D.A. Armstrong’s account (1983, intimately influenced by Tooley 1977 and Swoyer 1982) of natural laws is that they arerelations between universals.Armstrong doesn’t simply hold that laws are some relationships or other between universals. He also holds that they are first-order universals themselves (1983, pp. 89-90). Each ordinary law-say,causallaw-is numerically identical to some first-order universal. This is a striking, seemingly incredible hypothesis. What is Armstrong thinking of when he says (1983, p. 90):I propose that the state of affairs, the law, N(F,G), (...) is a dyadic universal, that is, a relation, holding between states of affairs. Suppose that a particular object, a, is F, and so, because of the law N(F,G), it, a, is also G. This state of affairs, an instantiation of the law, has the form Rab, where R = N(F,G), a = a’s being F, and b, = b’s being G:(N(F,G))(a's being F, b's being G). (shrink)