THE LAW OF CONTINUITY.
_A priori_ argument for Natural Law in the spiritual world.
1. The Law Discovered.
2. " Defined.
3. " Applied.
4. The objection answered that the _material_ of the Natural and
Spiritual worlds being different they must be under different
Laws.
5. The existence of Laws in the Spiritual world other than the Natural
Laws (1) improbable, (2) unnecessary, (3) unknown. Qualification.
6. The Spiritual not the projection upward of the Natural; but the
Natural the projection downward of the Spiritual.
INTRODUCTION.
"This method turns aside from hypotheses not to be tested by any
known logical canon familiar to science, whether the hypothesis
claims support from intuition, aspiration or general plausibility.
And, again, this method turns aside from ideal standards which avow
themselves to be lawless, which profess to transcend the field of
law. We say, life and conduct shall stand for us wholly on a basis
of law, and must rest entirely in that region of science (not
physical, but moral and social science), where we are free to use
our intelligence in the methods known to us as intelligible logic,
methods which the intellect can analyze. When you confront us with
hypotheses, however sublime and however affecting, if they cannot be
stated in terms of the rest of our knowledge, if they are disparate
to that world of sequence and sensation which to us is the ultimate
base of all our real knowledge, then we shake our heads and turn
aside."--_Frederick Harrison._
"Ethical science is already forever completed, so far as her general
outline and main principles are concerned, and has been, as it were,
waiting for physical science to come up with her."--_Paradoxical
Philosophy._