Definition of "Nature"

To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran;And much it grieved my heart to thinkWhat man has made of man.

1798, William Wordsworth, Lines Written in Early Spring

The human genius is creative when it copies Nature, and imitative when it aims to invent.

1807, [Germaine] de Staël Holstein, translated by D[ennis] Lawler, “[[Book XIII. Vesuvius and the plain of Naples.] Chap[ter] IV.] The extempore effusion of Corinna on the Plain of Naples.”, in Corinna; or, Italy. […], volume III, London: […] Corri, […]; and sold by Colburn, […], and Mackenzie, […], page 235

Within was a small chamber, chilly as an ice-house, and walled by Nature with solid limestone that was dewy with a cold sweat.

1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXIX, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, page 219

Then he commenced to talk, really talk, and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill.

1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court