ideas of nature

A separation between man and nature is not simply the product of modern industry or urbanism; it is a characteristic of many earlier kinds of organized labour, including rural labour.... The point that has really to be made about the separation between man and nature which is characteristic of so many modern ideas is that however hard this may be to express--the separation is a function of an increasing real interaction. It is easy to feel a limited unity on the basis of limited relationships, whether in animism, in monotheism, or in modern forms of pantheism. It is only when the real relations are extremely active, diverse, self‑conscious, and in effect continuous--as our relations with the physical world can be seen to be in our own day--that the separation of human nature from nature becomes really problematic.