s natural, _i.e._, a part of
Nature, as justice and wisdom. Morbidity and immorality are as natural
as health and purity. Not more so, but not less so. That 'Nature is made
better by no mean but Nature makes that mean,' is true enough. It is
inevitably true. The question remains, in making that mean, has she
really made anything that tends toward the final achievement of
universal happiness? I say she has not.

"The misuse of a word, it may be argued, could not prove a serious
obstacle to the growth of knowledge, and might be even interesting to
the student of etymology. But behind the misuse of the word 'natural'
there is a serious confusion of thought which must be clarified before
the mass of human intelligence can arrive at a just appreciation of the
verities which surround human existence, and explain it. To this end it
is necessary to get rid of the archaic idea of Nature as a paternal,
providential, and beneficent protector, a successor to the 'special
providence,' and to know the true Nature, bond-slave as she is of her
own eternal persistence of force; that sole primary principle of which
all other principles are only correlatives; of which the existence of
matter is but a cognisable evidence.

"The optimist notion, therefore, that Nature is an all-wise designer, in
whose work order, system, wisdom, and beauty are prominent, does not
fare well when placed under the microscope of scientific research.

"Order?

"There is no order in Nature. Her armies are but seething mobs of
rioters, destroying everything they can lay hands on.

"System?

"She has no system, unless it be a _reductio ad absurdum_, which only
blunders on the right way after fruitlessly trying every other
conceivable path. She is not wise. She never fills a pail but she spills
a hogshead. All her works are not beautiful. She never makes a
masterpiece but she smashes a million 'wasters' without a care. The
theory of evolution--her gospel--reeks with ruffianism, nature-patented
and promoted. The whole scheme of the universe, all material existence
as it is popularly known, is founded upon and begotten of a system of
everlasting suffering as hideous as the fantastic nightmares of
religious maniacs. The Spanish Inquisitors have been regarded as the
most unnatural monsters who ever disgraced the history of mankind. Yet
the atrocities of the Inquisitors, like the battlefields of Napoleon and
other heroes, were not only natural, but they have their