Quotations A-L

Human Intercourse: Intercourse with Nature and Intercourse with the Other (Part #3)

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Physicians of the medieval East attached great importance to intercourse with nature. To relieve physical and mental fatigue, they recommended that their patients walk in the garden and inhale the scents of flowers and herbs. Today, this is called aromatherapy. Patients were also advised to listen to the singing of birds and the bubbling of a brook or fountain, or to look at a picturesque landscape.

Simon L. Altmann, The New Enemies of Rationalism (2003):

Once this new view of Hume's causality is taken, enormously important ideas follow that fundamentally clarify rational thinking. The principles of causality, sufficient reason, and regularity or continuity are no longer enshrined in some realm of metaphysical principles: they are the result of our intercourse with nature (or at least such nature as we can perceive by means of our rational and perceptive systems). But the nature that has moulded such principles in our rational system is entirely macroscopic. No wonder that when the microworld is studied, absurd results arise if principles that have been tailored in a different environment are still applied without careful 'editing'.

Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration (Bacon's Preface to the Novum Organum, The Works, ed. and trans. Basil Montague, 3 vols., Parry and MacMillan, 1854, 3: pp. 343-4):

But the more ancient Greeks (whose writings have perished) held a more prudent mean, between the arrogance of dogmatism, and the despair of skepticism; and though too frequently intermingling complaints and indignation at the difficulty of inquiry, and the obscurity of things, and champing, as it were, the bit, have still persisted in pressing their point, and pursuing their intercourse with nature: thinking, as it seems, that the better method was not to dispute upon the very point of the possibility of any thing being known, but to put it to the test of experience. Yet they themselves, by only employing the power of the understanding, have not adopted a fixed rule, but have laid their whole stress upon intense meditation, and a continual exercise and perpetual agitation of the mind.

Bahá'í International Community, Science, Religion and the Strategy for Global Development (One Country, 7, 3, October-December 1995):

It is a perception of reality that can be discovered in the earliest records of civilization and that has been cultivated for several millennia by every one of the great religious traditions of humanity's past. Its enduring achievements in law, the fine arts, and the civilizing of human intercourse are what give substance and meaning to history. In one form or another its promptings are a daily influence in the lives of most people on earth and, as events around the world today dramatically show, the longings it awakens are both inextinguishable and incalculably potent.

Tala Bar, Beauty and the Beast (2005):

The people taking part in the ritual took animals' shape to symbolize the various forces of Nature, but it was a dress-up appearance: no woman actually mated with an animal but with its human representative. But it is quite possible that during the act, the people involved would identify deeply with the symbols they represented. This coupling of humans with Nature was not only physical or sexual, but also a spiritual mating, expressing humans' mental intercourse with nature.

Madeleine Bunting. Engagement with Nature: We need an attentiveness to nature to understand our humanity. Guardian, 30 July 2007

It doesn't quite fit to call it "nature writing", because what makes these books so compelling -- and important -- is that they put centre stage the interconnections between nature and human beings....The point is that nature is no longer something to be studied from a position of scientific detachment, but an experience, a relationship in which human beings are as much a part of nature as any so called wildlife... "a really significant element in ascribing beauty to a thing lies not within itself but in the quality of our attention to it" (Mark Cocker)... We need the attentiveness to nature to understand our humanity, and of how we fit, as just one species, into a vast reach of space and time.

John Burroughs, The Gospel of Nature (Time and Change, Houghton Mifflin, 1912, pp.273-279):

Theology and science, it must be said, will not mingle much better than oil and water, and your devout scientist and devout Nature student lives in two separate compartments of his being at different times. Iintercourse with nature -- I mean intellectual intercourse, not merely the emotional intercourse of the sailor or explorer or farmer-- tends to beget a habit of mind the farthest possible removed from the myth-making, the vision-seeing, the voice-hearing habit and temper. In all matters relating to the visible, concrete universe it substitutes broad daylight for twilight; it supplants fear with curiosity; it overthrows superstition with fact; it blights credulity with the frost of skepticism.

In intercourse with Nature you are dealing with things at first hand, and you get a rule, a standard, that serves you through life.  You are dealing with primal sanities, primal honesties, primal attractions...

Contrariness; Nerves And Common Sense, 1925):

If we combat another man's resistance, it only increases his tension. No matter how wrong he may be, and how right we are, meeting resistance with resistance only breeds trouble. Two minds can act and react upon one another in that way until they come to a lock which not only makes lasting enemies of those who should have been and could be always friends, but the contention locks up strain in each man's brain which can never be removed without pain, and a new awakening to the common sense of human intercourse.... In dealing with the contrary minded, the "contrary method" works so long as it is not discovered; and the danger of its being discovered is always imminent. The upright, direct method is according to the honorable laws of human intercourse, and brings always better results in the end, even though there may be some immediate failures in the process

Allen Carlson, Heyd and Newman on the aesthetic appreciation of nature

It may well be that all sorts of other perspectives, garnered through one's personal intercourse with nature and structured by non-scientific aspects on one's culture may be more  "fruitful" in generating aesthetic pleasure, insight or depth (Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories about Nature. British Journal of Aesthetics 41 (2001) pp. 125-37).

