Natural

“ 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. ”

“ Nature is the source of language, words being the signs of natural facts. But ‘every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.’ In brief, ‘the world is emblematic.’ Nature is a discipline of the understanding, devoting herself to forming the common-sense. ”

“ But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred ​impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. ”

“ The authors of this book would go a step further and say that the natural world is the spiritual. Soul and body, ephemeral and material, on this plane of existence are ineffably bound together. If you would climb to sublime heights of ghostly exaltation, study first the grass at your feet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who observe in this spirit will often experience, from some humble offering to the Muses, the delight felt by the naturalist in the grasses and lichens of some otherwise barren spot. These are the earliest and humblest efforts of nature, but to a discerning eye they indicate the entire range of her energies. ”

“ 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 as the eye naturally seeks the light and vision, and our body naturally desires food and drink, so our mind is possessed with a becoming and natural desire to become acquainted with the truth of God and the causes of things. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In a word, nature was not explored then as now, for the purpose of ascertaining and recording cold and scientific realities,—but to be admired, and embellished, and animated;—and to be peopled, everywhere, with exquisitely beautiful, though imaginary and supernatural, life and action. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Beautiful in Nature.—All real beauty is either natural or artificial. Natural beauty is that which characterizes what we call the “works of Nature” or the “works of God”. Artificial beauty is the beauty of “works of art”. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whether this be imputed to the effect of light, or the breathing influence of a flowery atmosphere, and the tendency of all things to produce their similitudes, there lies beneath the natural fact a moral analogy applicable to ourselves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. ”

“ But pardon, Madam, for I think it a Crime to compare the Creating, Generating and producing Corporeal Life and Wisdom of Nature unto any particular Creature, although every particular Creature hath their share, being a part of Nature. ”

“ It seemed as though he had for a soul the book of the natural law. ”

“ It is certain that, in proportion as its merely mental strength and attainment take the place of natural sentiment, in proportion as we acquire the habit of receiving all impressions through the reason, the teachings of Nature grow indistinct and cold.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nature presents to us much that is sublime and beautiful: behold faculties which delight in contemplating these properties of hers, and in rising upon them, as upon wings, to the presence of the Eternal. ”

“ Progress in my sense.—I also speak of a "return to nature," although it is not a process of going back but of going up—up into lofty, free and even terrible nature and naturalness; such a nature as can play with great tasks and may play with them.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ everything ideal has a natural basis and everything natural an ideal development. ”

“ What is meant by Nature being a Person, and a Person actuated by a hidden ideal, and being in process of realising that ideal, and what is meant by an ideal perfecting itself, may be best explained with the help of an illustration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They bore a hole in the sky, and let you up into a pool of deep, stagnant blue, marked off by the clear round edges of imperturbable, impenetrable cloud on all sides—beautiful in positive color, but totally destitute of that exquisite gradation and change, that fleeting, panting, hesitating effort, with which the first glance of the natural sky is shed through the turbulence of the earth-storm. ”

“ READER. The Divine Wisdom so variously displayed in the Works of Nature, even the lowest Order of them, entertains the human Eye with Prospects exquisitely beautiful and pleasurable: As our Knowledge is defective, we are at a loss how to account perfectly for the particular Ends of their Formation, and Manner of their Subserviency to the Whole of the Eternal Design. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Just as a man, if he carve or cut out by art several statues, or draw several Pictures, those statues or pictures are but that one man's work. The like may be said of Natures Motions and Figures; all which are but one self-active or self-moving Material Nature. But Wise Nature's Ground or Fundamental actions are very Regular, as you may observe in the several and distinct kinds, sorts and particulars of her Creatures, and in their distinct Proprieties, Qualities, and Faculties, belonging not onely to each kind and sort, but to each particular Creature ”

“ "Curious anomaly, fantastic element!" said an ingenious naturalist, "in which the animal kingdom blossoms, and the vegetable does not!" ”

“ Life is complex in its expression, involving more than percipience, namely desire, emotion, will, and feeling. ”

“ Thoughts must come naturally, like wild flowers; they cannot be forced in a hot-bed—even although aided by the leaf-mould of your past—like exotics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For this innumerable multitude of things, of which we now-a-days talk as if it were one thing, and had an organic unity of its own, or even as if it were one person, and had a will of its own, and call it Nature—a word which will one day be forgotten by philosophers, with the ‘four elements,’ and the ‘animal spirits;’—this multitude of things, I say, which we miscall Nature, has its dark and ugly, as well as its bright and fair side. ”

“ In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses;—in its common and in its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture. ”

“ I love Nature, and human nature, its thoughts, affections, dreams, aspirations, delusions,—Art in all its forms,—virtu in all its eccentricities,—old stories from black-letter volumes and yellow manuscripts, and new projects out of hot brains not yet imbedded in the snows of age. ”

“ Here he will be introduced to a world of thought and sentiment almost as fresh, as fair and many-sided as Nature herself,—the fragrant blossoming in myriad hues and forms of the life and mind of the most richly endowed portion of the human race. ”

“ Was it possible for us in an instant to see Nature as she is—the flowing vestment of an unchanging reality? When the soul breaks free from the arms of a superstition, bits of the claws and talons break themselves off in him. ”

“ Nature alone represents the evolved intelligence, the harmony, the soul of the cosmos, and its ideal made real in law; where, then, shall one begin his quest for truth more fittingly than at the gate of nature, where Beauty is the portress and Beauty is the guide? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the not me, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, Nature. ”

“ All beauty is regarded as spiritual in its nature. The several beautiful characters of an organic body—of which the principal are magnitude, unity and variety of parts, intensity of colour, grace or flexibility, and correspondence to environment—may be brought under the conception of the ideal grandeur and order of the species. ”

“ But if such are the charms of inanimate nature, let us look, now, at the world of living, breathing creatures,—possessing one excellence, far surpassing all that have been yet described,—that of life and consciousness. ”