John Stuart Mill suggests that “personifying” would be a much better term than “theological” to designate the earliest efforts to explain physical phenomena. On the fundamental principles of Positivism, see New Englander, 1873:323-386; Diman, Theistic Argument, 338—“Three coëxistent states are here confounded with three successive stages of human thought; three aspects of things with three epochs of time. Theology, metaphysics, and science must always exist side by side, for all positive science rests on metaphysical principles, and theology lies behind both. All are as permanent as human reason itself.” Martineau, Types, 1:487—“Comte sets up mediæval Christianity as the typical example of evolved monotheism, and develops it out of the Greek and Roman polytheism which it overthrew and dissipated. But the religion of modern Europe notoriously does not descend from the same source as its civilization and is no continuation of the ancient culture,”—it comes rather from Hebrew sources; Essays, Philos. and Theol., 1:24, 62—“The Jews were always a disobliging people; what business had they to be up so early in the morning, disturbing the house ever so long before M. Comte’s bell rang to prayers?” See also Gillett, God in Human Thought, 1:17-23; Rawlinson, in Journ. Christ. Philos., April, 1883:353; Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1886:473-490. Chapter III. Sin, Or Man’s State Of Apostasy. Section I.—The Law Of God. As preliminary to a treatment of man’s state of apostasy, it becomes necessary to consider the nature of that law of God, the transgression of which is sin. We may best approach the subject by inquiring what is the true conception of I. Law in General. 1. Law is an expression of _will_. The essential idea of law is that of a general expression of will enforced by power. It implies: (_a_) A lawgiver, or authoritative will. (_b_) Subjects, or beings upon whom this will terminates. (_c_) A general command, or expression of this will. (_d_) A power, enforcing the command. These elements are found even in what we call natural law. The phrase “law of nature” involves a self-contradiction, when used to denote a mode of action or an order of sequence behind which there is conceived to be no intelligent and ordaining will. Physics derives the term “law” from jurisprudence, instead of jurisprudence deriving it from physics. It is first used of the relations of voluntary agents. Causation in our own wills enables us to see something besides mere antecedence and consequence in the world about us. Physical science, in her very use of the word “law,” implicitly confesses that a supreme Will has set general rules which control the processes of the universe.