Aspirants Essay

Essay on Nature in English (150, 200, 250, 500 Words)

Teacher

Here, we’ve presented essays on “Nature” in 150, 200, 250 & 500 word samples. All the essays will be helpful for students of all classes i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 & class 12.

Table of Contents

Essay on Nature in 150 Words

Introduction.

Nature is the essence of life, surrounding us in its intricate beauty. It encompasses everything from the towering mountains to the tiniest of insects. Its influence on our existence is profound, shaping our physical environment and nurturing our souls. Exploring the depths of nature unveils a world of wonder and awe.

Exploring the Beauty

Nature’s beauty lies in its diversity. From the lush green forests to the vast oceans teeming with life, each element holds its own charm. The symphony of colors in a sunrise or the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind captivates our senses, reminding us of the miracles of existence. Nature invites us to pause, reflect, and appreciate the marvels that surround us.

In conclusion, nature is not merely a backdrop to our lives but an integral part of our being. Its preservation is paramount for the well-being of future generations. As stewards of this planet, it is our responsibility to cherish and protect the natural world, ensuring its splendor endures for generations to come.

Essay on Nature

Nature Essay in 200 Words

Nature, the tapestry of life, holds within its folds the essence of our existence. Its boundless beauty and unfathomable complexity inspire awe and reverence. From the grandeur of mountains to the delicate petals of a flower, nature’s creations are a testament to the wonders of the universe.

The Majesty of Landscapes

The landscapes shaped by nature are a sight to behold. Rolling hills, cascading waterfalls, and vast deserts each tell a story of time and transformation. They remind us of the Earth’s enduring power and the resilience of life that flourishes within its embrace.

The Symphony of Life

In nature’s symphony, every creature plays a vital role. From the graceful flight of birds to the silent slither of snakes, each organism contributes to the intricate web of life. The diversity of species is a testament to nature’s creativity and adaptability, ensuring the balance and harmony of ecosystems.

The Healing Power

Nature’s therapeutic embrace has long been recognized by humanity. The tranquility of a forest, the soothing rhythm of waves, or the crisp mountain air has a profound effect on our well-being. In nature, we find solace, rejuvenation, and a connection to something greater than ourselves.

In conclusion, nature is not merely a resource to be exploited but a source of inspiration, wonder, and sustenance. It is our collective responsibility to preserve and protect the natural world for future generations, ensuring that its beauty and abundance endure for centuries to come.

Essay Writing on Nature in 250 Words

Nature, the cradle of life, has nurtured and sustained civilizations for millennia. From ancient forests to pristine rivers, its bounty knows no bounds. As of 2020, approximately 8.7 million species of plants and animals have been identified, each contributing to the intricate tapestry of biodiversity on our planet.

The Importance of Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the lifeblood of our ecosystems, providing vital services such as pollination, water purification, and climate regulation. According to the World Wildlife Fund, forests alone are home to 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Protecting these ecosystems is crucial for maintaining the delicate balance of life on Earth.

Ecosystem Services

Nature provides a myriad of services essential for human survival. Wetlands, for example, act as natural water filters, purifying drinking water and mitigating the impact of floods. Coral reefs not only support a quarter of all marine species but also protect coastlines from erosion and storms.

Threats to Nature

Despite its importance, nature faces unprecedented threats from human activities. Deforestation, pollution, and climate change are driving species extinction rates at an alarming pace. The International Union for Conservation of Nature reports that approximately 27% of assessed species are threatened with extinction.

Conservation Efforts

Efforts to conserve nature are underway globally. Protected areas, such as national parks and marine reserves, play a crucial role in safeguarding biodiversity. Conservation organizations and governments are working together to implement sustainable practices and restore degraded habitats.

The Healing Power of Nature

Beyond its ecological significance, nature has profound benefits for human health and well-being. Research shows that spending time in nature reduces stress, anxiety, and depression. As urbanization continues to rise, preserving green spaces becomes increasingly vital for public health.

