Natural man

“ The last class of objections to the theory of natural moral perceptions which it is necessary for me to notice, arises from a very mischievous equivocation in the word natural.132 The term natural man is sometimes regarded as synonymous with man in his primitive or barbarous condition, and sometimes as expressing all in a civilised man that is due to nature as distinguished from artificial habits or acquirements. ”

“ These three discrete planes form and constitute the Natural Mind. The Natural Mind is that which is frequently though vaguely designated as the lower nature of man. The Natural Mind is the natural man. ”

“ Here it is plain that by the natural man,” is not meant a person devoid of natural judgment, reason, or conscience, in which sense the expression is often used among men. Nor does it signify one who is entirely governed by his fleshly appetites, or what the world calls a voluptuary, or sensualist. ”

“ These two facts, implying some kind of mental or emotional contact between the natural man and the natural brute, are probably not accidental or unrelated, and we are here trying to find the natural law or principle of which they are the occasional and imperfect expression. ”

“ If we regard the human subject, in the ordinary psychological way, as a being whose conscious life runs parallel with the highest physical processes of his organism, we get a view of the relation between the intellect and the will which is far more just, at once to the natural history of the mind, and to the deeper meaning of the inner life of our consciousness. View man as a natural being, and you find him adjusting himself to his environment, acting, as they say, in response to stimuli. ”

“ Tell me—where would one derive naturalness but from nature? You grant that?" he asked, as she poised her lips in good-humored stubbornness. "Well, then, we people see nature so little that it affects us not at all, and we are far from natural, which makes that virtue unusual among us. ”

“ Is it not more natural to be interested in men than in mountains? Does nature include man in his natural state? If so, what is the natural state of man? Is the savage the man of nature, or the unsophisticated peasant, or the man whose natural powers are developed to the highest pitch? ”

“ The question, What are the ends man is naturally fitted to attain? or—if we prefer so to express it—What are the ends he ought to pursue? is not merely as natural as the question, What can a man know of the world and of himself? ”

“ The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so. ”

“ What we ordinary men have to do, and what we especially want those gifted with unusually sensitive souls to do, is to bear in mind the difficulties which the midge has in understanding us and in seeing any beauty in us, and the way in which it would have to train and cultivate its faculties before it could ever hope to understand the expression on our features—to bear this in mind, and then to take ourselves in hand and develop the soul within us till it is fine enough and great enough to enter into the great soul of Nature. ”

“ Animate nature of the lowest rank, as in the grass, is of a higher natural order than inanimate nature in the soil the grass springs from. Sentient nature, as in the ox, is of a higher order than the non-sentient in the grass. Self-conscious and reflective nature in the man is of a higher order than the selfless and non-reflective nature in his beast of burden. ”

“ All the characteristics in human nature that are called virtues are purely of artificial growth, and result from man's cultivation of his better self; or, in other words, from his improvement upon nature's spontaneous course of action. ”

“ And in a delicately sensitive man such as an artist—painter, poet, or musician—this sense of kinship with Nature is highly developed. In regard to his relationship with Nature he is like the finely sensitive and cultured artist-midge would be in regard to a man—the midge who, through understanding the inner soul and character of the man, was able to read the expression on his features and see their beauty. ”

“ But except in this sense, what is "natural" has no particular merit. The great achievements of man have consisted not in following natural, primitive instincts, but in controlling and disciplining those instincts. ”

“ So as we take a comprehensive view of Nature both in her outward bodily form and her inner spiritual reality, and find her to be an interconnected whole in which all the parts are interrelated with one another, one body and one mind, self-contained and self-conscious, and driven by a self-organising, self-governing, self-directing Activity—we should regard her as nothing less than a Personal Being. In ordinary language we speak of Nature as a Person, and when we so speak we should not regard ourselves as speaking figuratively: we should mean quite literally and as a fact that she is a Person. ”

“ And we further insist on the natural virtues because they tend to place man in true relations with himself and with nature, thus bringing him into more perfect relation or union with God than he was by means of the creative act—a proper preliminary to his supernatural relation. ”

“ There is yet another way in which natural history may, I am convinced, take a profound hold upon practical life,—and that is, by its influence over our finer feelings, as the greatest of all sources of that pleasure which is derivable from beauty. ”

“ But Natural Selection, we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art. ”

“ And though the ideal, with which Nature has inspired us makes us restless and discontented, provokes us to increasing effort, causes us endless pain and suffering, and exacts from us the sacrifice even of our lives, we nevertheless love to have the ideal, and love Nature for implanting it in us. ”

“ The author of human nature impressed it with certain sensitive aptitudes and mental powers, so that apprehension, reflection or understanding could no otherwise be exerted or produced in the compound nature of man, but in the order prescribed by the creator. ”

“ That Nature is a Personal Being—or at least nothing less than a Personal Being—that she is actuated by an ideal, and that her ideal, so far as we are able to judge, is an ideal of Divine Fellowship, is the conclusion at which we have now arrived. But we shall understand Nature better, and so see her Beauty more fully, if we can understand how she works out this ideal in detail. And we shall best understand how she works it out if we examine what goes on within our own selves and see how we work out the ideal with which we believe Nature herself has inspired us. ”

“ If we have petty, meagre souls we shall find little in common with the great soul of Nature, and consequently see only shallow Beauty. If we have great souls we shall have more in common and see more Beauty. But to arrive at a full understanding of the real Nature we must observe her from every point of view and see her in all her aspects. Only so shall we be able to understand her real self and see her full Beauty. ”

“ And these experiences of ours in the formulation and working out of our ideal give us the clue to the manner in which Nature on her part works out her ideal. We are the representations and representatives of the whole, and we may assume that the whole works in much the same way as we ourselves work. ”

