To know anything or God,in whatever sense,we must go to 'Nature.'In the first essay Mill discusses the question whether anything can be made of the various systems which prescribe 'imitation of Nature'or obedience to the laws of Nature.If Nature be taken in the widest sense,as including man,such systems are migratory.Disobedience to a 'law of Nature'is not wrong but impossible.We may,however,take Nature in the narrower sense in which it is the antithesis of art;or,as he puts it,as meaning 'that which takes place without human intervention.'(127)It is plain that,in this sense,the whole aim of all human endeavour must be to improve.Nature.Mill emphasises this by expanding the indictment against Nature,which has become more familiar in discussions of the 'struggle for existence.'The 'absolute recklessness of the great cosmic forces,'(128)the variety of torments,such as the worst tyrants have hardly used,inflicted upon all living beings without the slightest regard to justice,are amply sufficient reasons for not 'imitating Nature.'Hence Mill protests emphatically against the notion that 'goodness is natural.'(129)All the virtues are in his sense 'artificial.'Sympathy begins as a form of selfishness --selfishness for two --and the sentiment of justice is developed by the necessity of external law.It is the pressure from without,the interest of each in the goodness of others,which has really created the moral world.The 'germs'of all these virtues must,it is true,have been present;the species could not have existed had it not been endowed with desire for useful ends;but then,we must also admit the existence of bad instincts,producing 'rankly luxuriant growths'of vice against which a long and precarious struggle must be carried on.(130)Mill is thus saying emphatically much that has been said by later evolutionists.One remark is obvious.The distinction between 'Natural'and 'Artificial'in this sense is clearly arbitrary for one who,like Mill,rejects the doctrine of Freewill.If Nature makes men with certain capacities,Nature must also be taken to be the cause of all human 'intervention.'
The sphere of the 'artificial'is merely one part of the sphere of the 'natural.''Sympathy'and 'justice'are not the less natural because they are in this sense artificial.Mill is,of course,fully aware of the fact that his 'nature'is here at most department of Nature in the wider sense.Yet the illegitimate distinction seems more or less to affect his conclusions.He comes to speak as if the distinction corresponded to a line between different worlds.In the non-human world we appear to catch 'Nature'alone and unaided;we can see what it can do its by itself,and judge,if not of its justice,at least of benevolence.He is thus led to use language about men amending Nature or 'co-operating with the beneficent powers,'(131)which would be more consistent in a thorough-going advocate of Freewill,but which in his mouth must be taken as a metaphorical or provisional mode of speech.To one who uses 'nature'in the widest sense as implying a conception of the universe as a whole,the narrower use would be meaningless.But,as we shall now see,the unity of nature is a conception which Mill virtually rejects.
Mill has shown conclusively that it is impossible to interpret Nature as the work of omnipotent Benevolence.So far,he agrees with many predecessors,including Hume and Mansel;(132)but he does not with Hume become simply sceptical,nor follow Mansel in pronouncing that we must believe a doctrine which we are unable to 'construe to the mind'as conceivable.He suggests an alternative view.It is possible to believe in a God who is benevolent though not omnipotent.This,he declares,is the only 'religious explanation of the order of Nature,'which is neither self-contradictory nor inconsistent with facts.(133)He 'ventures to assert,'moreover,that it has been the real faith of all who have drawn a worthy support from trust in Providence;'they have always saved [God's]goodness at the expense of His power.'This,for example,is the true meaning of Leibniz's 'best of all possible worlds.'(134)Mill declares that the doctrine of the Manichaeans,which he knows to have been 'devoutly held by at least one cultivated and conscientious person of our own day,'is the only 'form of belief in the supernatural which stands wholly clear both of intellectual contradiction and moral obliquity.'(135)He points out,too,that even Christianity admits a devil,though it places upon the Creator the responsibility of not annihilating him.(136)Now Manichaeism is a clear confession of philosophical bankruptcy.The whole aim of reasoning is to reduce the universe to unity,and this is to admit that there is an ultimate and insoluble dualism.From the point of view of the ontologist,indeed,the moral difficulty which Manichaeism is supposed to meet is irrelevant.God is the ground or First Cause.Evil is caused as much as good,and if a first cause or an absolute substance be a necessary assumption,we must ascribe to it the whole system of things,good or bad,painful or pleasurable,without trying to separate what is inextricably intertwined.An argument from causation leaves no locus standi for any moral objection.Mill,however,denies the necessity for,or indeed the possibility of,such reasoning.He is fully prepared to admit that in the last resort we come to independent and equally uncaused factors.The question,then,remains,what positive ground we can assign for a belief in any first cause or causes or 'supernatural entities.'
