"In
sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned
for doing to one another, are nature's everyday performances. Nature
impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured
by wild beasts, crushes them with stones like the first Christian
martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them
by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations." [Footnote: J. S. Mill,
Three Essays on Religion: "Nature," p. 28.] The evolutionary process
is cruel and merciless; multitudes perish for every one that survives,
and the survivor is not the most deserving, but the strongest or swiftest
or cleverest. Why should we imitate such ruthless ways? Nature is to
be not followed but improved upon. Not only morality, but most of man's
activity, consists in making nature over to suit his needs. "If nature
and man are both the works of a Being of perfect goodness, that Being
intended nature as a scheme to be amended, not imitated, by man."
[Footnote: Ibid, p. 41.]
(2) Not only is there no reason WHY we should "follow nature," but
the result of so doing would be any thing but what we agree is moral.
Hardly a sin is committed but was "natural" to the sinner. It is
"natural" to lose our tempers; to be vain, selfish, greedy, lustful.
Nothing could be practically more pernicious than the idea that an
impulse is right because it is natural; that is, because it is common
to most men.
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