11. THE PROBLEM OF LIFE’S LAWS The argument of the first chapter went to show that the very minimum required for intelligent living — namely, the knowledge of the purpose of our life — is dependent upon a revelation from God: that without such a revelation we cannot know our purpose, and so cannot have any means of testing the value or the significance of anything that we do. As I have said, this is a minimum, and reflection on experience is sufficient to show that something more is needed from God than a bare revelation of what He made us for. Very early in life man becomes aware that he is living in a world of laws : the series of happenings which lead him to the conclusion are nearly all unpleasant : but whether he ever formulates the idea or crystallizes it in a word, or whether he remains merely the practical man — in the usual sense of the unreflective man — he acquires the certainty that there is a whole series of conditions and results in the world which may fairly well be counted upon. This certainty becomes part of the very texture of his mind. Thus he discovers that fire burns, that hunger weakens, that rain wets, that bodies fall 20