NATTTICE (natTire), (Gr. ylveals, ghen'es- is ; cpOcris,foo'sis, genus; Lat. nascor, to be born).
1. Philosophical View. According to its derivation, nature should mean that which is pro duced or born; but it also means that which pro duces or causes to be born. The word has been used with various shades of meaning, but they may all be brought under two heads—Naturo Natu rals, Natura Naturota.
(1) Nature Naturans. (a) The Author of na ture, the uncreated Being who gave birth to every thing that is. (b) The plastic nature or energy subordinate to that of the Deity, by which all things are conserved and directed to their ends and uses. (c) The course of nature, or the estab lished order according to which the universe is regulated.
(2) Natura Naturata. (a) The works of na ture, both mind and matter. (b) The visible or material creation, as distinct from God and the soul, which is the object of natural science. "The term nature is used sometimes in a wider, sometimes in a narrower extension. When em ployed in its most extensive meaning, it embraces the two worlds of mind and matter. When em ployed in its more restrictive signification, it is a synonym for the latter only, and is then used in contradistinction to the former. In the Greek philosophy, the word in5aes was general in its meaning; and the great branch of philosophy styled 'physical or physiological' included under it not only the sciences of matter, but also those of mind. With us, the term nature is more vaguely extensive than the terms physics, phystcal, physi ology, physiological, or even than the ad jective, natural; whereas, in the philosophy of Germany, natur and its correlatives, whether of Greek or Latin derivation, are, in general, ex pressive of the world of matter in contrast to the world of intelligence." (Sir Win. Hamilton, Reid's IVorks, p. 218, note.) (c) Nature as opposed to art, all physical causes, all the forces which belong to physical beings, organic or inorganic. (d) The nature or essence of any particular being or class of beings; that which makes it what it is.
2. Nature Used in Ttoo Senses. 'The word nature has been used in two senses—viz., actively and passively; energetic (forma formats) and material (forma formate:).
(1) In the first it signifies the inward principle of whatever is requisite for the reality of a thing as existent; while the essence, or essential prop erty, signifies the inner principle of all that ap pertains to the possibility of a thing. Hence, in accurate language, we say the essence of a math ematical circle or geometrical figure, not the na ture, because in the conception of forms, purely geometrical, there is no expression or implication of their real existence.
(2) In the second or material sense of the word nature, we mean by it the sum total of all things, as far as they are objects of our senses, and con sequently of possible experience—the aggregate of phenomena, whether existing for our outer senses, or for our inner sense. The doctrine con cerning noture would therefore (the word physi ology being both ambiguous in itself, and already otherwise appropriated) be more properly entitled phenomenology, distinguished into its two grand divisions, somatology and psychology.
3. Course of Nature. "There is no such thing as what men commonly call the course of nature, or the power of nature. The course of nature, truly and properly speaking, is nothing else but the will of God producing certain effects in a continued, regular, constant, and uniform manner ; which course or manner of acting, being in every movement perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be altered at any time as to be preserved. And if (as seems most probable) this continual acting upon matter be performed by the subserviency of created intelligences appointed for that purpose by the Supreme Creator, then it is easy for any of them, and as much within their natural power (by the permission of God) to alter the course of nature at any time, or in any respect, as it is to preserve or continue it" (Fleming, Vocab. of Phil.).