become all body, and no mind: and this, too, by a law of nature, by that very law by which we are in the constant practice of changing the characters and propensities of the animals we raise for our own purposes. Such is the regimen in raising Kings, and in this way they have gone ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... fundamental law of nature that we shall play in proportion to the amount of work we do. The inevitable "tired business man" finds incentive in the thought of a brisk game of golf after closing hours. The busy hostess looks forward to the afternoon ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... gather'd there, Still of this earth, with grace and honour crown'd, To mark if ever Death remorseful were. This gentle company thus throng'd around, In her contemplating the awful end All once must make, by law of nature bound; Each was a neighbour, each a sorrowing friend. Then Death stretch'd forth his hand, in that dread hour, From her bright head a golden hair to rend, Thus culling of this earth the fairest flower; Nor hate impell'd the deed, but pride, to dare Assert o'er highest excellence his power. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... spoke with emphatic gravity and kindness—"Remember that I am your friend always! Whatever chances to you, do not forget that you may command my service and devotion till death! In this strange life, we never know from day to day what may happen to us, for constant change is the law of Nature and the universe,—but after all, there is something in the soul of a true man which does not change with the elements,—and that is—loyalty to a sworn faith! In my heart, I have sworn an oath of fealty to you, my beautiful little princess of the sea!—and it is ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... there also; and they, too, were exemplifying a law of nature, that is to say, a law of male nature in every clime and every age. They did not love Washing Day. They felt no joy in the possibility of its observance, they felt no need of its processes. And yet again more humano, they did not openly set themselves against it, they did not frankly express ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the first chapter of Adamnan's work, the miracle is again alluded to as follows:—"He took a white stone (lapidem candidum) from the river's bed, and blessed it for the cure of certain diseases; and that stone, contrary to the law of nature, floats like an apple when placed in ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... last, down even to bankruptcy of money! And so this poor Versailles Court, as the chief or central Solecism, finds all the other Solecisms arrayed against it. Most natural! For your human Solecism, be it Person or Combination of Persons, is ever, by law of Nature, uneasy; if verging towards bankruptcy, it is even miserable:—and when would the meanest Solecism consent to blame or amend itself, while there ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... shortcomings, but by trial and improvement has our entire educational system evolved. Even an ideal professional course in use today would be obsolete tomorrow. It would be unfortunate were it not so, for growth involves ecdysis, and growth is the law of nature. ...
— Adequate Preparation for the Teacher of Biological Sciences in Secondary Schools • James Daley McDonald
... the feat? No one explains. It cannot be physical strength, for that could not drive such a feather-weight any distance. It must be art. But no one explains what the art of it is; nor how it gets around that law of nature which says you shall not throw any two-ounce thing 220 yards, either through the air or bumping along the ground. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... one that we might have been tempted to wish for, namely, that, of all suffering unnecessarily and wilfully inflicted by man on any class of sentient existence, a bitter intimation and participation might be conveyed to him through a mysterious law of nature, enforcing an avenging sympathy in severe proportion to that suffering, on all the men who are really accountable for its ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... plants, as well as of animals, depend upon the air in which they live. I have observed that those of St. Helena, which have been brought from another hemisphere, are very irregular in their annual progress; many of them, in the development of their foliage, have adopted the law of nature peculiar to the country into which they have been transplanted. Others, more obstinate, remain faithful to their own habits, and continue to follow the stated changes to which they had been accustomed. They all appear to maintain a struggle either before they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... current on its edges. Several theories have been advanced to account for its influence in so remote a region. I give you one which appears to me reasonable. It is supposed, that in obedience to that great law of Nature which seeks to establish equilibrium in the temperature of fluids,—a vast body of gelid water is continually mounting from the Antarctic, to displace and regenerate the over-heated oceans of the torrid zone. Bounding up against the west side ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... first selfish law of nature," paraphrased Ruth, smiling; "and I'm not sure that it's a bad idea to be selfish ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... some fixed law of nature respecting the will, as well as the other powers of the mind, and every thing else in the constitution of nature; and consequently that it is never determined without some real or apparent cause foreign to itself, i. e., without some motive of choice; ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... accomplish this purpose requires great care and caution at times. The human body is, so to speak, the most delicate and intricate piece of machinery that could possibly be conceived of, and to keep this in perfect order requires constant care. It is a fixed law of nature that every violation thereof shall be punished; and so we find that he who neglects to care for his body by protecting it from sudden changes of weather, or draughts of cold air upon unprotected parts of the body, suffers the penalty by sickness, which may vary according to the exposure and ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... the field from the vantage-ground of first principles, and his book is a convincing proof of a truth which we have expressed elsewhere that in Prussia war is not looked upon as an accident, but as a law of nature; and not only as a law of nature, but as the law of man, or if not as the law of man, certainly as the law of the "German superman." It is not enough to say that war has been the national industry of Prussia. It forms an essential part of the philosophy of life, the Weltanschauung of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... separated from such a revelation, whether it happens out of, on, or in men. What is revealed may belong to the order of nature, but an order higher and unknown to us, which we could never have known without miracles, and cannot bring under the law of nature."