This is the fundamental basis of his theory.

It is assumed that the recognition of natural laws is incompatible with the belief in supernatural powers, and that these laws must be invariable and independent of any superior will.

Hence the supposed antagonism between Theology and Physical Science, which is strongly affirmed by M.
Comte[77]; as if the laws of Nature could not exist unless they were independent of the Divine will, or as if the arts of industry could not be pursued, on the supposition of a Providence, without sacrilegious presumption.

The laws for which he contends must have had no author to establish, and can have no superior will to control them; they had no beginning, and can have no end; they cannot be reversed, suspended, or interfered with; they are necessary, immutable, and eternal, not subordinate to God, but independent of Him; they are, in short, nothing less than Destiny or Fate, the same that Cudworth describes as the Democritic, Physiological, or Atheistic Fate, which consists in "the material necessity of all things without a God."[78] Now, we have no jealousy of natural laws.

We believe in their existence; we believe, also, in their regular operation in the ordinary course of Nature; but we deny that they must needs be _independent_ of a supreme will, and affirm that, being subordinate to that will, they are not necessarily _invariable_.