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 nostrils with kindly warning.  If it be objected that vast numbers of the race live in cities where every sense is continually offended, it is to be remembered that “man made the town,” and is to be held responsible for the unhappiness there resulting from his violations of natural law.  But even in cities Nature is more kind to man than he is to himself, and dulls his faculties against the deformities and discords of his own creating.  From the sense of feeling it is probable we receive more pain than pleasure, but by no means so much more as to overbalance the great preponderance of delights coming through the other avenues:  a great part of such pain is cautionary, and much can be avoided by voluntary action; and the stimulus thus given by the wise severity of Nature