The following are generic or ordinal, viz. : Bramble, iat: bitter herbs, bulrush, bush, flag, grass, hay, herb, lily, melon, nettle, oak, oil-tree, pulse! reed, rush, thistle, thorn, vetches (RVm or nettles), willow.
The plants which may be known with a fair measure of certainty are distributed in 35 Orders, as follows :—Ranunculacee, titches; Crucifere, mustard ; Capparidee, caper ; Cistinew, ladanum ; Malvacee, cotton ; Linacee, flax ; Vitacew, vine ; Rutacee, rue; Anacardiacee, balm, balsam, bdel- lium (?), frankincense, myrrh, nuts (pistachio, Gn 43"), teil-tree, tarehanth ; Leguminose, beans, juniper (retem), husks (carob), lentils, shittim oot (acacia), rye (kirsenneh) ; Rosacee, almond, apple, hazel (almond) ; Myrtaceae, myrtle; Lyth- rarice, camphire (henna); Granatee, pomegranate ; Cucurbitacee, cucumbers, gourd; Umbellifere, anise (dill), coriander, cummin, galbanum ; Valeri- anacee, spikenard ; Composite, wormwood ; Styra- cacee, styrax; Oleacew, olive; Aquilariacee, lign-aloes; Ebenacee, ebony ; Solanacee, mandrake; Labiatee, hyssop, mint ; Chenopodiacee, mallows (saltwort, RV) (malluah); Laurinee, cassia, cinna- mon; Urticacee, fig, sycamine, sycomore ; Plata- παρέ, chestnut (plane-tree); Juglandacee, nut (walnut); Conifer, ash (oren), cedar, thyine wood ; Palmee, palm ; Iridacee, satlron ; Amaryllidacee, rose of Sharon (narcissus) ; Liliaceae, garlic, leeks, onion; Gramineae, barley, millet, spelt, tare, wheat.
Of the above 65 species, 35 are cultivated plants. The foregoing analysis makes it clear that the Hebrews did not study plants as closely as animals, a fact illustrated among the Arabsof the present day.
G. E. Post.
NATURE.—Few words have been the source of so much confusion in theology as the word nature, for few words have been employed, as this has been, for a long period in two or three distinct, though related, senses. It will be best to begin our discussion by distinguishing between these different meanings.
1. The word ‘nature’ is commonly used in scientific investigation to describe the sum-total
NATURE
of physical forces—the whole range of the co- existences and sequences of phenomena. In this view it includes the entire domain of the inorganic and organic, the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Thus we speak of ‘students of nature,’ of ‘natural science,’ or natural philosophy, mean- ing thereby to describe those departments of haman knowledge which are concerned with the material universe. Nature, in this sense, includes man in respect of that side of his life which he shares with the lower animals. The science which has to do with the diseases of his body is, par ezcel- lence, ‘Physic.’ And the progress of physiology suggests that not only the disorders of his body, but some at least of the maladies of his mind, are subject to physical law, and may be made the subject of scientific investigation like any other physical process.
2. Man, however, is possessed of a unique faculty which he does not share with the other inhabit- ants of this earth—the faculty of self-determining reason and of conscious will. To be able to make a moral choice is his supreme prerogative. He is not altogether the victim of breeding and of cir- cumstance ; he is a free agent. And this freedom of his enables him, within certain limits, to initiate movements in the visible order, and to control and guide the material forces of the universe. If we are to regard man in this point of view as a part of nature, we must widen our conception of nature, which will now include not only tie kingdom of law, but the kingdom of freedom. Nature, in this second and enlarged sense, doesnot exclude the possi- bility of free will; it takes in the moral world; it recognizes moral no less than ‘ physical’ law.
3. The word is often used in yet a larger sense. Nature is regarded as the sum-total of all that is, or was, or shall be. It is the Αἱ], the Universe. And, so defined, it is not exclusive of God, for (to the believer in Him) He is the ens realissimum, the most certain and the most real existence which we can conceive. Nature, in this view, is the kingdom of God, in whom and from whom it draws its life. All its operations are the mani- festations of His ceaseless and omnipresent activity. If we use the word consistently in this its largest sense, it is plain that we must abandon the term supernatural. Nothing can be supernatural, nothing can be ‘beyond’ or ‘above’ nature, if nature is the sum of all that is. See NATURAL.
So far we have only attempted to define the various connotations ania the word ‘nature’ may have. And it is to be observed that in whatever sense the word is used the idea is constantly per- sonified, and attributes and operations are ascribed to nature which strictly are proper to persons, When we speak of ‘ bountiful’ nature, we may be thinking of it in sense (1) or in sense (3), and we may have no intention to include or to exclude the idea of God as the Bountiful One. Thus Christ said, ‘the earth beareth fruit of herself’ (αὐτομάτη, Mk 4%), not meaning thereby to suggest that the harvest is not the ift of G And, on the other hand, it is not to be presumed that every form of words which seems to recognize providence or com- passion in nature is intended to suggest a Personal and Benevolent Will behind it. For example, some recent theological writers have argued as if they held ‘God’ to be merely a synonym for ‘nature,’ and have identified ‘God’ not with the Personal Author and Governor of nature, but with the order of nature itself. This is to introduce a grave ambiguity into our theological nomenclature ; but it is here instanced merely to illustrate the point that our idea of nature is necessarily affected and coloured by our idea of God, and that a definition of nature is hardly complete which does not convey to the mind some clear view concerning its relation