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journal/mxd/Nature-al design.md
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What is meant by "natural"?

We almost seem to mean a Rousseauean "state of nature" - how something existed prior to human intervention. But this is a profoundly stupid, or at least worthless, definition. It presumes that man is somehow at odds with reality. And while yes, the fall of man did produce a rift, enmity, between the rest of the world and us, it was not so in the beginning - man was in harmony with the rest of the cosmos.

When many people use the term "natural" in a positive light, they are pointing at something, although they can usually not articulate it because they are constrained by materialism. Yes, in the beginning, "It was good". The "natural" state of affairs was good. However, we must bear in mind the fall: the fall was not only man being deprived of the garden, but the garden was deprived of man.

Environmentalists cry out at the death of any species. And yet, it seems, too many are willing that the most key of all species, the most unique one, the most powerful and potent one, should die. Man is a hyper-keystone species. Without man, the world is lost - completely aimless. All the world is made for the service of man, all is placed under his dominion.

What makes man so special? Among a multitude of things, it is that he can recognize the real natures of things.

When man is in touch with reality, when he understands how what is in front of him works, and even more importantly, for what purpose it was made, he can be a force for good. When he is habituated in sin, he can no longer perceive that most important facet of reality: the ends things were made for. The vicious, gluttonous man can only see that a tree is good for fruit; he cannot envision that it is a source of wood, a home for animals, a photosynthetic engine for microbiota, a cycler of carbon and other nutrients.

Such a state of virtue is a love of given-ness. The virtuous man does not despise that sheep must be shorn or that pigs will root and wallow. He sees these aspects of their nature - and orchestrates the world around these realities.