Nature

Nature is the inner principle of motion and rest in things: each kind striving toward its proper end.

Nature is the rational cosmos. To live well is to live in accordance with it.

Nature is God's handiwork: created beings with their own principles, oriented toward ends.

Nature is varied, shifting, and humbling. Custom is second nature; certainty is a human fiction.

Nature is matter in motion. And human nature, in its state of nature, is war of all against all.

Nature is extended matter, knowable by mathematics. Mind alone is outside the mechanical world.

The state of nature is a condition of freedom and equality, governed by natural law.

Nature is what custom teaches. Its uniformities are expected, not demonstrated.

Nature is the realm of appearances governed by law: its order contributed by the mind's own categories.

Nature is Spirit in its externality: the self-alienation of the Idea, from which Spirit returns to itself.