In conclusion, nature is not only a source of wonder and inspiration but also a fundamental pillar of our survival. Protecting and preserving its richness is not just a moral imperative but a necessity for the prosperity of future generations. As stewards of this planet, it is our responsibility to cherish, conserve, and sustainably manage the natural world.

Writing an Essay on Nature in 500 Words

Nature, encompassing the vast array of ecosystems, species, and landscapes on Earth, is the cornerstone of our existence. Its significance transcends mere aesthetics, playing a crucial role in sustaining life and providing invaluable services to humanity. As of 2022, scientists estimate that over 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity is still undiscovered, highlighting the vastness and complexity of nature’s diversity.

The Diversity of Life

Biodiversity, the variety of life forms on Earth, is a testament to nature’s resilience and creativity. From the microscopic bacteria to the majestic whales, each organism plays a unique role in maintaining the balance of ecosystems. According to the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity, forests alone are home to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity, harboring millions of species essential for the functioning of ecosystems.

Ecosystem Services and Benefits

Nature provides a multitude of services essential for human well-being, known as ecosystem services. These include provisioning services such as food, water, and timber, regulating services such as climate regulation and flood control, and cultural services like recreation and spiritual enrichment. The economic value of these services is immense, with estimates ranging from $125 trillion to $145 trillion per year, surpassing the global GDP.

Threats to Biodiversity

Despite its critical importance, biodiversity is under unprecedented threat from human activities. Habitat destruction, driven primarily by deforestation and land conversion, is the leading cause of species extinction. Pollution, overexploitation of resources, and climate change further exacerbate the loss of biodiversity. The World Wildlife Fund reports that wildlife populations have declined by an average of 68% since 1970.

Conservation Strategies

Efforts to conserve biodiversity are multifaceted and require collaborative action on local, national, and global scales. Protected areas, such as national parks and marine reserves, play a crucial role in safeguarding biodiversity. Conservation initiatives aimed at sustainable land management, habitat restoration, and species recovery are also essential for mitigating the impacts of human activities.

Indigenous Knowledge and Practices

Indigenous peoples and local communities have long been stewards of biodiversity, possessing valuable knowledge and practices for sustainable resource management. Their traditional ecological knowledge offers insights into the intricate relationships between humans and nature, providing innovative solutions for conservation and resilience.

The Role of Technology

Advancements in technology, such as remote sensing and DNA sequencing, are revolutionizing our understanding of biodiversity and its conservation. These tools enable scientists to monitor ecosystems, identify species, and assess the effectiveness of conservation efforts with unprecedented accuracy and efficiency.

Nature-Based Solutions

Nature-based solutions, which harness the power of ecosystems to address societal challenges, are gaining traction as effective strategies for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. Restoring degraded habitats, implementing green infrastructure, and integrating nature into urban planning are examples of nature-based solutions that provide multiple benefits for both people and the planet.

In conclusion, nature’s richness and diversity are invaluable assets that sustain life on Earth. Preserving biodiversity is not only a moral imperative but also essential for securing our future. By valuing, protecting, and restoring nature, we can ensure a harmonious coexistence with the natural world and secure a sustainable future for generations to come.

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Essay on Nature

essay on nature

Here we have shared the Essay on Nature in detail so you can use it in your exam or assignment of 150, 250, 400, 500, or 1000 words.

You can use this Essay on Nature in any assignment or project whether you are in school (class 10th or 12th), college, or preparing for answer writing in competitive exams. 

Topics covered in this article.

Essay on Nature in 150-250 words

Essay on nature in 300-450 words, essay on nature in 500-1000 words.

Nature is a precious gift that surrounds us, encompassing the world’s landscapes, ecosystems, and living beings. It is a source of immense beauty, inspiration, and solace. From towering mountains to vast oceans, lush forests to serene meadows, nature provides us with breathtaking sights and a sense of awe.

Nature is not only visually captivating but also essential for our survival and well-being. It sustains life by providing clean air, fresh water, and fertile soil. It is home to a diverse array of plants and animals, each playing a vital role in maintaining ecological balance.

