# Natural laws as a will's regular methods

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH04.P026](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P026/#char=315,346): "repeated exercises of some will"

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).

The 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

- [George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4723/4723-h/4723-h.htm), Part I, §§29–35; ebook HTML header
- [Project Gutenberg catalogue: Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4723), Publication summary and About this eBook

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