Editorial December 5, 1903 Issue

Law Understood

K.

It is very surprising that there are so few who fully recognize the power which attaches to belief in law, whether this belief be based upon truth or upon error, and it is no less surprising that many things which have no foundation in the facts of existence are thoughtlessly taken for granted. Yet another fact is constantly overlooked; namely, that so long as error is believed, the truth, which is its opposite, is disbelieved or unknown, and whatever is generally believed comes in time to be regarded as law.

During the last half century much light has been thrown upon the subject of law, and thinkers are agreed that very erroneous opinions have been held,—that often an observed order, sequence, or customary happening in nature has had nothing to do with cause, rightly understood, and is no evidence of the operation of law in its true sense. At the same time, it has been admitted that law and order do exist, and what is more, that they must represent truth.

These admissions have doubtless been due in part to the wonderful discoveries along so many lines which could never have been made practical had not existing opinions about material law been discarded for more advanced theories; without these concessions we should have been indefinitely deprived of the wonderful inventions which mean so much to the present, and which promise even more for the future.

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