46. Nature

Nature is that innate creative force which operates in the physical world, on this planet, and which causes, or is the genesis of, and controls, living organisms in certain ways. These "certain ways" are the laws of Nature. The 'evolution of species' is a term used to describe a theory about one of the ways in which Nature works. Nature is a word used in two major sets of ways, which are inter-connected in a complex way, for reasons related to the history of science, epistemology and metaphysics, particularly in Western Civilization.

Nature is that innate creative force which operates in the physical world, on this planet, and which causes, or is the genesis of, and controls, living organisms in certain ways. These "certain ways" are the laws of Nature. The 'evolution of species' is a term used to describe a theory about one of the ways in which Nature works.

Nature can thus be conceived as a type of being. This does not mean that Nature should be understood in anthropomorphic terms, but rather that Nature is a living, changing, and entity: some-thing which is alive. We ourselves, as human beings, are simply one manifestation, one presencing, of Nature among many: that is, we are subject to the laws of Nature, the laws which govern organic change and organic life itself. Like all life on this planet, we are born, we grow and change, and we die. Most cultures had, or have, a belief that Nature is living, and the Mother of, the bringer-forth of, all life.

In olden times, Nature herself was often personified in terms of gods, and goddesses. That is, we apprehended Nature in terms of ourselves - in terms of individual beings with names, a history and a distinct personality. However, this type of apprehension is no longer necessary nor valid since we have developed, over the last few thousand years, the faculty of pure reason and can understand Nature, ourselves and the cosmos beyond Nature, in a natural manner without such intermediate forms. That is, we can now apprehend Nature as Nature is. Hitherto, we projected human-type forms onto Nature in an effort to comprehend Nature as we did not possess much of an understanding of the cosmos beyond Nature and how Nature is but part of this cosmos.

Many religions and many philosophies do not accept that Nature is alive, or that there is a creative force inherent in Nature. Instead, many religions posit God as the Creator. To the extent that people might see Nature or the "natures" of things separate from the things themselves, for example if they would believe that human nature exists separately from humans, then they are in conflict with the modern scientific understanding of Nature, and their own understanding hearkens back to a debate within Classical Greek philosophy, which has never quite been resolved.