Furthermore, spending time in nature has numerous benefits for our physical and mental health. It rejuvenates our spirits, reduces stress, and enhances our overall well-being. Immersing ourselves in nature’s tranquility allows us to disconnect from the fast-paced world and reconnect with our inner selves.

However, human activities have taken a toll on nature. Deforestation, pollution, and climate change threaten the delicate balance of ecosystems and the survival of countless species. It is our responsibility to protect and conserve nature for future generations.

Appreciating nature’s beauty and recognizing its significance is crucial. We must strive to live in harmony with nature, practicing sustainable lifestyles and preserving natural resources. By valuing and respecting nature, we can ensure its preservation and continue to enjoy its countless gifts.

In conclusion, nature is a precious and awe-inspiring entity that sustains life and provides solace and inspiration. It is essential for our physical and mental well-being. As stewards of the Earth, it is our responsibility to protect and conserve nature, ensuring its preservation for future generations to cherish and enjoy.

Nature is a magnificent and awe-inspiring gift that surrounds us, encompassing the diverse landscapes, ecosystems, and living beings that make up our planet. From the majestic mountains to the serene lakes, from the vibrant forests to the vast oceans, nature captivates us with its beauty, power, and serenity.

Nature provides us with numerous benefits and is essential for our survival and well-being. It is the source of clean air, freshwater, and fertile soil that sustains life on Earth. The intricate web of ecosystems, comprising plants, animals, and microorganisms, works together to maintain the delicate balance of nature.

Beyond its practical importance, nature has a profound impact on our physical and mental health. Spending time in nature has been shown to reduce stress, improve mood, and enhance overall well-being. The sight of a breathtaking sunset, the sound of waves crashing on the shore, or the touch of grass beneath our feet can have a soothing and therapeutic effect, allowing us to reconnect with ourselves and find solace in the beauty of the natural world.

Unfortunately, human activities have had a detrimental impact on nature. Deforestation, pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction threaten the delicate balance of ecosystems and the survival of countless species. It is imperative that we recognize the urgency of preserving and protecting nature for future generations.

Conservation and sustainable practices are vital for ensuring the continued well-being of our planet. We must strive to live in harmony with nature, embracing sustainable lifestyles and adopting practices that minimize our ecological footprint. This includes reducing waste, conserving energy and water, practicing responsible consumption, and supporting conservation efforts.

Furthermore, education and awareness play a crucial role in fostering a deeper appreciation and understanding of nature. By learning about the intricate interconnectedness of ecosystems and the importance of biodiversity, we can develop a sense of responsibility and take action to protect and conserve the natural world.

Preserving nature is not just about ensuring our own well-being; it is a moral obligation to future generations and a commitment to the intrinsic value of all living beings and ecosystems. By valuing and respecting nature, we can create a more sustainable and harmonious future, where humans coexist with the natural world in a mutually beneficial relationship.

In conclusion, nature is a source of wonder, beauty, and vital resources. It sustains life, nourishes our souls, and provides us with a profound sense of connection. As custodians of the Earth, it is our responsibility to protect and preserve nature, adopting sustainable practices and fostering a deep appreciation for the natural world. By doing so, we can ensure a vibrant and thriving planet for ourselves and future generations to enjoy and cherish.

Title: Nature – A Pristine Gift Nurturing Life and Inspiring the Human Spirit

Introduction :

Nature, with its awe-inspiring landscapes, diverse ecosystems, and intricate web of life, is a pristine gift that surrounds us. It captivates us with its beauty, serenity, and transformative power. This essay explores the profound relationship between humans and nature, highlighting its importance for our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. It also emphasizes the urgent need to protect and preserve nature in the face of environmental challenges.

The Beauty and Diversity of Nature

Nature encompasses a vast array of breathtaking landscapes, from snow-capped mountains to lush forests, from vast oceans to tranquil meadows. Each holds its unique charm, captivating us with its grandeur, tranquility, and raw beauty. From the vibrant colors of blooming flowers to the graceful flight of birds, nature’s diversity evokes wonder and ignites our imagination.

