These last are perfectly distinct from the former; and it is a monstrous confusion of ideas to mix them up together....
The true state of the case is this,--it is for our interest to study these natural arrangements, and to accommodate our conduct to them, as far as we know them; and in doing so, we _obey_, not those laws of Nature, physical and organic, but the laws of _prudence and good sense_, arising from a due use of our moral and intellectual faculties."[199] Another acute writer,[200] who states the substance of the argument in very few words, has shown that the theory of "natural laws," as taught by Mr.Combe, is true in one sense and false in another: "It is _true_, first, that the Creator has bestowed constitutions on physical objects; in other words, the constitutions which physical objects possess were _given_ them, given during His pleasure; secondly, that the constitutions of physical objects are _definite_,--that is, they are distinct, individual, and incapable of transmutation _by natural causes_; thirdly, that no power but the power of the Creator can vary their constitutions.

But it is _not true_, first, that any mode of action of a physical object is otherwise inherent in it, than as it is the will of God that that object should _now_ present that mode of action.

Nor is it true, secondly, that it is beyond the power of God to vary, when He pleases, either temporarily or permanently, the constitution of physical objects." He further shows that, on Mr.Combe's principle of "natural laws" being all equally Divine institutions which must be _obeyed_, "human obedience is a very complicated and perplexing affair, so complicated and so perplexing as to involve positive contradictions;" that "the very same act is required by one law, and forbidden by another, both laws being equally Divine;" and that "we sometimes cannot obey both the 'organic' and the 'moral' laws." He concludes that "physical laws ought not to be confounded with laws of human conduct;" that "these we always must obey, and those we may often, without deserving blame, boldly disregard;" and that "by commingling distinct classes of 'natural laws,' Mr.Combe introduces into his system dangerous error and gross absurdity." 2.

Another radical defect in this theory of "natural laws" consists in its representing the consequences of our ignorance or neglect of them as _punishments_ in the same sense in which moral delinquencies are said to be followed by penal inflictions.

There is something here which is totally at variance with the instinctive feelings and moral convictions of mankind.