NATURE. The essence of a being considered as the principle of activity. Also the substance of a thing as distinguished from its properties, considered as the source of its operations. Nature is also definable in contrast to its opposites from a variety of viewpoints. In contrast with God, it is the created universe. In contrast with human activity, it is the world considered prior to or independent of the changes produced by human free will. In contrast to the life and operations of divine grace, it is that to which a human person has claim, as creature, as distinct from a share in God’s own life, which is the supernatural. (Etym. Latin natura, the inner principle of a thing’s operations and activity; from nasci, to be born.)