way in which the word Nature is often used now, though it is plain that
many writers use the word without fixing any exact meaning to it. It is
the same with the expression Laws of Nature, which some writers may use
in an intelligible sense, but others as clearly use in no definite sense
at all. There is no meaning in this word Nature, except that which
Bishop Butler assigns to it, when he says, "The only distinct meaning of
that word Natural is Stated, Fixed, or Settled; since what is natural as
much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so,
_i.e._, to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is
supernatural or miraculous does to effect it at once." This is Plato's
meaning (De Leg., iv. 715) when he says that God holds the beginning and
end and middle of all that exists, and proceeds straight on his course,
making his circuit according to nature (that is by a fixed order); and
he is continually accompanied by justice, who punishes those who deviate
from the divine law, that is, from the order or course which God
observes.

[A] Justin (Apol. ii. 8) has the words [Greek: kata
spermatikou logou meros], where he is speaking of the Stoics;
but he uses this expression in a peculiar sense (note II). The
early Christian writers were familiar with the Stoic terms, and
their writings show that the contest was begun between the
Christian expositors and the Greek philosophy. Even in the
second Epistle of St. Peter (ii. I, v. 4) we find a Stoic
expression, [Greek: Ina dia toutôn genêsthe theias koinônoi
physeôs.]

When we look at the motions of the planets, the action of what we call
gravitation, the elemental combination of unorganized bodies and their
resolution, the production of plants and of living bodies, their