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330 
the “ conscious agent, 1 ’ with him, simply one part of fixed 
uniform universal Nature? or is he, as the second hypothesis 
supposes, a being essentially apart, a Cause of action, sui generis ? 
If the former, the pretended alternative is unreal; if the latter, 
the assertion that there is absolutely no power to “ do the 
smallest thing,” even with the qualification accompanying it, is 
without meaning. We repeat — In the first sense of the word 
“ Nature” we are assured that “ no one can possibly help con- 
forming to Nature” (p. 15). Then accepting the second sense, 
it is dimly said (p. 17) that “ we can use one law of Nature to 
counteract another”; as though this “ we” were not a necessary 
part of Nature, in both cases, or else a real Cause — in se. 
17. It is hardly possible to exceed this logomachy. Which- 
tt- . ever horn of the dilemma Mr. Mill might 
senses of Na- choose, he is self-convicted, first as to both his 
coherent as definitions, and then as to his attempted use of 
hypotheses. them. He struggles hard to make the double defi- 
nition serve him a little later; saying, “while human action 
cannot help conforming to Nature in the one meaning of the 
term, the very aim and object of action is to alter and improve 
Nature in the other” (p. 17). But what does he gain by this? 
Are not the “ aim,” the “ action,” the “ altering,” and “ improv- 
ing,” already included in his term “ Nature” ? And if so, why 
this division into conscious and unconscious being? Why not 
be satisfied with the simple dictum that it is a physical impossi- 
bility for man to act except necessarily, and so as a part of the 
Natural whole ? Of course these definitions within definitions 
may have been prepai'ed to bring about Mr. Mill’s conclusions, 
but the conclusions refuse to come. “ The ways of Nature,” he 
apologetically says, “are to be conquered, not obeyed”; but 
then, according to him, the “ power” that “ conquers ” is a part 
of Nature; and though spoken of as if outside Nature, because 
in fact its “ improver,” — yet it is no distinct power ! 
18. Surely one half of these lucubrations would have suf- 
ficed to crush any one who set up as a thinker, had he not 
Yet he op- a party pledged in some sense to his reputation, and 
pose* ^hem to ea g er followers wishing beforehand to find his conclu- 
phiiosophy, m sions true. It is with the equipment of these broken 
definitions, and sub-definitions, that our Essayist has 
ram." the assurance to encounter Plato and Aristotle, 
Bacon and Cuvier, Berkeley and Butler — in a word, every 
student of Nature, every lover of Nature, who has ever revealed 
his thoughts and heart to his fellow-man. 
It is not at all superfluous again, however, to reiterate, that in 
all Mr. Mill’s attempted analysis of the doctrine implied in “Sequi 
Naturam ” the alternate denial, and use, of the ideas of volition, 