Nurturing Life and Ecosystems

Nature sustains life on Earth, providing vital resources and supporting intricate ecosystems. It supplies us with clean air, freshwater, and fertile soil, enabling the growth of crops and the survival of diverse species. The delicate balance of ecosystems ensures the survival of plants, animals, and microorganisms, each playing a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity and ecological harmony.

Physical and Mental Well-being

Spending time in nature has numerous physical and mental health benefits. It reduces stress, anxiety, and depression, promoting a sense of calm and well-being. The healing power of nature can be seen in activities such as forest bathing, where individuals immerse themselves in natural environments to enhance their overall health. Nature provides a respite from the fast-paced urban life, allowing us to disconnect, recharge, and rejuvenate our spirits.

Inspiration and Spiritual Connection

Nature inspires us and stirs our innermost emotions. The grandeur of a mountain range, the rhythmic crashing of waves, or the delicate beauty of a flower can evoke a profound sense of awe and wonder. Nature’s beauty stimulates our creativity, kindles our imagination, and nurtures our spirit. It serves as a reminder of our place in the larger tapestry of life, connecting us to something greater than ourselves.

Environmental Challenges and the Need for Conservation

Nature is facing unprecedented challenges due to human activities. Deforestation, pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction pose significant threats to the delicate balance of ecosystems and the survival of countless species. The urgency to protect and preserve nature has never been greater. Conservation efforts, sustainable practices, and environmental awareness are crucial in mitigating these challenges and ensuring a sustainable future.

Cultivating a Connection with Nature

To protect and preserve nature, it is essential to cultivate a deep connection and appreciation for the natural world. Education plays a vital role in fostering environmental awareness and instilling a sense of responsibility. Encouraging outdoor experiences, nature-based activities, and environmental stewardship programs can nurture a love for nature and promote a sense of guardianship of the planet.

Conclusion :

Nature is a remarkable and invaluable gift, nurturing life, inspiring the human spirit, and offering solace and serenity. It is essential for our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. However, it faces significant challenges that threaten its delicate balance and the well-being of future generations. By protecting and preserving nature, adopting sustainable practices, and fostering a deep connection with the natural world, we can ensure a vibrant and thriving planet for ourselves and future generations to enjoy and cherish. Let us embrace our role as stewards of the Earth and work collectively to safeguard nature’s invaluable gifts.

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Introduction Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. In like manner, nature is already, in its forms and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us interrogate the great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature?

All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote approach to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the road to truth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and speculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous. But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable; as language, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, sex.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men andmy own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses; -- in its common and in its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture. But his operations taken together are so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing, that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind, they do not vary the result. Chapter I NATURETo go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.

When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, -- master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.

Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population. Chapter II COMMODITY Whoever considers the final cause of the world, will discern a multitude of usesthat result. They all admit of being thrown into one of the following classes; Commodity; Beauty; Language; and Discipline.

Under the general name of Commodity, I rank all those advantages which our senses owe to nature. This, of course, is a benefit which is temporary and mediate, not ultimate, like its service to the soul. Yet although low, it is perfect in its kind, and is the only use of nature which all men apprehend. The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? this zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn serve him. The field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, and his bed. Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other's hands for the profit of man. The wind sows the seed; the sun evaporates the sea; the wind blows the vapor to the field; the ice, on the other side of the planet, condenses rain on this; the rain feeds the plant; the plant feeds the animal; and thus the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man.

The useful arts are reproductions or new combinations by the wit of man, of the same natural benefactors. He no longer waits for favoring gales, but by means of steam, he realizes the fable of Aeolus's bag, and carries the two and thirty winds in the boiler of his boat. To diminish friction, he paves the road with iron bars, and, mounting a coach with a ship-load of men, animals, and merchandise behind him, he darts through the country, from town to town, like an eagle or a swallow through the air. By the aggregate of these aids, how is the face of the world changed, from the era of Noah to that of Napoleon! The private poor man hath cities, ships, canals, bridges, built for him. He goes to the post-office, and the human race run on his errands; to the book-shop, and the human race read and write of all that happens, for him; to the court-house, and nations repair his wrongs. He sets his house upon the road, and the human race go forth every morning, and shovel out the snow, and cut a path for him.

