224 E VOL UTION AXD DOGMA. 



those who employ it most frequently, and whom it 

 behooves to have clear ideas as to its import. 



" Nature " is frequently employed to designate 

 " the material and spiritual universe as distinguished 

 from the Creator ; " to indicate the " world of sub- 

 stance whose laws are cause and effect ; " or to 

 signalize " the aggregate of the powers and proper- 

 ties of all things." It is used to signify " the forces 

 or processes of the material world, conceived as an 

 agency intermediate between the Creator and the 

 world, producing all organisms, and preserving the 

 regular order of things." In this sense it is often 

 personified and made to embody the old gnostic 

 notion of a demiurge, or an archon ; a subordinate, 

 creative deity who evolved from chaos the corporeal 

 and animated world, but was inferior to the infinite 

 God, the Creator of the world of spirits. It is made 

 to refer to the " original, wild, undomesticated con- 

 dition of an animal or a plant," or to " the primitive 

 condition of man antecedent to institutions, espe- 

 cially to political institutions," as when, for instance, 

 we speak of animals and plants being found, or men 

 living in a state of nature. It likewise distinguishes 

 that which is conformed to truth and reality " from 

 that which is forced, artificial, conventional, or re- 

 mote from actual experience." 



These are only a few of the many meanings of 

 the word " nature," and yet they are quite sufficient 

 to show us how important it is that we should al- 

 ways be on our guard lest the term, so often ambig- 

 uous and so easily misapplied, lead us into grave 

 mistakes, if not dangerous errors. In works on nat- 



