{
  "id": "a_ltpz3yjq",
  "oid": 165140,
  "revision": 1,
  "revision_oid": 165141,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "Natural laws as a will's regular methods",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH04.P026",
      "oid": 91,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH04.P026",
      "exact": "repeated exercises of some will",
      "start": 315,
      "end": 346,
      "prefix": "an that they were, or might be, ",
      "suffix": ". In short, I had always believe",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P026#char=315,346"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "Berkeley supplies a particularly close comparison. In *A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge* (first published 1710), §§29–32, he argues that sensory experience does not obey our own will and therefore originates in another spirit. Natural laws are that spirit's established methods; their regularity permits practical prediction without revealing a logically necessary connection between successive experiences. Uniformity can thus express intelligence rather than exclude it. [Berkeley, §§29–32](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4723/4723-h/4723-h.htm).\n\nThe comparison also identifies a limit. Berkeley's argument belongs to a system in which sensible things are ideas and unthinking matter is rejected (§§33–35). Chesterton's cautious 'were, or might be' and 'perhaps' do not establish that system: they offer personal agency as an interpretation of the familiar world. The resemblance illuminates the possibility he is entertaining; it does not demonstrate borrowing or make him a Berkeleyan. The inspected witness is Project Gutenberg ebook 4723, whose HTML header dates its posting to 2009; it does not identify a printed copy-text.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4723/4723-h/4723-h.htm",
      "title": "George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge",
      "locator": "Part I, §§29–35; ebook HTML header",
      "exact": null
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4723",
      "title": "Project Gutenberg catalogue: Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge",
      "locator": "Publication summary and About this eBook",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4723/4723-h/4723-h.htm",
      "title": "Berkeley, §§29–32"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "Conceptual comparison only; no documentary evidence of Chesterton's reading Berkeley was established.",
    "The Gutenberg witness does not identify its underlying print edition."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-04-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P026",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since",
        "question": "Does treating natural regularity as repeated willing have a precise philosophical counterpart, and what would that comparison commit Chesterton to?"
      },
      {
        "approach": "Theological contextualization",
        "question": "Is calling ordinary facts miracles because they are willed equivalent to the theological definition of a miracle?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
  "content_sha256": "sha256:fbf0744789711a193881c1addc64c4a2ccc66a595391a8f9ffd1c6990b066587",
  "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:59:23Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_ltpz3yjq",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_ltpz3yjq/r/1",
  "cited_by": []
}