The entirety of humanity’s relationship with nature is not a topic which lends itself to a 450 word article, with a huge diversity in attitudes to topics like sustainability throughout human history. However, in looking back at how we have perceived nature throughout the years, we can gain insight into how we have treated nature over the years.
The origins of the word nature can be traced back to various sources, but an often cited origin is the Greek phusis – a concept which even Aristotle struggled to define, seeing it as the essence of things, as well as a process or a principle. It was not until much later on in history that nature began to take on another definition, closer to today’s common usage, as a thing separate from humanity. Francis Bacon and his successors saw nature as evidence of natural design – its beauty proved God’s existence, with John Ray arguing that, for example, the winds of the earth were ingeniously designed to power windmills, the sails of ships, and to clear the air.
This unity of science and religion under natural philosophy or theology was, however, replaced with a more adversarial conception of nature by the 1800s, after the Industrial Revolution had gotten underway. John Stuart Mill rejected this belief in the Providence underpinning all of nature, and argued against man following the path of nature, instead seeing all human action as involving altering nature. For him the economy was part of the social world, separate from the natural, and this view has had huge influence in conceptions of nature in the Anglophone world. Mill’s canonical place in both political economy and in liberal thought is evidence of this. Conceiving of nature as separate, something to be subjugated, is an idea which has been called into question more recently. Fields like ecological economics have diagnosed this separation as exacerbating or even causing our current exploitative relationship towards nature, and emphasise instead the interdependence of humanity and our economy with nature.
It is worth noting that this is an Anglophone centred look at the concept of nature – many other cultures have an arguably more sustainable conception. Despite this shortcoming, the correlation between our conception of nature and our relationship with it is worth noting, especially since some Anglophone countries rank highly for per capita environmental impact – such as carbon emissions. A rethinking of our view of nature therefore may be necessary if we really wish to fundamentally change our relationship with the natural world, and move towards a more sustainable future.