But there is no need of specifying particulars in this class of uses. The catalogue is endless, and the examples so obvious, that I shall leave them to the reader's reflection, with the general remark, that this mercenary benefit is one which has respect to a farther good. A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work. Chapter III BEAUTY A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely, the love of Beauty.

The ancient Greeks called the world {kosmos}, beauty. Such is the constitution of all things, or such the plastic power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us a delight in and for themselves; a pleasure arising from outline, color, motion, and grouping. This seems partly owing to the eye itself. The eye is the best of artists. By the mutual action of its structure and of the laws of light, perspective is produced, which integrates every mass of objects, of what character soever, into a well colored and shaded globe, so that where the particular objects are mean and unaffecting, the landscape which they compose, is round and symmetrical. And as the eye is the best composer, so light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful. And the stimulus it affords to the sense, and a sort of infinitude which it hath, like space and time, make all matter gay. Even the corpse has its own beauty. But besides this general grace diffused over nature, almost all the individual forms are agreeable to the eye, as is proved by our endless imitations of some of them, as the acorn, the grape, the pine-cone, the wheat-ear, the egg, the wings and forms of most birds, the lion's claw, the serpent, the butterfly, sea-shells, flames, clouds, buds, leaves, and the forms of many trees, as the palm.

For better consideration, we may distribute the aspects of Beauty in a threefold manner.

1. First, the simple perception of natural forms is a delight. The influence of the forms and actions in nature, is so needful to man, that, in its lowest functions, it seems to lie on the confines of commodity and beauty. To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street, and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

But in other hours, Nature satisfies by its loveliness, and without any mixture of corporeal benefit. I see the spectacle of morning from the hill-top over against my house, from day-break to sun-rise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations: the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams.

Not less excellent, except for our less susceptibility in the afternoon, was the charm, last evening, of a January sunset. The western clouds divided and subdivided themselves into pink flakes modulated with tints of unspeakable softness; and the air had so much life and sweetness, that it was a pain to come within doors. What was it that nature would say? Was there no meaning in the live repose of the valley behind the mill, and which Homer or Shakspeare could not reform for me in words? The leafless trees become spires of flame in the sunset, with the blue east for their back-ground, and the stars of the dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and stubble rimed with frost, contribute something to the mute music.

The inhabitants of cities suppose that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year. I please myself with the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer. To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath. The state of the crop in the surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week to week. The succession of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, which makes the silent clock by which time tells the summer hours, will make even the divisions of the day sensible to a keen observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants punctual to their time, follow each other, and the year has room for all. By water-courses, the variety is greater. In July, the blue pontederia or pickerel-weed blooms in large beds in the shallow parts of our pleasant river, and swarms with yellow butterflies in continual motion. Art cannot rival this pomp of purple and gold. Indeed the river is a perpetual gala, and boasts each month a new ornament.

But this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty, is the least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon, and 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who ever could clutch it? Go forth to find it, and it is gone: 't is only a mirage as you look from the windows of diligence.

