(3) Whereas Spinoza had conceived nature mechanistically, in keeping with his Cartesian intellectual heritage (and had thereby invited Jacobi's charge of fatalism), Herder (though officially still agnostic about what force is) rather inclines to conceive the forces at work in nature as living, or organic (a conception of them which he mainly owes to Leibniz).
(DJN VI.1.11,18) It is important to recall in this context the difference between modern and medieval natural law, and that Pufendorf does not conceive human nature in essentialist terms but rather generalizes (rightly or wrongly) from experience.
Indeed, once we conceive of nature as an organic whole, constantly becoming and transforming itself, then Schlegel's paradoxical determination "art should imitate nature" (SW III, 306) becomes quite coherent.
He conceived of nature as governed throughout by laws statable with mathematical precision; the book of nature, he said, is "written in mathematical form".
The man who conceived the nature stunt, a newspaper reporter, shared Joe's quarters, wrote the reports for the Post.
The general framework of this understanding of the relationship between God and humankind is clearly different from the view that became dominant in the Christian West i.e., the view that conceived of "nature" as distinct from "grace" and that understood original sin as an inherited guilt rather than as a deprivation of freedom.
How, in the end, one answers these questions depends crucially on how one conceives the nature, identity and authority of constitutions.
Given this, it seems that the only way we can give any sense to the idea of nature as it is in itself is to conceive of such nature as being outside of time.
Conceive of nature as basically the charismatic mammals and plants, plus a few pretty fluttering insects, and perhaps it's hard to see our place in it.
The paper thus investigates how to conceive of the functional nature of living systems that are not the result of evolution by natural selection, or instantly generated by cosmic coincidence, but which are products of intelligent design.
The idea of nature as purposively directed towards the existence of rational beings under moral laws allows us to conceive of an author of nature who is not merely intelligent, but also has the other atttibutes associated with the traditional idea of God, for example omniscience, omnipotence and wisdom (which includes omnibenificence and justice) (§86, 444).
