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and causation, and initiatory power are inevitable to him. Not 
once can he venture, however, to explain what he means by any of 
these terms which yet he employs. Are prae-phenomenal “powers,’' 
e.g., or “causes'” of any kind, reckoned in his vocabulary as 
“phenomena”? (and if so, we ask — “phenomena” to whom ? — 
(PcavofxEvov implies d> (paiverai ; and if not, what is it?) What 
is the place of the “phenomena” in reference to “Nature”? Are 
unseen “ powers of Nature,” eg., force, volition, intelligence, 
simply mechanical (p. 8) parts of Nature? Is this assumed, 
or is it proved ? Certainly they are contained in the totality of 
being; but how? is the question. Mr. Mill says, “Nature is a 
collective name for all facts, actual and possible”; which, no 
doubt, is comprehensive enough. Does he mean by a “ collective 
name,” then, the same as he meant before by an “ abstraction ” ? 
19. Is Mr. Mill as a metaphysician committed to that ? We 
shall see, perhaps, when we discuss his notice of the a priori in a 
future page. Meanwhile, we observe that the essayist seemed at 
this point again to suspect his own accuracy, for he 
ji to i m 1 J Still further 
adds as another modification, “to speak more accu- modifications 
rately, Nature is a name for the mode partly tionofNature! 
known to us, and partly unknown, in which all 
things take placed’ This is our logician’s notion of “ speaking 
more accurately ” / Only look at it. “ Nature” was the “ aggre- 
gate ” of the Universe, including mind ; then it was an aggre- 
gate excepting mind ; now, it is a “ mode.” And this is said by- 
way of being “ accurate.” And as to the very unmanageable 
quantity — “conscious” being, or “mind” — which troubles 
Mr. Mill at every turn, we may suppose, for the time, that it 
also is a “ mode ” ! 
But, it will be noted, some things in Nature have been admit- 
ted “as far as we are concerned, to be spontaneous” (p. 7); (does 
that mean “consciously”?) — and yet to be quite dependent on 
mere “ elementary forces.” So then it is not easy, at least, to 
say that the “ spontaneous ” conscious being is anything more 
than a “mode” dependent on forces. But a “ mode ” is an ab- 
straction. Are we all of us, then, abstractions ? Mr. Mill seems 
to admit man to be something, and then to resolve him into nearly 
nothing, depending on abstractions. Perhaps man is intended to 
come in under the category of agents “ partly known and partly 
unknown ” ? Even “ spontaneity,” however, is not peculiar to 
man ; for Mr. Mill attributes a figurative spontaneity to abstract 
Nature itself, — even though it seems to be spontaneity without 
“ spons .” Nature, as a guide, is thus finally dismissed ; and yet 
man as a conscious agent stands alone in her midst. 
20. We may now, perhaps, taking our leave of the “de- 
finitions,” best understand on the whole Mr. Mill’s attitude 
