Nature (n.) is a field of forces whose accidental clashes generate visible phenomena. Human reason is a uniquely human tool having nothing to do with nature whereby man can reconstruct his environment so as to tame it and secure himself from its treacherous reverses.
Nature (n.) is a negative standard which clarifies those problems to which civil society is the solution.
Nature (n.) is a political and social term.
Nature (n.) is an inertial universe of matter in motion. There are no essences or natural ends to which beings are drawn... there are merely the redirections of inertial motion following collisions between particles of matter, describable by mathematical laws.
Nature (n.) is God's artifact, and civil association is man's artifact, a creative act imitating God's creativity.
Nature (n.) is just what it is and nothing else. It cannot err.
Nature (n.) is made up of the laws of motion, and motion lacks teleology such that human life is no exception.
Nature (n.) is mechanical, not organic nature.
Nature (n.) is mute concerning good and evil.
Nature (n.) is not a garden of eden or a utopia in which everyone shares its fruits, as earlier communal theories of society held. Instead, everyone is competing for the same natural resources. The commons could not be shared, but must be fought over.
Nature (n.) is simply the sum total of material elements and their motion, and reason is simply that faculty of men which calculates what is to their self-interest or loss.
Nature (n.) is the arena of violence.
Nature (n.) is visible because nature is this-worldly. It could thus not possibly confused with the garden of eden which, if not otherworldly itself, implies the existence of the otherworldly.
Nature (n.) is without thought or purpose. It is determinately non-teleological.