The weekly Anglo-African., 1860-01-28
THE LAW OF NATURE.


of nature" He also pointed out the man.
ner in which man should perform these
ministerial functions, in a way so very
clear and succinct that he soon had quite a
number of followers. Another antiquated
Englishman by the name of Newton took
up the study, and soon found out how ma
ture holds stones fast to the surface of the
earth and the moon nearly fast to the earth,
and both these latter fast to the sun, by a
long but invisible string, which he christ
ened "the attraction of gravity" Then
an old Frenchman by the name of Lavoi-
sier, put his wits to work, and discovered
how dame nature (the sly old hussy } ar
ranges and exchanges from one substance
to another the invisible but very sensible
imponderable called "heat." Then came
an equally old-fashioned Yankee by the
name of Franklin, who caught Mrs. Ma
ture flying, and brought her down to the
ground, and compelled her to tell how she
manufactured thunder and lightning.
All these old-fashioned ministers and
interpreters of nature" carefully following
out the method laid down by their most
old-fashioned master, Bacon, have left rec
ords which are so accurate and so consist
ent with each other, and so thoroughly
confirmed by the facts which have since
occurred, that at this day any man of CON-
mon intelligence would as soon think of
contradicting sunshine as of gainsaying the
law of nature as laid down by Newton,
Lavoisier, or Franklin Indeed, some
nay, many-persons of approved piety do
not hesitate to call these laws the laws of
God also, and speak earnestly of them as
Divine laws, or the Divine laws of nature.
And the great reason which underlies these
laws of Nature is, that that all the acts
agree q0ith the laW. If cobble stone
should loosen itself from the middle of the
street and leisurely rise up towards the
moon, then Newton'S law of gravitation
would cease to be a law; or if any metal
should oxydize without the evolution of
heat, the great law of chemical combustion
would cease to be law, and the bases of
modern science would be chaos again.
Knowing the great benefits which have
accrued to mankind by the labors of the
distinguished men above enumerated, it is
not without interest that we see, self-an-
nounced, in our midst, new minister
and interpreter of nature" in the person of
the leading member of the New York bar,
Chas. O'Conor Esq; and he assumesto inter-
pret nature in matter which, for the mo-
ment, is of profound interest. He says:
"I affirm that negro slavery is ordained by
nature-that it is an institution created by
nature itself"-( Speech at the Academy
Of Music, Dec. 19th, 1660.) Here is a
great natural law formally announced. Mr.
O'Conor takes his place along side of New
ton, Lavoisier, Franklin, and Cuvier. The
old theory of Phlogiston explodes; the
cone blood" of which "God made all nations
of men" separates into divergent streams.
A greater than Bacon is here It's O'Conor,
leader of the New York bar
New, we freely confess to some love for
the negro. In fact, being one of that sort
ourselves, we have fondly aspired to free
dom-nay, to equality as we'll We have
even gone the length of a pleasant traces
tie Of the great saying Of Descartes, so as
to read, II think myself free, and there
fore am tree" But we love science more
than we love the negro, because science is
eternal truth, embracing the negro as but
an infnitesimal part; and surely the whole
is greater, and must command the greater
love, than the part. And when we saw
this new announcement of a great law of
nature hitherto undiscovered, we deter
mined to pursue the study of this law, no
matter whittier it should lead, even if it
should show that the negro is no better
than an L1Slantant @
The study thus far has not greatly elu-
cidated the law. The great generalization
on which OpConor bases this law is the
following: ~ hold that the negro as de-
creed by nature to a state of pupilage un-
der the dominion of the white man, in eve
ry cline where God and nature meant the
negro should liUe at ALL" Here is great
affirmative law, as broad and universal as
the laws of light, heat, combustion, or
gyavity Mr.. O'Conor is little shaky in
the wording; he brings One into the sem
tence whom philosophers generally leave
out of the statement of their laws. But a
man laboring under such a tremendous as
serticn might well tremble little. Rit-
tenhouse tainted as the shadow of Venus
80, boJ+ OH Erorak l.