The Commens Dictionary

Quote from ‘Reply to the Necessitarians: Rejoinder to Dr. Carus’

I do not countenance the idea that Bible stories, for instance, show that nature’s laws were violated; though they may help to show that nature’s laws are not so mechanical as we are accustomed to think. But I only propose to explain the regularities of nature as consequences of the only uniformity, or general fact, there was in the chaos, namely, the general absence of any determinate law. In fact, after the first step is taken, I only use chance to give room for the development of law by means of the law of habits.