WHAT IS NATURE?
1. Generally one thinks of Nature in terms of
everything natural, whether cosmic, terrestrial, oceanic, planetary, animal,
vegetable, mineral, human, or what have you, and that which is not Nature as
being in some sense man-made and therefore artificial or synthetic. I do not, myself, wish to take such a
comprehensive view of Nature, though I admit that there is more to it than
simply the vegetative or terrestrial aspect of things - not least of all the
vast watery volumes that constitute the greater proportion of natural matter on
Earth.
2. I think it helps if we distinguish Nature
from the Cosmos, as I have effectively already done, by limiting it to that
which is both mundane and not man-made, even if this can still contain
unnatural, supernatural, natural, and subnatural
elements within itself, as in relation to fire, water, vegetation, and air, but
especially, I shall argue, water and vegetation (earth), and with more
reference to water than to vegetation, so that 'Mother Nature' is largely,
though not exclusively, oceanic, or of the seas and lakes and other waterways
and watery contexts that predominate over its strictly vegetative
manifestations, the growth of which still requires water.
3. But even here we need to distinguish between that
which is wild and what has been modified or created by man, since there are
aspects of the natural world which are really a part of civilization and
therefore partake of the man-made, even with a largely non-human ingredient. I refer, for instance, to farms, not to
mention zoos and parks, tree-lined streets, gardens, and other modifications of
Nature such that, duly domesticated, are adjuncts to or aspects of civilization
proper.
4. But Nature in general, nature in the raw, is
anything but an adjunct to or lesser aspect of civilization, but if not its
enemy then something which we can regard, most unequivocally, as signifying a
fall, in the biblical sense, from the Cosmos, as from appearance to quantity,
beauty to strength (or more probably weakness initially), the light to the
darkness, 'the heavens' to 'the world'.
5. Even the metaphor of the
Garden of Eden, the Edenic myth in Genesis, is
symptomatic to me of a fall, nay the fall of
life from the noumenal heights of the starry Cosmos
to the phenomenal depths of mundane Nature. It was a fall, in effect, from the Devil to
woman, from love to pride (or more probably humility, if not humiliation,
initially), from hotness to coldness, from a context with a philistine fulcrum
to one with a barbarous fulcrum or mean, not excluding degrees and lesser
manifestations, relative to itself, of philistinism, civilization, and culture.
6. But, in the main, barbarism, which of course
was something that Man rebelled against, not as an animalistic aspect of 'the
fallen' but, ultimately, as that Adamic upheaval
that, egged on by the developing pride of Eve and tasting of the forbidden tree
- from Nature's barbarous standpoint - of knowledge, knew good from evil or,
more correctly, came into the first realization of his own essence as a
creature capable of crawling out of Nature and opposing it from an antithetical
standpoint. I propose to discuss that
standpoint in the next chapter, one dealing with the question of Man.
7. Before I do, a word
or two more about Nature. Despite
whatever beauty, knowledge, and truth, or their converse, Nature may entail, it
seems to us primarily about strength, and the will of the stronger to exploit
the weaker, as predator upon prey, and dominate the weaker from the more
barbarous standpoint of greater strength.
It is also inherently barbarous in the extent to which natural upheavals
wreak havoc over both Nature and Man in the forms of volcanic eruptions,
earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, landslides, avalanches, raging
fires, violent storms, and so on and so forth.
There is great violence in Nature, as well as a sort of logic for
balance and renewal, for ecological interdependence, for growth and decay. Nature is mighty, and we underestimate it at
our peril!
8. So much for the paradoxical barbarism of
Nature! One must also admit of its
philistinism, its beauty, all too apparent in certain scenic landscapes,
waterscapes, snowscapes, and so on, as well as of its
civilization and even culture, the former knowledgeable of survival techniques
and the latter more innately discernible in its feeling for itself, for its
well-being, its heightened sense of satisfaction in what it is as opposed to
what it does, gives, or takes, even though what it gives is arguably more
representative of Nature than anything else, bearing in mind its reproductive
and assertive tendencies, its spirit, which rages against both the light
and the heaviness from dark springs bubbling deeply below the surface.
9. Yet Nature, too, attains to meaningfulness
and even an order which testifies to a degree of civilization, of routine and
design, of intention. Ant nests and bee
hives were not born in a day, and the purposes to which they were intended
doubtless evolved over many millennia until they reached a perfection which we
can only marvel at, as we contemplate the results and come to the conclusion
that Nature is far from being exclusively barbarous but also, in some sense,
civilized and knowledgeable, able to achieve an order from out the primal chaos
which fans the inclemencies and destructive
abominations at the roots of its existence.
10. Nature, however, is still stronger than
