We cannot ourselves prescribe to iron or to sulphur the manner of its
action. As Bacon says (_Novum Organum_, i., Aphorism 4): "Man can only
put natural bodies together or asunder: nature does the rest within."
That is, man cannot make the laws of nature: he can only arrange
collocations of materials so as to avail himself of those laws. But
God makes the law, issuing His command, the warrant without which no
creature could do anything, that every creature, rational and
irrational, shall act each according to its kind or nature. Such is
the Eternal Law.

_Readings_.--Suarez, _De Legibus_, I., xii.; St. Thos., 1a 2a, q. 90,
art. 2-4; _ib_., q. 91, art. 1, in corp., ad 1; _ib_., q. 93, art. 1,
in corp.; _ib_., q. 93, art. 4, in corp.; _ib_., q. 93, art. 5, in
corp.; _ib_., q. 93, art. 6, in corp.; Suarez, _De Legibus_, II., vi.;
Cicero, _De Legibus_, II., iv.; _id_., _De Republica_, iii. 22.



CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE NATURAL LAW OF CONSCIENCE.

SECTION I.--_Of the Origin of Primary Moral Judgments_.


1. It is an axiom of the schools, that whatever is received, is
received according to the manner of the recipient. We have spoken of
the law that governs the world, as that law has existed from eternity
in the mind of God. We have now to consider that law as it is received
in creatures, and becomes the inward determinant of their action.