333 
We may take this however as a new point of departure in 
our examination. In connection with it a few remarks ... 
x» ii -i - , , . And he vin- 
lollow, on some a attributes or the Divine Being, dicatesitbycon- 
especially His Omnipotence and Benevolence; as to attributes of°the 
which Mr. Mill adds a needless chapter a little Creator - 
further on in the volume ; the more needless, because he mistakes 
those ideas in the phenomenal for the Essence of the Prae- 
phenomenal, or absolute. Hitherto we have occupied ourselves 
chiefly with the logical incoherences of Mr. Mill’s book ; we will 
now deal specially with his subject. 
He puts his point briefly (p. 37) in these words : — “If the 
Maker can do all that He wills, He wills misery.” Again : “If 
the Creator of mankind willed that they should all be virtuous, 
His designs are as completely baffled as if He had willed that they 
should all be happy.’’ In strange, and we could even say uncul- 
tured, sentences like these we perceive at once the origin of much 
perverse speculation. Now we have no intention at all of just 
asking our essayist, (as some do), to strike a balance in favour of 
the Divine benevolence in Nature. We must go to first principles. 
He here assumes primarily in the First Cause some kind of 
Will as well as Power; but he does not hint what they are ; 
and leaves out altogether the secondary conception of finite 
wills, and finite powers as “ working together with God.” 
An intelligent Creator and a mechanical Universe are the sum 
of his theory ; and even conscious Happiness and Virtue in 
his universe, he speaks of as definite constructions — the result 
of a fiat of Omnipotence. He does not perceive that the 
kind of will and power attributed by him to the Supreme 
Himself in limine is a contradiction in se ; nor that his own 
notion of virtue is distinct from volition. We might judge, 
indeed, from the common scope of his writing, that, except when 
he takes it as a part of fixed organization, he only conceives of 
“will” as what may be termed caprice, and quite apart from 
that relation to the Good, without which Will would not be even 
“thinkable” in the Perfect Being; nor does he conceive of 
Power except as phenomenal potentiality, and so apart from the 
Essential. All this is far too vital to be hastily passed by. 
23. If, in cotitemplating the Will and Power of the Creator, 
we think of Flint as the pras-phenomenal Essential Intelli- 
gence, existing in Himself, His Will would mean His “good 
pleasure,” (as an apostle has phrased it), and His Power, 
essential activity according with that “good plea- Mr.Miithere 
sure.” The notion of merely capricious capacity for £™ f ^ e e s no me? 
boundless phenomenal exertion is so great an outrage nai^wun^th e 
on thought as to be inconceivable of the Perfect Being. 1 11 
VOL. ix. 2 A 