[4] ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... atheist in religion, an anarchist in politics or anything bad, who, in the physical realm of life, tries to live with reference to the law of nature, and who, in the moral realm of life, tries to live with reference to a truth which is that law humanely interpreted by himself in accordance with his own experience, observation, investigation and reason. In the nature of ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... time the girls lay wide-eyed and quiet, but gradually the law of nature asserted itself. Their eyelids drooped, and the deep regular breathing showed ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a God with bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... a while, these jealousies were concealed, but soon they began to be expressed. It was useless to remind all parties that the common labor of all ministered to the prosperity of the Community. Individual happiness was the law of Nature and it could not be obliterated. And before a single year had passed, this law had scattered the members of that society which had come together so earnestly and under such favorable circumstances, and driven them back into the selfish world from ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... and under licenses granted by royal governors joined hands with the colonial free-trader or East Indian "interlopers" to make the acts of trade a byword and a reproach. New England and Dutch merchants, "regarding neither the acts of trade nor the law of nature," carried provisions to Canada during the French wars. Tobacco was taken to Holland and Scotland, or smuggled from Maryland through Pennsylvania into the Northern colonies. Bolted flour and provisions were exchanged by New York traders in the Spanish islands for molasses and rum. European commodities ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... of that power being suspended animation. If a man receives a particular series of sensations and pretends they are other than they really are, the result is that he exercises his will-power in opposition to a law of Nature on which, as we have shown, life depends, and thereby becomes suicide on a minor scale. Space prevents further discussion, but all the ten deadly sins mentioned by Manu and Buddha can be satisfactorily dealt with in the light sought to be ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... sort of union among the nations of Europe appears impossible if it is meant to include Russia. Russia represents eastern mentality, which implies an unadmissible spirit of aggression and of conquest. It seems to be a law of nature on the old Continent that eastern nations should wish to expand to the west as long as they are powerful. Not to mention the great migration of nations which gave birth to mediaeval organizations, you may follow this law in the history of the Tartars, of the Turks, and of Russia herself. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... shock to a man's pocket-nerve and you electrify his brain-cells, which automatically receive orders to work overtime. Hunter's brain worked then because it had to, self-preservation being the first law of nature. And this service for Inglesby not only spelt safety; it meant the golden key to the heights, the power to gratify those fine tastes which only a rich and able man can afford. Inglesby had promised that, and he had just had a fair example of ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... should give of this progress of the scientific mind is somewhat different. After a general law of nature has been ascertained, men's minds do not at first acquire a complete facility of familiarly representing to themselves the phenomena of nature in the character which that law assigns to them. The habit which ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... worship which retained much of the mediaeval liturgy and ceremonial. Just as all great revolutionary movements in church or state give rise to men who repudiate tradition and all accretions due to human experience, and base their political and religious ideals upon the law of nature, the rights of man, the inner light, or the Word of God; so, too, in England under Elizabeth and James I, leaders appeared who demanded radical changes in faith and practice, and advocated complete ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... law of nature, and regret that our opinion is not shared by Mr. Roscher, at least that he does not explicitly enough express his faith in it, nor apply it broadly enough in the beautiful work which we are happy ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... in this world. Thou shalt not, O lady, by any means, be guilty of any sin by complying with my request. And how can I, who am desirous of the welfare of all creatures, commit an unrighteous act? That all men and women should be bound by no restraints, is the law of nature. The opposite condition is the perversion of the natural state. Thou shalt remain a virgin after having gratified me. And thy son shall also be mighty-armed and illustrious.' Thereupon Kunti said, 'If, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Indians, that I have met withal, have given me a very curious Description of the great Deluge, the Immortality of the Soul, with a pithy Account of the Reward of good and wicked Deeds in the Life to come; having found, amongst some of them, great Observers of Moral Rules, and the Law of Nature; indeed, a worthy Foundation to build Christianity upon, were a true Method found out, and ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... world" might "be antidoted before the storm" gathered and burst.[8] "As all men are created equal and independent by God of Nature," contended he, "Slavery must have Moral Evil for its foundation, seeing it violates the Law of Nature, as established by its author." "Ambition and avarice on the one hand," thought he, "and social dependence upon the other, affords the former an opportunity of being served at the expense of the latter and this unnatural state of things hath been exemplified in all countries, and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... perhaps, had she done so in past times, before the spirit of inquiry and free examination came into being, she might have assured herself many more centuries of supremacy than have fallen to her lot. But she has ever sought to dissociate the law of the Divinity from the law of Nature, as though indeed the latter were but the invention ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... kaleidoscopic character about the events of the ten days or so preceding the opening performance of most musical comedies which would make a sober chronicle of them seem fantastically incredible; and this law of Nature made no exception in the case of The Girl Up-stairs. There were rehearsals which ran so smoothly and swiftly that they'd have done for performances; there were others so abominably bad that the bare idea of presenting ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... insinuations of Webster that Texas had been sought as a slave State. He would not admit that the whole of Texas was bound to be a slave Territory. By the very terms of annexation, provision had been made for admitting free States out of Texas. As for Webster's "law of nature, of physical geography,—the law of the formation of the earth," from which the Senator from Massachusetts derived so much comfort, it was a pity that he could not have discovered that law earlier. The "law of nature" surely had not been changed materially since the election, when Mr. Webster ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... of all conduct, must be the increase of human happiness. The province of government is limited by another consideration. It has to deal with one class of happiness, that is, with the pains and pleasures 'which men derive from one another.' By a 'law of nature' labour is requisite for procuring the means of happiness. Now, if 'nature' produced all that any man desired, there would be no need of government, for there would be no conflict of interest. But, as the material produced is finite, and can be appropriated by ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... you take away from man all that he derives from his own heart, all that he associates with the idea of a godhead, and all that belongs to the law of nature, what, then, do ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... better than any other prince in the world has to any lordship whatever. For, whether more or less concealed or made known, in all the lands that have been discovered in the two seas of your Majesty, north and south, this general breaking of the law of nature has been found. ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa |
