VII.

FACTS AND LAWS.

That which we call natural law is not the description of a certain special and concrete form of existence which is now or then and here or there, but of some general quality of facts which is everywhere and always. The former, i. e. every special and concrete form of existence, can be explained by evolution, the latter, i. e. natural law, cannot. The former has to be accounted for by the law of causation, the latter by the principle of sufficient reason. And it is this distinction between cause and reason which Mr. Peirce does not seem to have regarded.

Every special form of existence must, at least theoretically, be traceable as the effect of some cause and every law of nature must be explainable by showing its connection with other natural laws. The only thing in the world of which we cannot and need not give account is the existence of facts itself, or being in general, which is the stubborn presence of reality in us ourselves and also outside of us, objected to our own being as an independent power to which we have to adapt our conduct. We need not prove its existence, for it exists. If anything is ultimate, facts are ultimate; and cognition is nothing but the reconstruction of facts for the purpose of orientation among them, it is a methodical description of reality in the symbols of the feelings that exist in sentient beings.

A scientist having observed a special process of nature, describes it, if possible, in such a way that it is recognised as a transformation. A description of this kind is called an explanation. It renders the process intelligible to us; it is complete and exhaustive. In order to make such a description available for comprehending other cases of the same or similar kind, we have to introduce another principle, which is that of economy. We must single out those features which are common to a certain class and remove all diversity and specificalness. All specificalness and diversity are transient features due to special conditions; they disappear with these special conditions. Thus the notion of natural law involves as an essential characteristic and fundamental quality the absence of the incidental and the temporal.

Natural laws describe the facts of nature _sub specie aeternitatis_. They cease to be natural laws in the proper sense of the word as soon as they are conceived, like legal laws, as products of evolutions, which have appeared in time and may disappear again. Eternity is the characteristic feature of a natural law, it is its backbone, the essence of its being, its _conditio sine qua non_.

Thus in considering a natural phenomenon we are led to distinguish between its cause and its reason: Its cause is something special, it is an individual event, happening in time, and accordingly being transient; it is an occurrence of some kind, it is a single and definite fact. However its reason is not anything special, it is something general; it is not a single and definite fact, but it is a law of universal application; it is not transient, but a conception of things in which the incidental and temporal are eliminated. A reason is applicable to all cases of the same kind and also to all cases of any time. A cause, i. e. a fact, if it truly exists, is real (not true); a law, i. e. a reason, if it really obtains in nature, is true (not real), and any attempt at explaining natural laws as a product of evolution, being based upon the view that regards them as causes not as reasons, as real not as true, as a description of temporal existences, not as viewing facts _sub specie aeternitatis_, must from the outset be a failure.[77]

Mr. Peirce attempts to explain natural laws as if they were single and concrete facts. Where we have to look for reasons he evidently employs the method of searching for causes. He treats that which in its very nature is eternal, as if it were temporal. He regards the everlasting, the imperishable, the immutable as if it had originated, as if it were transient, as if it were the product of a development.