“ Let us be a human society. Super-natural? Yes. But if you are to add nothing to Nature, why leave her? In that case you may as well content yourself with work like the ant, and with honey like the bee. ”

“ I am aware of a pride in myself that is mine, and mine alone. It is organic. Every fibre of me is thrilling with it. It is very natural. It is a mere matter of satisfaction at adjustment to environment. ”

“ If it had been and the opportunity had offered, we might have had the very type of Naturalist-Artist we are now awaiting. He would have had the physical fitness and capacity to endure hardships which are required for travel in parts of the Earth where the Natural Beauty is finest, and he would have had, too, the sensitiveness of soul to receive impressions and the power of expressing himself so that others might share with him the impressions he had felt. ”

“ Nature, in all her moods and phases—in her wonderful variety of elements—the grand and the lowly, the sublime and the beautiful, the terrible and the pleasing—nature in her mildest and most fearful displays of power, and also in her softest and sweetest attractions, is open to every man's observation, and he must be a close observer and a diligent student of her who would cultivate in himself the ideal element. ”

“ First, That Nature is Infinite, and the Eternal Servant of God: Next, That she is Corporeal, and partly self-moving, dividable and composable; that all and every particular Creature, as also all perception and variety in Nature, is made by corporeal self-motion, which I name sensitive and rational matter, which is life and knowledg, sense and reason. ”

“ The pots and pans of Teniers and Van Mieris are natural; the passions and humours of Shakspeare and Moliere are natural; the angels of Fra Angelico and Luini are natural; the Sleeping Fawn and Fates of Phidias are natural; the cows and misty marshes of Cuyp and the vacillations of Hamlet are equally natural. In fact the natural means TRUTH OF KIND. Each kind of character, each kind of representation, must be judged by itself. ”

“ We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much natural force, perhaps, but for the rest—blank; and the world tells us what we are to be, and shapes us by the ends it sets before us. ”

“ The great body of our life is, we know, a purely natural affair. Our instincts, our wayward impulses, our unconnected disorderly purposes— these, which fill the larger portion of our existence, do not express our personal nature. ”

“ O Self! component part of thy great integer, Nature—incomprehensible in thy cause and essence—comprehensible in thy ever-changing modes of existence—comprehensible in thy eternal connection with Nature, which all the powers of thought cannot separate—comprehensible motion in the volition of man—comprehensible in thought, the guide and guardian of that volition, to direct man to happiness, or to procure well-being to matter in its eternal revolution—comprehensible in sympathy, which unites the various links of beings in the great chain of Nature. ”

“ So we look forward to the appearance among us of a great Artist who, born with an exceptionally sensitive soul, will deliberately heighten and intensify this sensitiveness, learn what others have experienced, compare notes with them, and train himself to detect the significance of every slightest indication which Nature gives of the workings of the soul within her ”

“ The aggregation of a mass of human beings full of life, and instinct with its hopes, and fears, and joys, and sorrows, and passions, acts like a stimulus. Nature is beautiful, and art glorious, but the object of deepest interest to man is man himself. ”

“ This is what the constitution of nature, before explained, marks out as the course we should follow, and the end we should aim at. To make pleasure, and mirth, and jollity, our business, and be constantly hurrying about after some gay amusement, some new gratification of sense or appetite, to those who will consider the nature of man and our condition in this world, will appear the most romantic scheme of life that ever entered into thought. ”

“ But if this be not true, and Nature has never known a divine birth, and thou, man, alone wakest to consciousness of a great difference between thyself and Nature—thou, the last and radiant birth of earth's obscure working—oh, beware of pride. Think that thou too only seemest; art, like the rest, a dream, Yet, since thou canst think that, since thou mayst control thy pride, thou standest clear of Nature. ”

“ A third symptom of this fatal disease—the love of the world, which is so deeply rooted in our nature- is 'the pride of life`; the desire of praise, of the honour that cometh of men This the greatest admirers of human nature allow to be strictly natural; as natural as the sight, or hearing, or any other of the external senses. And are they ashamed of it, even men of letters, men of refined and improved understanding? ”

“ Not thus reads the ideal naturalist the Book of lives. But opening at spirit, and thence proceeding to ideas and finding their types in matter, life unfolds itself naturally in organs, faculties begetting forces, mind moulding things substantially, its connections and inter-dependencies appear in series and degrees as he traces the leaves, thought the key to originals, man the connexus, archetype, and classifier of things ”

“ I could trust a fact, and always cross-examined an assertion." He was, indeed, a true disciple of that philosophy which says: "Man, who is the servant and interpreter of Nature, can act and understand no further than he has, either in operation or contemplation, observed of the method and order of Nature." And, verily, Nature admitted her servant into her secret chambers, and showed him marvels to interpret to his fellow-men more wonderful and beautiful than the phantasmagoria of Eastern romance. ”

“ There it has started a new analysis of the relations of body and mind, good and evil, freedom and necessity. Hard and abstract moralities are yielding to a more exact estimate of the subtlety and complexity of our life. Always, as an organism increases in perfection, the conditions of its life become more complex. Man is the most complex of the products of nature. Character merges into temperament: the nervous system refines itself into intellect. ”

“ When one wants to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of natural. ”

“ Avarice of Nature.—Why has nature been so niggardly towards humanity that she has not let human beings shine, this man more and that man less, according to their inner abundance of light? Why have not great men such a fine visibility in their rising and setting as the sun? ”

“ It springs from the conditions in which men find themselves, and not from any radical inclination within themselves. With maturity and reasonable conditions the innate goodness which is the essential characteristic will assert itself. ”