The disposition to read laws into nature, without reference to the facts of nature, was in line with the programme to read laws into the social realm without reference to the facts of human nature. The laws of astronomy to-day are such as have been found by a study of the stars. The laws of chemistry are such as have been found by a study of the atomic structures of bodies. One might fall out now with the celestial laws of Ptolemy, and head a movement to set them aside. But it is not rational to fall out with the astronomical laws of Norman Lockyer, for that is to buck against the sun, and to make faces at the stars. Lockyer’s laws came straight to him from the skies, and find their value and verification in the close calculation of every steamer that sails on the wide, restless sea. The laws of civilized nations to-day are such as have been found by a study of the facts of human nature. To quarrel with them is to set one’s self against the way man is built. It would not do to say that the social laws of civilized peoples to-day are exact transcripts from the will of God concerning the conduct of social life. Men do not now, and perhaps will not for a long time, read aright the facts of human nature. One thing is certain, however: in the making of laws among civilized, republican peoples, reference is had to the facts of human nature, and not to the fancy of those who wish to govern. It cannot be disputed that the right facts are considered from which to make deductions. This means a complete change of front in the modern world over the ages past. There are doubtless many minor laws on the statute books of the liberal and progressive nations of the earth to-day which are not in accordance with the nature of man; but it seems that any rational person is compelled to admit that the great legal trunk-lines conform to the essential laws of human nature. Take the Constitution of the United States. Some one has said that the apple from which Newton deduced the laws of gravity was two thousand years falling. He would have been nearer the truth if he had said six thousand years. The Constitution of the United States is as clearly a deduction from the facts of human nature, as were the laws of gravity from a study of falling bodies. The convention that met in Philadelphia to frame the Constitution of the United States, in 1787, was called to order on the top of the centuries. The members had such advantage of position as made it possible for them to look all down the ages. They were in a position to see all sides of human nature, under all forms of government. In the preamble to the Constitution, they specified certain objects for which, in their esteem, this government should be formed—union, domestic tranquillity, justice, liberty, welfare. Any government constituted by a document like that has for the basis of its existence the facts of human nature, as really as the law of gravity has for the basis of its existence the facts of the stars. VII.