Natural life

“ The spiritual and the natural are, therefore, but different states of the same forms of life. In the natural world there are men, women, beasts of the field, fowls of the air, and vegetation in boundless and varied forms. ”

“ More to the point, at this stage of our inquiry, than a formally precise definition of Nature, is a consideration of the motives which lead us to acknowledge as real the facts that we all call physical, — viz. to acknowledge the existence of matter, the laws of natural processes, and the dependence of our own mental life upon these processes. To this aspect of the problem of Nature we accordingly at once proceed. ”

“ Again, That these sensitive and rational parts of matter are the purest and subtilest parts of Nature, as the active parts, the knowing, understanding and prudent parts, the designing, architectonical and working parts, nay, the Life and Soul of Nature, and that there is not any Creature or part of nature without this Life and Soul; and that not onely Animals, but also Vegetables, Minerals and Elements, and what more is in Nature, are endued with this Life and Soul, Sense and Reason: and because this Life and Soul is a corporeal Substance, it is both dividable and composable ”

“ Although Nature be Infinite, yet all her Actions seem to be poysed, or balanced, by Opposition; as for example, As Nature hath dividing, so composing actions: Also, as Nature hath regular, so irregular actions; as Nature hath dilating, so contracting actions: In short, we may perceive amongst the Creatures, or Parts of this World, slow, swift, thick, thin, heavy, leight, rare, dense, little, big, low, high, broad, narrow, light, dark, hot, cold, productions, dissolutions, peace, warr, mirth, sadness, and that we name Life, and Death ”

“ Our bodily structure in the large or whole, as necessary to an understanding of the general conditions in man's physical life and as fundamental to instruction in health. The more important native and foreign animals and plants; their growth and life, together with their importance in nature's economy. The natural forces which have greatest significance for organic life and for man's efficiency. ”

“ The old problem of Nature versus nurture that meets us in studying the life history of any organism becomes especially interesting in dealing with the biography of men of eminence. Are their achievements the inevitable expression of the natural forces innate in them at birth, or the product of environmental influences, or some resultant of these two factors? And how much may we in each case assign to one factor or to the other? ”

“ This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life." ”

“ Greatest of all, since the epoch, still hidden from our ken, when organic life began upon the surface of the globe, was the birth of that new era when, through a wondrous change in the direction of the working of natural selection, Humanity appeared upon the scene. ”

“ Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. ”

“ To regard all things and principles of things as inconstant modes or fashions has more and more become the tendency of modern thought. Let us begin with that which is without—our physical life. Fix upon it in one of its more exquisite intervals, the moment, for instance, of delicious recoil from the flood of water in summer heat. What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination of natural elements to which science gives their names? But these elements, phosphorus and lime and delicate fibres, are present not in the human body alone: ”

“ But has Nature,—if we are justified in personifying the laws and forces of the universe,—has mother Nature really our pleasure and benefit in mind, or does she merely suffer us to enjoy life like so many summer insects, until she is in the mood to sweep us like leaves from her path? ”

“ Central to their discussions is the nature of life. Is it continuous, as it appears in vegetation and the animal kingdom, or is it discontinuous like the rocks on the mountainside or the grains of sand on the seashore? ”

“ It is the interaction and resultant of all the forces of Nature, both favourable and unfavourable to life, that determine the development and growth of every individual organism. And so the form and characteristics of every living being depend on the nature and strength of these contending forces. ”

“ It is only by continually keeping in our minds all the facts of nature which I have endeavored, however imperfectly to set before you, that we can possibly realize and comprehend the great problems presented by the "World of Life"—its persistence in ever-changing but unchecked development throughout the geological ages, the exact adaptations of every species to its actual environment both inorganic and organic, and the exquisite forms of beauty and harmony in flower and fruit, in mammal and bird, in mollusc and in the infinitude of the insect-tribes ”

“ Thus it may be seen that Nature, to whom they had gone, was not only busy with the mountain and its life, but that her silent forces were also at work in those whose unperverted hearts were not beyond her power. ”

“ Life is here, but do they know the power that gave it, or the mode of its coming? Vegetation and animals, in great variety, teem upon the face of the earth, but are mankind familiar with the secret springs of their growth and existence? ”

“ The forces of Nature, ever young and active, form one of the most wonderful and admirable spectacles which the universe affords us. The same spirit of life which formed our world out of chaos, continues to develop the germs under our eyes, to repair the wounded plants and renew their injured tissues with fresh growths. ”

“ G, H Ethnological and Medical Science.—Human life, its varieties, physical history, disorders and recreations, follows naturally as a higher development of plant and animal life, and completes the biological chain. ”

“ Along what path, indeed, can the beauty and wisdom of Nature—those endless steps from endless seeming halting-places that become, when reached, but so many points of fresh departure—be run to earth, so to speak? ”

“ In brief, then, Nature is an effect—a product—of a Power lying behind or above it; and it stands, accordingly, to that Power in the relation of an effect to a cause. That cause we shall describe as Spiritual; the effect, as Natural. The Natural, or Nature, is the material Universe embracing the three kingdoms, known as mineral, vegetable, and animal. ”

“ Here in contemplating the stupenduous organization which constitutes animal and vegetable life in Nature's infinite variety, all varying, yet all connected by one common link, operating by one common cause, and to one common end, a successive production and decay, decay and production, the human mind might find an exercise as infinite, and have ideas stirred up equally stupendous. ”

