323 
§ 1. Nature. 
5. The Essay entitled “ Nature ” begins by calling attention 
to the meaning of the terms “ Nature, natural, and Essay x 
the group of words derived from them, or allied to “Nature.” 
them in etymology.” Nature is the platform on the level 
of which, one would think, a man who has no Religion must 
needs stand (§ 4). If that fail him, he has nothing to look 
to. We are willing to pause here at once. This part of the 
examination must not be lightly made, either from Mr. Mill’s 
point of view or our own, for it is absolutely necessary. Nature 
and Revelation — Nature and Grace — and Nature and the 
Supernatural, are in such sense correlatives, that the student 
of the latter may not decline the former. 
It may seem needless to premise, that “ Nature as it now is” 
is not regarded by the Christian philosophy as the rest of man’s 
heart, or a satisfaction for all his thoughts. But rejectors of the 
Supernatural usually take the Natural as their alternative. We 
own that we were not prepared for such an account of Nature 
de facto , as would enable Mr. Mill to repudiate Nature as com- 
pletely at last (p. 58) as he had repudiated Revelation. As his 
latest effort, he would tear off’ the mask which enabled Nature to 
tempt man to any Religion at all. But his treatment of Nature 
will be found as unjust and illogical as could be possible. 
We are led, as just observed, to expect a Socratic inquiry ; 
and first, as to what is meant by the “ Nature of any particular 
object.” But the writer at once proceeds, without any inquiry 
Socratic or otherwise, to announce as “ evident,” a priori, a 
governing definition of his own. He looks around him, and then 
says, “ that the Nature of a particular object (as of fire, water, or 
some individual plant, or animal), evidently is the ensemble or 
aggregate of its powers or properties ; the modes in which it acts 
on other things, (counting among those things the senses of the 
observer), and the modes in which other things act « Nature 0 f 
upon it ; to Avhich in the case of a sentient being a particular 
must be added its own capacities of feeling, or being object ' 
conscious. The Nature of the thing means all this ; means its 
entire capacity of exhibiting phenomena” (p. 5). — Mr. Mill does 
not observe that each object may even thus be more than we know. 
From this definition “ of the Nature of any given thing,” or par- 
ticular object, we then advance to what is called “ Nature in the 
abstract,” which is described as “ the aggregate of the 
powers and properties of all things,” the sum of all thc abstract.” 
“ phenomena together with the causes which produce 
them”. . . . “the unused capabilities of causes” being also 