Warren Colman, Tyrannical Omnipotence in the Archetypal Father (Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2000, 45):

This kind of archetypal characterization is also prevalent in those who are worried by the increasing domination of science and technology in the modern world.  The significance of the name in the 'Gaia' hypothesis speaks for itself. It is also interesting that the growing awareness of the many ecological threats to our planet has coincided with the development of feminism.  Technology may then be seen as a tool of masculine domination in which intercourse with nature has become rape and plunder and the wounded earth cries out against the damage being done to her. Such fantasies and anxieties are clearly represented in the spate of 'apocalypse' style movies of the 1980s and early 1990s. 

De Montfaucon de Villars, The Comte de Gabalis (Paris, 1670):

Over the five discourses, we learn that the true adept abandons 'human intercourse' and instead opts to only have intercourse with the spirits of the air, water, earth and fire. The count claims that many children have come forth as a result of such encounters.

Thomas Dunlap, Communing with Nature (History Today, 52, 3, March 2002. pp.31-37):

Nature love as Emerson knew it, and as Wordsworth knew it, and as any of the choice spirits of our time has known it, has distinctly a religious value ... [it has that because] in intercourse with nature you are dealing with things at first hand, and you get a rule, a standard, that serves you through life. You are dealing with primal sanities, primal honesties, primal attraction, you are touching at least the hem of the garment with which the infinite is clothed.

Albert Einstein:

Nature has given us many blessings. If you hold a good intercourse with nature, it would teach you how to live.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:   

And we have records of the brilliant society that Edinburgh boasted in the first decade of this century. Such societies are possible only in great cities, and are the compensation which these can make to their dwellers for depriving them of the free intercourse with nature. Every scholar is surrounded by wiser men than he - if they cannot write as well. (The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - Volume VII - Society and Solitude, 1870)

Jud Evans, Categories and Sets:

I ask simply this - is the toll in human lives and misery that the negative aspect of abstractionism engenders worth it? Would we not be better informing our schoolchildren, [perhaps during their language or sociology lessons] that whilst the use of abstractions is an essential part of being human, we should see them for what they are - as essential tools, verbal shortcuts, periphrastic avoidance strategies, to aid human intercourse, and that we should not be lulled into a false sense that these human ideas of descriptive summation [the engrossment of complicated concepts in a few simple abstractions]

Eric Gans, La mondialisation (Chronicles of Love and Resentment, 227, 3 February 2001):

Rousseau is the patron of those who increasingly communicate about the evils of increased communication. For Rousseau, human intercourse inevitably spreads the contagion of mimetic desire, generating the vanity and oppression endemic to "society." His political solution for the modern world reflects this mistrust of exchange. One seeks in vain in The Social Contract any reference to debate or dialogue, even in the legislative system, which devolves upon a--singular or collective--"legislator," just as sovereignty is the province of the "sovereign" who expresses the "general will."

Ashish Ganju, A Proposal for Research on the Growth and Development of Human Settlements: Viewed from a Cultural and Civilisational Perspective (1998)

Human Settlements have grown and developed in the twentieth century as a direct consequence of the industrial enterprise of the 18th and 19th centuries, leading to the unregulated growth of urban agglomerations. In this process towns and cities have changed in nature to become showcases for technological advance, generally at the cost of civilised human intercourse. An important consequence of this has been the unchecked exploitation of natural resources resulting in a global environmental crisis which threatens the survival of the human race.

Ben Goertzel, Subself Dynamics (From Complexity to Creativity: Computational Models of Evolutionary, Autopoietic and Cognitive Dynamics, Plenum Press, 1997):

From this analysis one might conclude that it is only possible to enter into an I-You relationship with another intelligence -- and not with an inanimate object, say, a flower, or a personal computer. But this would be mistaken. The external world also possesses an emergent, self-unfolding structure that can be grasped as a whole. Buber recognizes this in his passage on Goethe:

How beautiful and legitimate the full I of Goethe sounds! It is the I of pure intercourse with nature. Nature yields to it and speaks ceaselessly with it; she reveals her mysteries to it and yet does not betray her mystery. It believes in her and says to the role: "So it is You" -- and at once shares the same actuality with the rose.

Nature reveals its mysteries to Goethe -- i.e., he paid it careful enough attention to get to know it as an It; as a dynamic, structured, changing system full of intricate details. And this effort was repaid by a glimpse at the whole, by a view of nature as You.

