shows the

impossibility of regarding either the external order of nature,

man ought to follow nature is unmeaning; since man has no power to do anything else than follow nature; all his actions are done through, and in obedience to, some one or many of nature's physical or mental laws.

"In the other sense of the term, the doctrine that man ought to follow nature, or in other words, ought to make the spontaneous course of things the model of his voluntary actions, is equally irrational and immoral.

"Irrational, because all human action whatever consists in altering, and all useful action in improving, the spontaneous course of nature:

"Immoral, because the course of material phenomena being replete with everything which when committed by human beings is most worthy of abhorrence, any one who endeavoured in his actions to imitate the natural course of things would be universally seen and acknowledged to be the wickedest of men." 1

"In sober truth," he says in another passage, 'nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are nature's everyday performances.” 2

In his passionate denunciation of natural forces Mill treats them as forming a stationary system; he takes little or no account of the view that nature may be progressively working out an end 1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 68. 2 Ibid., p. 28.

in interaction with human beings. "If Nature and Man are both the works of a Being of perfect goodness," he says, then "that Being intended Nature as a scheme to be amended, not imitated, by man.' He overlooks the hypothesis, which is surely complementary to his own, that Nature may be intended to draw out and develop human character. The idea that man, the highest product of nature, is both educated by nature and the instrument by means of which natural law may be turned to moral ends is suggested by many of his arguments, and may have been prevented from receiving distinct expression only by his underlying assumption that nature is radically bad. Had Mill written a few years later, a wider view of man's relation to natural forces might have been forced upon his attention by the theory of evolution.

Even within the essay there are considerations which might have led the author to bring into prominence this other aspect of the relation between nature and man. Having shown the impossibility of adopting the external course of nature as a rule of life, he asks what moral guidance can. be given by the nature of man himself. is," he says, one particular element in the con- factors of struction of the world, which to minds on the look- human nature, as the out for special indications of the Creator's will, has appeared, not without plausibility, peculiarly fitted

1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 41.

"There or the primitive

moral stand

ard;

to afford them-viz., the active impulses of human and other animated beings." This view, if unqualified in statement, would, as Mill points out, obliterate the whole distinction between good and evil in conduct. With it we are already familiar: it results from the confusion of the prior in time with the higher in importance, so that impulse and instinct are thought to be superior in moral authority to deliberation, perhaps as being more immediate effects of the divine handiwork. Mill's treatment of this doctrine gives an interesting indication of his own views. He does not in so many words maintain that man is radically bad; but "it remains true," he says, "that nearly every respectable attribute of humanity is the result not of instinct, but of a victory over instinct." "It is only in a highly artificialised condition of human nature," he adds, "that the notion grew up or, I believe, ever could have grown up, that goodness was natural: because only after a long course of artificial education did good sentiments become so habitual, and so predominant over bad, as to arise unprompted when occasion called for them."2 If we judge instinct by the conduct of early and uncivilised races, we find neither virtue nor the love of virtue, only a capacity for acquiring it. Hobbes had long before described the pre-social or savage life as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"; 1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 43. 2 Ibid., p. 46.

Mill adds a companion picture of the nature of savages: selfish, passionate, cowardly, dirty, always liars, and without any sense of justice. It is only because mankind are guided by interest, that is, in so far as a deliberate estimate of consequences overrules instinctive action, that the tendencies to evil do not overcome the tendencies to good in human nature. The rational factor in progress is exaggerated by Mill; but its importance is rightly emphasised as against instinct's claim to guide, and its influence has been constantly on the increase. It ought to be observed, however, that the beneficial effects of rational guidance depend upon the insight which reason gives into the natural and social conditions of welfare. To understand the laws of nature and of social wellbeing, is to have taken the first step towards adapting conduct to circumstances; and the individual human being is educated and moralised through this intelligent adaptation.

For the appeal to nature Mill substitutes a deliberate calculation of the felicific results of conduct. But even this calculation depends upon knowledge of the nature of man and of the world. but overIt does not prove nature to be the standard of right and wrong; but it does show that the moral- the natural isation of man has taken place by interaction with growth of a natural and social order, which may therefore character.

1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 53.

looks the influence of

order on the

moral

claim to stand in intimate relation with human

morality.

The older doctrine of the moral significance of nature depended, in the last resort, on an implied reference to a divine order which it was man's

duty to understand and follow. Against this doctrine Mill laid down the counter-position that, if God is good He must intend the happiness of His creatures, and that this result can only be attained by correcting nature, not by following it: seeing that the course of nature, if uninterfered with, leads to misery. But this opposition of nature to morality is more abrupt than his premisses justify. It is something that nature lends itself to improvement. It is besides an orderly system; and it promotes order amongst those who live within it. It displays adaptations; and it encourages their foresight. To improve it needs effort and co-operation: so that its very imperfections are fitted to cultivate the personal and social virtues of man.

Had Mill written a few years later it is not likely that he would have been content to regard nature as a stationary system. Even before the publication of his essay, Darwin's work had modified the scientific view of the relation of living beings to their environment; and the suggestion had been already made that the new theory of evolution might be able to explain morality and