A law of Nature is the statement of an
inviolable and constant sequence external to ourselves and unchangeable
by our will, and amid the conditions of these inviolable sequences we
live, from these we cannot escape. One choice alone is ours: to live in
harmony with them or to disregard them; violate them we cannot, but we
can dash ourselves against them; then the law asserts itself in the
suffering that results from our flinging ourselves against it, or from
our disregarding its existence; its existence is proved as well by
the pain that results from our disregard of it, as by the pleasure
that results from our harmony with it. Only a fool deliberately and
gratuitously disregards a natural law when he knows of its existence;
a man shapes his conduct so as to avoid the pain which results from
clashing with it, unless he deliberately disregards the pain in view of
a result to be brought about, which he considers to be worth more than
the purchase price of pain. The Science of Morality, of Right Conduct,
"lays down the conditions of harmonious relations between individuals,
and their several environments small or large, families, societies,
nations, humanity as a whole. Only by the knowledge and observance of
these laws can men be either permanently healthy or permanently happy,
can they live in peace and prosperity.
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