ABSTRACT
The recognition of Law being the recognition of uniformity of relations among phenomena, it follows that the order in which different groups of phenomena are reduced to law, must depend on the frequency with which the uniform relations they severally display are distinctly experienced. The succession in which relations are generalized being thus determined, there result certain derivative principles to which this succession must more immediately and obviously conform. The relations earliest known as uniformities, are those subsisting among the common properties of matter—tangibility, visibility, cohesion, weight, etc. The solidification of water at a low temperature, is a phenomenon that is simple, concrete, and of much personal concern. But it is neither so frequent as those which people see are earliest generalized, nor is the presence of the antecedent so manifest. The constant coexistence of feathers and a beak, of four legs with an internal bony framework, are facts which were, and are, familiar to every savage.