2. The presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element is essential to its perfection. The high and divine beauty which can be loved without effeminacy, is that which is found in combination with the human will. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it. Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He may divest himself of it; he may creep into a corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his thought and will, he takes up the world into himself. "All those things for which men plough, build, or sail, obey virtue;" said Sallust. "The winds and waves," said Gibbon, "are always on the side of the ablest navigators." So are the sun and moon and all the stars of heaven. When a noble act is done, -- perchance in a scene of great natural beauty; when Leonidas and his three hundred martyrs consume one day in dying, and the sun and moon come each and look at them once in the steep defile of Thermopylae; when Arnold Winkelried, in the high Alps, under the shadow of the avalanche, gathers in his side a sheaf of Austrian spears to break the line for his comrades; are not these heroes entitled to add the beauty of the scene to the beauty of the deed? When the bark of Columbus nears the shore of America; -- before it, the beach lined with savages, fleeing out of all their huts of cane; the sea behind; and the purple mountains of the Indian Archipelago around, can we separate the man from the living picture? Does not the New World clothe his form with her palm-groves and savannahs as fit drapery? Ever does natural beauty steal in like air, and envelope great actions. When Sir Harry Vane was dragged up the Tower-hill, sitting on a sled, to suffer death, as the champion of the English laws, one of the multitude cried out to him, "You never sate on so glorious a seat." Charles II., to intimidate the citizens of London, caused the patriot Lord Russel to be drawn in an open coach, through the principal streets of the city, on his way to the scaffold. "But," his biographer says, "the multitude imagined they saw liberty and virtue sitting by his side." In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the sun as its candle. Nature stretcheth out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. A virtuous man is in unison with her works, and makes the central figure of the visible sphere. Homer, Pindar, Socrates, Phocion, associate themselves fitly in our memory with the geography and climate of Greece. The visible heavens and earth sympathize with Jesus. And in common life, whosoever has seen a person of powerful character and happy genius, will have remarked how easily he took all things along with him, -- the persons, the opinions, and the day, and nature became ancillary to a man.

3. There is still another aspect under which the beauty of the world may be viewed, namely, as it become s an object of the intellect. Beside the relation of things to virtue, they have a relation to thought. The intellect searches out the absolute order of things as they stand in the mind of God, and without the colors of affection. The intellectual and the active powers seem to succeed each other, and the exclusive activity of the one, generates the exclusive activity of the other. There is something unfriendly in each to the other, but they are like the alternate periods of feeding and working in animals; each prepares and will be followed by the other. Therefore does beauty, which, in relation to actions, as we have seen, comes unsought, and comes because it is unsought, remain for the apprehension and pursuit of the intellect; and then again, in its turn, of the active power. Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.

All men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world; some men even to delight. This love of beauty is Taste. Others have the same love in such excess, that, not content with admiring, they seek to embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is Art.

The production of a work of art throws a light upon the mystery of humanity. A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. It is the result or expression of nature, in miniature. For, although the works of nature are innumerable and all different, the result or the expression of them all is similar and single. Nature is a sea of forms radically alike and even unique. A leaf, a sun-beam, a landscape, the ocean, make an analogous impression on the mind. What is common to them all, -- that perfectness and harmony, is beauty. The standard of beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms, -- the totality of nature; which the Italians expressed by defining beauty "il piu nell' uno." Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce. Thus is Art, a nature passed through the alembic of man. Thus in art, does nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first works.

The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. This element I call an ultimate end. No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. Beauty, in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the universe. God is the all-fair. Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All. But beauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty, and is not alone a solid and satisfactory good. It must stand as a part, and not as yet the last or highest expression of the final cause of Nature. Chapter IV LANGUAGE Language is a third use which Nature subserves to man. Nature is the vehble, and threefold degree.

1. Words are signs of natural facts.

2. Particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts.

3. Nature is the symbol of spirit.

1. Words are signs of natural facts. The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation. Every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material appearance. means ; means . primarily means ; , the crossing of a ; , the . We say the to express emotion, the to denote thought; and and re words borrowed from sensible things, and now appropriated to spiritual nature. Most of the process by which this transformation is made, is hidden from us in the remote time when language was framed; but the same tendency may be daily observed in children. Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.

2. But this origin of all words that convey a spiritual import, -- so conspicuous a fact in the history of language, -- is our least debt to nature. It is not words only that are emblematic; it is things which are emblematic. Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. A lamb is innocence; a snake is subtle spite; flowers express to us the delicate affections. Light and darkness are our familiar expression for knowledge and ignorance; and heat for love. Visible distance behind and before us, is respectively our image of memory and hope.

Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence. Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul, he calls Reason: it is not mine, or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its property and men. And the blue sky in which the private earth is buried, the sky with its eternal calm, and full of everlasting orbs, is the type of Reason. That which, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. And man in all ages and countries, embodies it in his language, as the FATHER.

