Nature
The inborn character of a thing, or the whole order of the physical world.
Works to read
- Natural History: A Selection by Pliny the Elder, c. 77 CE
- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume, 1779
- On the Nature of the Universe by Lucretius, c. 55 BCE · Great Books
- The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White, 1789
- Posterior Analytics and Physics by Aristotle, 4th century BCE · Great Books
- The Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant, 1790 · Great Books
- Science and the Modern World by Alfred North Whitehead, 1925 · Great Books
- Metamorphoses by Ovid, 8 CE
- Diamond v. Chakrabarty by Supreme Court of the United States, 1980
- Hippocratic Writings by Hippocrates, c. 5th–4th century BCE · Great Books
- On the Heavens by Aristotle, c. 350 BC · Great Books
- On Generation and Corruption by Aristotle, c. 350 BC · Great Books
Passages
From the texts
The underlying nature is an object of scientific knowledge, by an analogy.
— Aristotle, Posterior Analytics and Physics
Hence we must inquire first what nature is: for thus we shall also see what natural science treats of (and whether it belongs to one science or to more to investigate the causes and the principles of things).
— Aristotle, Metaphysics
Verified quotations
No verified quotation in the library contains this idea's key words yet.
Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: nature, natural, creation. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.