y and justice_;"
"she inflicts torture in _apparent wantonness_;" "everything which
_the worst men_ commit against life and property is perpetrated on a
larger scale by natural agents;" "Nature has noyades more fatal than
those of Carrier: her plague and cholera far surpass the poison-cups
of the Borgias." Such are a few of the impassioned and presumptuous
expressions which Mr. Mill allows himself to use in speaking of the
great mystery of human suffering, which others touch with reverence,
and do not dare to reprobate, since they cannot understand. His words
are as false as they are bold. Fierce and terrible as Nature is in
some of her aspects, it is not true that her _prevailing_ attitude is,
as here indicated, one of bitter hostility to the race she nourishes
on her bosom. If she were the monster here described, mankind would
long ago have perished under her persistent cruelties, and Mr. Mill's
profane cry would never have gone up to Heaven. Men will always regard
the world subjectively, and adjudge it happy or the reverse according
to their temperament or passing humor; but, if it be conceded--as it
is by Mr. Mill through his whole argument--that man is a moral
creature, with a true power of self-determination within certain
limits, and with sufficient intelligence to discern the laws of
Nature, and that therefore all the pain that man brings upon himself
by voluntary violation of discovered law is to be deducted from the
sum-total of human suffering to arrive at the amount that is
attributable to Nature, most men, if they are honest, will on
reflection admit that Nature brings to the great body of the human
family immeasurably more comfort, if not pleasure, than she does pain.
Take the senses, which are the sources of physical pleasure. How
seldom, comparatively, the eye is pained, while it rests with habitual
gratification upon the sky and landscape, and on the human form divine
when unmarred by vice! How rarely the taste is offended or the
appetite starved, while every meal, be it ever so simple, yields
enjoyment to the palate! The ear is regaled with the perpetual music
of wind and ocean and feathered minstrelsy, of childhood's voice and
the sweet converse of friends. So, too, Nature is a great laboratory
of delicate odors: the salt breath of the sea is like wine to the
sense; the summer air is freighted with delights, and every tree and
flower exhales fragrance: only where danger lurks does Nature assault
the n