If Mr. Mill finds
it necessary to rail at Nature because she did not put coal on the top
of the ground and build bridges and dig wells for man's convenience,
why not call her a jade at once because she does not grow ready-made
clothing of the latest mode in sizes to suit, because the trees do not
bear hot rolls and coffee, and because Mr. Mill's philosophy is not an
intuition of the mind? He is less restrained in speaking of the moral
enormities of Nature. Altogether the most striking passage in the
book is his indictment of the Author of Nature, which is truly Satanic
in its audacity and hardly to be paralleled in literature for its
impiety; for it is impious even from Mr. Mill's standpoint, since he
admits that the weight of evidence tends to prove that Nature's Author
is both wise and good. We transcribe only some of his expressions:
"Nearly all things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one
another are Nature's _every-day performances_;" she "has a hundred
hideous deaths" reserved for her victims, "such as the ingenious
cruelty of a Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed," which "she uses
with _the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and justice_;"
"she inflicts torture in _apparent wantonness_;" "everything which
_the worst men_ commit against life and property is perpetrated on a
larger scale by natural agents;" "Nature has noyades more fatal than
those of Carrier: her plague and cholera far surpass the poison-cups
of the Borgias.
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