THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
whether a teleological element must be reckoned with. Further, since such laws are derived largely from experience, which is highly diversified and seemingly endless, it is impossible to fix upon a limited number of laws of nature and say that they are all. Attempts to set up a single law, upon which all natural processes depend, have proved as ineffectual as similar attempts of metaphysicians to reduce all ontology to some one formal proposition. In both cases the unifying principle is empty and abstract, and its truth is denied by the very multiplicity of existence. The law of causation has been taken as such a general formula; but it is seen at once that this transcends mere natural events. Evolution, as the single law to which all natural events are to be subordinated, is likewise unsatisfactory. It would also control all psychical life, individual and social, as well as natural phenomena. Merely with such general formulas very little would have been accomplished by science; for they really give no explanation of phenomena. In the very conception of event and phenomenon, evolution and causation are already assumed. Even from the law of the conservation of energy, which seems to have more content than the two just mentioned, it is impossible to deduce the single laws that actually govern natural events.
Attempts to formulate the laws of nature reach far back into antiquity. In the philosophy of Anaximander and Heraclitus the eternal flux of things expresses the most general law; and similarly Anaximenes. Plato and Aristotle speak of laws of nature, but do not formulate them. As to the origin of these laws, there are two familiar views. According to the first, which originated with Anaxagoras, they were given to the world by the Godhead. Thus hold both deists and theists. According to the second, or naturalistic, view, which originated with Democritus, these laws are eternal and immanent in the world. Thus held Spinoza. Kant opposed both these views. He taught that man is not only his own law-giver in the practical field, but that he is even the law-giver of nature, since all the concepts, axioms, and laws which make possible a synthesis of perceptions, or experience, or science based upon experience, are immanent in his understanding. While there may be an a priori element in the laws of nature, the fact remains that such laws, even the most universal, are discovered only on the basis of experience. With the laws of nature must not be confused Natural Law (q.v.). (M. HEiNZEf.) Bibliography: G. D. Campbell (the duke of Argyll), The Reign of Law, new ed., New York, 1885; F. Schultze, Philosophic der Naturwissenschaft, 2 parts, Leipsic, 1881; H. Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, London, 1883 and often; G. D. Campbell, The Unity of Nature, ib. 1884; idem, The Reign of Lav-, ib. 1867 and often; N. S. Shaler, The Interpretation of Nature, Boston, 1893; G. C. Zimmer, Ueberdas Wesen der Naturgesetze, Giessen, 1893; R. Rohrich, Ratselhafte Hinge. Einfiihrung in die Grundgesetze der Natur, Leipsie, 1897; C. H. Crawford, Natural Laws Governing the Mortal and Immortal Worlds, Chicago, 1904; E. Dennert, Naturgesetz, Zufall, Vorsehungt Hamburg, 1906; E. Boutroux, Ueber den Begriff des Naturgesetzes . in der Philosophic der Gegenwart, Jena, 1907.
NAUDE, ne"de', PHILIPPE: Franco-German Reformed; b. at Metz Dec. 28, 1654; d. at Berlin Mar. 7, 1729. As a boy he spent four years as page to the count of Weimar at Marksuhl. Attempts
made here to convert him from the Reformed to the Lutheran faith led him to devote himself to theological studies, which he continued on his return to Metz. On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) he fled to Germany. In 1687 he settled at Berlin as a teacher of mathematics, becoming professor of mathematics at the Academy of Sciences in 1704. His mathematical works are overshadowed by his numerous theological writings. These are all devoted to defending the sovereign grace of God on a supralapsarian basis. In his Morale evangelique (2 vols., Berlin, 1699), he attacked naturalistic ethics, divorced from revealed religion, which denied the origin of evil in the world. His La Souveraine Perfection de Dieu dans ses divers attributs (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1708) was directed primarily against the philosopher Pierre Bayle and the French preacher at Berlin, Isaac Jaquelot, the former doubting Christianity, the latter being universalistic in tendency. The Recueil des objections (1709) sought to show that infralapsarians differ from supralapsarians only in phraseology. He renewed his attack on Bayle in Refutation du " Commentaire philosophique " (Berlin, 1718). His Exarnen de deux traites (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1713) was directed against the non-traditional theology of the Copenhagen preacher La Placette and the Swiss theologian Osterwald. He assailed the mysticism of Pierre Poiret in his Griindliche Untersuchung der mystischen Theologie (Zerbst, 1713) and polemized against the universalistic tendency of the theological faculty of Frankfort in his Theologische Gedanken uber den Entwurf der Lehre von der Beschaffenheit und Ordnung der gottlichen Ratschlusse (1714).
(F W. CuNof.) Bibliography: D. H. Hering, Beitrage zur Geschichte der reformierten Kirche in den preussisch-brandenburgischen Landern, vol.ii., Breslau, 178.5; Niceron, Memoires, vol. xli.
NAUMBURG, naum'burg, BISHOPRIC OF: An
ancient bishopric in what is now Prussian Saxony, founded at the same time and under the same circumstances as those of Merseburg and Meissen (qq.v.). The original seat of the bishopric was at Zeitz. It included the Wendish districts on the right bank of the upper Saale. The conversion of the inhabitants was a slow process, and had not been completed by the beginning of the twelfth century. This accounts for the transference of the see from Zeitz to Naumburg, on the borders of the German-speaking territory, at the instance of Conrad II., which was confirmed by John XIX. in 1028.
(A. Hauck.)
The town of Naumburg was presented to the bishop at the time of the transfer; but the margraves of Meissen, nominally protectors of the see, kept the secular authority in their own hands until Bishop Meinher (d. 1280) established the sovereignty of the bishop. In the time of Philip, palsgrave of the Rhine and duke of Bavaria (1517—41), a usually non-resident bishop, the Reformation made great progress in the district. At his death the canons elected Julius von Pflug, the last Roman Catholic bishop (1541-64), whose place was contested by Nicholas von Amsdorf, on the strength of consecration at the hands of Luther. Bibliography: C. P Lepsius, Geschichte der Bischafe des
Hochstijts Naumburg, part i., Naumburg, 1846; S. Braim,