“ We see, indeed, what Nature really is. We see the reality behind the appearance—the content within the outward form. We are not for the moment concerned with the cause but with the character of Nature. ”

“ Either unknowingly or in spite of themselves, Nature leads men by purely personal motives to fulfill her ends: Nature being one of our expressions for the Ultimate Cause of things, and the end, remote when not proximate, being the highest form of human life. ”

“ The fact that we men find Nature here, implies for us, then, that we are so constituted as to find the same sort of natural phenomena. The realm of the physical phenomena, whatever inner Being may be behind it, is, for us, primarily this common realm of human experience. Upon this consideration the very definition of what we call Nature depends. ”

“ And now that we have seen what is the nature of Nature, what is the end she has before her, and how she works to accomplish her end, we feel that we have gone a long way towards knowing and understanding her. ”

“ These worlds produce exactly what our world produces, and bear fruits, animals, and men resembling in all respects terrestrial plants, animals, and human beings. The evolution of life in them is the same as that on our globe. ”

“ There is a knowledge of Nature which, through the life history of plant and animal, throws light on the pupil's own life, gives him an insight into all life in its unity, and leads him to look up reverently to the author of all life—through Nature up to Nature's God. ”

“ This, then, is that which is true of every living form, from the lowest plant to the highest animal—to man himself. You might define the life of every one in exactly the same terms as those which I have now used; the difference between the highest and the lowest being simply in the complexity of the developmental changes, the variety of the structural forms, and the diversity of the physiological functions which are exerted by each. ”

“ In truth, therefore, all organic bodies would be miracles. Would not this change for us the presence of Nature? Would it not spoil her of her beauty? Hitherto we had a living Nature, displaying endless changes by her own forces. ”

“ All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is nature glorious with form, color, and motion, that every globe in the remotest heaven; every chemical change from the rudest crystal up to the laws of life; every change of vegetation from the first principle of growth in the eye of a leaf, to the tropical forest and antediluvian coal-mine; every animal function from the sponge up to Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong, and echo the Ten Commandments. ”

“ The relation between physical conditions and history in its wider acceptation being thus fundamental, it may be well to consider in somewhat greater detail the special reactions of a single tolerably definite portion of the natural environment upon human development. ”

“ Here, then, was a substance whose properties were eminently adapted to secure an end essential to the maintenance of life upon the earth. In short, men came to the conclusion that the order of Nature was reasonable in the sense that every thing was adapted to some good end. ”

“ Naturalists carry mind into matter, and seek the eternal truth of God in the perishing forms of the fossil plant, or the evanescent tides of the sea; she carries love into the lanes and kennels of society, to give bread to the needy, eyes to the blind, mind to the ignorant, and a soul to men floating and weltering in this sad pit of society. ”

“ So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature; but I mean by nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. ”

“ By observing Nature in so many different aspects, and by comparing our impressions with one another, we ought to understand Nature better than any other race. And by entering more readily into communion with her we, better than others, should realise the Beauty she possesses. ”

“ In the great centres of civilization we admire and study only the results of mind,—the products of human endeavor: here one views only the work of Nature,—but Nature in all her primeval power, as in the legendary frostless morning of creation. ”

“ Indeed, the importance of these two last lay in their ability to penetrate to the human life within the mineral, plant, and animal life of nature, and bring back from that experience knowledge of value in ordering the lives of their fellow beings. ”

“ Nature, and a due attention to laws of heredity in life, will then rank in equal honour to our eyes with nurture or that attention to the environmental conditions of life which we already regard as so important. ”

“ In his own line, that of depicting with an intense sense for nature all the elements of country and wild life, vegetable and animal, surviving in the face of modern civilisation, he has had few equals. ”

“ The use of the word ‘natural’ begs the question. We acquire those characteristics which our circumstances and environment demand, and then transmit them to our children in whom, being inherited, they are termed natural. ”

“ Moreover, why should Nature not prepare Men of a bulk to ford the seas afoot, Or rend the mighty mountains with their hands, Or conquer Time with length of days, if not Because for all begotten things abides The changeless stuff, and what from that may spring Is fixed forevermore? Lastly we see How far the tilled surpass the fields untilled And to the labour of our hands return Their more abounding crops; there are indeed Within the earth primordial germs of things, Which, as the ploughshare turns the fruitful clods And kneads the mould, we quicken into birth. ”

“ I might endeavour to point out the infinite variety of organic life in every mode of its existence, with reference to the variations of climate and the like; and such an attempt would be fraught with interest to us all ”

“ But Nature has answered her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, by all these attitudes and exertions, — an end of the first importance, which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own. ”

“ Nature is less partial than she appears, and all situations in life have their compensations along with them. ”

“ Are the things which surround me in what I call the environment,—the men, the animals, the plants, the ground, the stones, the water, the air, the moon, the sun, the stars and God—are they shadows, unsubstantial things, as formerly Platonism made all things to be except the supernatural world of forms, gods and souls? ”

“ In speaking of the causes which lead to our present knowledge of organic nature, I have used it almost as an equivalent of the word "living," and for this reason,—that in almost all living beings you can distinguish several distinct portions set apart to do particular things and work in a particular way. ”