THE TOTALITY OF NATURE

1. Readers of my previous text(s) may recall that I conceive of Nature in the necessarily comprehensive terms of the four elements, viz. fire, water, vegetation (earth), and air, and that Nature should accordingly be subdivided, as it were, on a fourfold basis between the unnature of fire, the supernature of water, the nature-proper of vegetation, and the subnature of air.

2. Hence Nature is comprehensively divisible between that which one cannot live in and yet which is everywhere the basis of life, viz. fiery unnature, and those elemental manifestations of it in which life is to be found, viz. watery supernature, vegetative nature, and airy subnature.

3. It has also been established that Nature is therefore divisible between the female objectivity of unnature and supernature, corresponding to fire and water, and the male subjectivity of nature per se and subnature, corresponding to vegetation and air, so that a straight/curved dichotomy relative to the distinction between vacuums and plenums can be inferred.

4. Hence the metachemical 'nature' of unnature, the chemical 'nature' of supernature, the physical 'nature' of nature proper, and the metaphysical 'nature' of subnature - the female pair objective and the male pair subjective.

5. Now because Nature in general can be of space-time metachemistry, of volume-mass chemistry, of mass-volume physics, or of time-space metaphysics, we cannot limit it to just one axis or plane, let alone sensual or sensible manifestation thereof, as though Nature were on a par with barbarity or naturalism or civility or culture, still less equivalent to naturalism and therefore something to be antithetically ranged against, say, culture. In reality, all of these elemental alternatives are germane to Nature, albeit to a different mode of it, depending on the context.

6. In other words, unnature can be absolutely evil or good, sensually barbarous or sensibly civilized, depending whether it is of space-time spatially or repetitively, while supernature can likewise be relatively evil or good, sensually barbarous or sensibly civilized, depending whether it is of volume-mass volumetrically or massedly.

7. Across to the male side of the gender fence, which is ever subjective, nature per se can be relatively foolish or wise, sensually natural or sensibly cultural, depending whether it is of mass-volume massively or voluminously, while subnature can likewise be absolutely foolish or wise, sensually natural or sensibly cultural, depending whether it is of time-space sequentially or spacedly.

8. Hence one cannot limit Nature to this or that element when it embraces, in the totality of its elemental comprehensiveness, all the axes and all the immoral and moral, wrong and right positions of sensuality and sensibility in consequence, from barbarity and naturalism in sensual unnature and subnature to civility and culture in sensible unnature and subnature where the space/time absolutism of the noumenal alternatives is concerned, and from barbarity and naturalism in sensual supernature and nature-proper to civility and culture in sensible supernature and nature-proper where the volume/mass relativity of the phenomenal alternatives is concerned.

9. In that respect, culture and civility are as much a part or aspect of Nature as naturalism and barbarity, albeit they are - and ever will be - germane to its sensible manifestations on both relative and absolute, lower and upper class, terms.

10. I would be less than the philosopher I am if I didn't assert the desirability of subnature over nature, as of metaphysics over physics, and gods, or the godly, over men, with a corresponding preference for unnature over supernature, as of metachemistry over chemistry, and devils, or the devilish, over women. For only with a noumenal bias for sensibility can ultimate justice be done to both culture and civility, wisdom and goodness, with the former germane, so I contend, to the top tier of our projected triadic Beyond and the latter, by and large, to the administrative aside which would be pledged to the service and protection of the Beyond in question.

11. Certainly the relative culture of sensible nature over the relative civility of sensible supernature would still have a right to existence, though not, as I have argued, in the Christian context of old (long-since abandoned by a majority of Catholics), but in relation to the lower two tiers of the triadic Beyond and the salvation of Anglicans from relative naturalism to relative culture, phenomenal folly to phenomenal wisdom, and the correlative damnation of Puritans from relative barbarity to relative civility, phenomenal evil to phenomenal goodness.

12. Hence a structure of hope for the future in which the subnature within, corresponding to an absolute culture, was in a position to pull moral rank on the nature within, corresponding to a relative culture, and to the supernature within, corresponding to a relative civility, while being served, in the administrative aside, by the absolute civility of the unnature within, whose inner beauty would shine benevolently upon the inner truth, knowledge, and strength of the metaphysical, physical, and chemical manifestations of the triadic Beyond for ever more, eternity without end.

LONDON 2000 (Revised 2012)

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