This sort of experience, reported by Goethe, was commonplace in many past cultures. Communion with nature as a You was, in "primitive" cultures, understood as communion with God. This experience came almost automatically to individuals who lived in nature every day, and who were raised to relate to nature as a thinking being rather than as an inert physical "environment." This is the sad aspect of current political disputes about environmental issues. Businessmen are asked to respect nature on abstract moral grounds. But such respect can never be genuine, because it comes out of an I-It relationship with nature, rather than an I-You relationship. Having lost the I-You relationship with nature, we have, as a society, lost our fundamental motivation for preserving and nurturing the natural world.

Nadine Gordimer, Living through that 'last resort.' - protection of human rights (UN Chronicle, Winter 1998):

Everyone who ponders the Universal Declaration of Human Rights inevitably will give particular attention to those articles that pertain to circumstances with which he or she is personally involved.... Article 26 is fundamental to Article 19: its Clauses 1 and 2 - "Everyone has the right to education", and "Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality". Freedom of expression is an empty phrase unless education equips every individual with freedom of the word, the ability to read and write. No other form of expression, oral or visual, can compensate for deprivation of these basic skills in human intercourse, understanding and the development of the intellect. Although the right to literacy surely is implied in Article 26, it is not specifically named; I believe it ought to be. This Article brings the hope of justice to the millions excluded-by ignorance, wirier is no fault of their own - from participation and benefit in the making of our world.

Mark Harris, Sexuality is a Rock: The World of Human Intercourse is a Hard Place (Ruminations on the Report of the Theological Committee of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church), 2003:

My sense is the Report confuses sexuality, as a general fact of the human condition, with human sexual intercourse (a specific form of human intercourse), which can be (but may not be) a gift. All forms of human intercourse are relational (intercourse being the operant concept here), and all forms of human intercourse are intentional (human being the operant concept.) We humans are to be distinguished in part by the intentionality of our intercourse - our relationships. We do not always exercise that intentionality, but when we do there arise all sorts of moral questions. Included among them are all the questions about gift giving.

We give or receive in rather specific ways in sexual intercourse, just as we do in other forms of intercourse, and we often force or take with ways just as specific. And it is here, in the relational questions about giving and receiving, forcing and taking, that we begin to develop rules of behavior, moral constructs and begin to wonder about God's affirmation of particular actions.

And what we are talking about here is relational behavior. human intercourse in all its forms is a hard place. It is a hard place in which to make universal claims for moral right and wrong. One person's murder is another's justifiable homicide. One person's loving care is another's smothering control. One person's delight in taking command of intercourse is another's coerced shame.

Elizabeth Johann, What We can Learn from History: The Present Role of Commons in Managing the Environment. (Presented at "Building the European Commons: From Open Fields to Open Source," European Regional Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP), Brescia, 2006):

The structure of commons is still evident and can be illustrated by the following strong points: social fairness, considerable reduction of the misuse of power by adequate internal rules, economic principles, which importance are increasingly recognized namely concerning the priority of subsistence compared to profitability, and the priority of local influencing factors compared to global ones. The model is based on the participatory intercourse with nature and makes harmful impacts more difficult.

Leszek Kolakowski, The Presence of Myth (University of Chicago Press, 2001)

Kolakowski undertakes a philosophy of culture which extends to all realms of human intercourse--intellectual, artistic, scientific, and emotional. (Anglican Theological Review)

Piotr Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow (1912): 

Humanity perceives that there is no advantage for the community in riveting a human being for all his life to a given spot, in a workshop or a mine; no gain in depriving him of such work as would bring him into free intercourse with nature, make of him a conscious part of the grand whole, a partner in the highest enjoyments of science and art, of free work and creation.

Joseph H. Kupfer, Engaging Nature Aesthetically (Journal of Aesthetic Education, 37, 1, Spring 2003, pp. 77-89):

However, thinking of nature solely or chiefly as an aesthetic scene to be observed is unnecessarily limiting. Regarding natural phenomena as material for detached, pictorial observation overlooks the aesthetic features revealed only through our active intercourse with nature. In what follows, I outline an active aesthetic of nature appreciation in particular, a series of physical responses to nature which yield a spectrum of aesthetic possibilities. Our active relationship toward nature is expressible by the relevant prepositions, as action can be in or into nature, against or with nature.

Charles Lane, Life in the Woods (The Dial, April 1844):

Every sense in the primitive forester's frame is integrally preserved. He holds an immediate intercourse with nature herself, or at least by his unerring senses and the undeviating objects in nature, he is enabled intuitively to read off the living volume as it lies open and unpolluted before him. By mere sight and smell, he is at once inducted into a knowledge of the essential properties of plants, and can without experience, foretel their operations on the human system, as unerringly as the native sheep can select its suitable food, or the untamed wood-dove, can without schooling, essay a winged journey

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