Natural laws as a will's regular methods
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.
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.
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