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which, though he tried to make a place for human volition as 
originative, he, at the same time, treated man as part of a fixed 
organization called “ Nature,” and also as a “ former of his own 
character ” towards some a priori standard, which he called 
“ noblest,” “best,” and “ commendable,” — which is impossible ; 
for he cannot be both. To be so inconsistent is indeed very hon- 
ourable to Mr. Mill as a man ; but as a “ thinker,” it shows him 
to have been unequal to his subject, which we might now dismiss, 
as intellectually disposed of ; but that something further is to be 
done before we dispose of the task which belongs to us. 
29. In dealing as we have dealt with Mr. Mill’s ideas of Nature, 
and his thesis, that “ Nature is not to be followed v because 
so evil that in one department it might even be regarded as the 
work of “ a demon,” — we have for the most part confined our- 
selves to the exposui’e of his first principles, and so, we suppose, 
destroyed the entire ground of his assault. Some thoughts as to 
details may, however, be added ; though details are passed over 
by us if we find them without argumentative value. 
We should, of course, distinguish between those parts of the 
animal kingdom which are so constituted as to be capable of what 
Mr. Mill would simply call “suffering,” or pain, and those which 
are not. The lower organizations e.g. haveonly slight inconvenience 
from accidents which to the higher would be painful, — in most cases 
only enough to suggest self-preservation. This is so commonly 
ordered as to be to them a good, a guard of life. As to the higher 
organizations, pain results from changes of state in some cases salu- 
tary, in others useful and more than countervailing the inconveni- 
ence. The first coming into being, the growth of consciousness, the 
progress to higher life, — all transitions involving separation from 
what went before,— imply unsettlement and a restless condition, 
having some analogy to pain, if not to evil. But all these which 
are births to a nobler future, though they be “a travailing in 
pain together” as an apostle said, are frequently welcomed by the 
advancing nature of man. And this thought opens to us a train 
of moral reflections much unperceived, we suppose, by Mr. Mill. 
The transforming and elevating power of Enduring, in the loftier 
conscious agent, reveals to us the dignity of suffering, and shows 
that pain is not to be dissociated from its moral influence. The 
evil or the good of any condition is gauged by the individual 
consciousness. To St. Paul Death itself was a grand movement 
to immortal life ; not only KipSoe, but artcpavog, npi) ; the 
conscious being’s mightiest action here. 
It will not be supposed then that we accept even in the 
least Mr. Mill’s inflated account of the evils which afflict the 
“ animal creation.” Physical suffering, to which alone he refers, 
is limited and utilized by sensation and consciousness; and even 
