Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, or material universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large part of science. Although people are part of nature, their activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena.

The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth". Natura is a Latin translation of the Greek word physis (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other features of the world develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Socratic philosophers, and has steadily gained currency ever since. This usage continued during the advent of modern scientific method in the last several centuries.

In the various uses of the word in the Union today, "nature" often refers to geology and wildlife. Nature can refer to the general realm of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects – the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness–wild animals, rocks, forest, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by sentient intervention, or which persist despite it. Manufactured objects and sentient interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, "sentient nature" or "the whole of nature". This more traditional concept of natural things which can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial, with the artificial being understood as that which has been brought into being by a consciousness or a mind. Depending on the particular context, the term "natural" might also be distinguished from the unnatural or the supernatural.