It is easily seen that there is nothing lucky or capricious in these analogies, but that they are constant, and pervade nature. These are not the dreams of a few poets, here and there, but man is an analogist, and studies relations in all objects. He is placed in the centre of beings, and a ray of relation passes from every other being to him. And neither can man be understood without these objects, nor these objects without man. All the facts in natural history taken by themselves, have no value, but are barren, like a single sex. But marry it to human history, and it is full of life. Whole Floras, all Linnaeus' and Buffon's volumes, are dry catalogues of facts; but the most trivial of these facts, the habit of a plant, the organs, or work, or noise of an insect, applied to the illustration of a fact in intellectual philosophy, or, in any way associated to human nature, affects us in the most lively and agreeable manner. The seed of a plant, -- to what affecting analogies in the nature of man, is that little fruit made use of, in all discourse, up to the voice of Paul, who calls the human corpse a seed, -- "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." The motion of the earth round its axis, and round the sun, makes the day, and the year. These are certain amounts of brute light and heat. But is there no intent of an analogy between man's life and the seasons? And do the seasons gain no grandeur or pathos from that analogy? The instincts of the ant are very unimportant, considered as the ant's; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, a little body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to be recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime.

Because of this radical correspondence between visible things and human thoughts, savages, who have only what is necessary, converse in figures. As we go back in history, language becomes more picturesque, until its infancy, when it is all poetry; or all spiritual facts are represented by natural symbols. The same symbols are found to make the original elements of all languages. It has moreover been observed, that the idioms of all languages approach each other in passages of the greatest eloquence and power. And as this is the first language, so is it the last. This immediate dependence of language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life, never loses its power to affect us. It is this which gives that piquancy to the conversation of a strong-natured farmer or back-woodsman, which all men relish.

A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise, -- and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections. Hundreds of writers may be found in every long-civilized nation, who for a short time believe, and make others believe, that they see and utter truths, who do not of themselves clothe one thought in its natural garment, but who feed unconsciously on the language created by the primary writers of the country, those, namely, who hold primarily on nature.

But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God. The moment our discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts, and is inflamed with passion or exalted by thought, it clothes itself in images. A man conversing in earnest, if he watch his intellectual processes, will find that a material image, more or less luminous, arises in his mind, cotemporaneous with every thought, which furnishes the vestment of the thought. Hence, good writing and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories. This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper creation. It is the working of the Original Cause through the instruments he has already made.

These facts may suggest the advantage which the country-life possesses for a powerful mind, over the artificial and curtailed life of cities. We know more from nature than we can at will communicate. Its light flows into the mind evermore, and we forget its presence. The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, without design and without heed, -- shall not lose their lesson altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long hereafter, amidst agitation and terror in national councils, -- in the hour of revolution, -- these solemn images shall reappear in their morning lustre, as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the passing events shall awaken. At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with these forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power are put into his hands.

3. We are thus assisted by natural objects in the expression of particular meanings. But how great a language to convey such pepper-corn informations! Did it need such noble races of creatures, this profusion of forms, this host of orbs in heaven, to furnish man with the dictionary and grammar of his municipal speech? Whilst we use this grand cipher to expedite the affairs of our pot and kettle, we feel that we have not yet put it to its use, neither are able. We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs. Whilst we see that it always stands ready to clothe what we would say, we cannot avoid the question, whether the characters are not significant of themselves. Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them, when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts? The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind. The laws of moral nature answer to those of matter as face to face in a glass. "The visible world and the relation of its parts, is the dial plate of the invisible." The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. Thus, "the whole is greater than its part;" "reaction is equal to action;" "the smallest weight may be made to lift the greatest, the difference of weight being compensated by time;" and many the like propositions, which have an ethical as well as physical sense. These propositions have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life, than when confined to technical use.

In like manner, the memorable words of history, and the proverbs of nations, consist usually of a natural fact, selected as a picture or parable of a moral truth. Thus; A rolling stone gathers no moss; A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; A cripple in the right way, will beat a racer in the wrong; Make hay while the sun shines; 'T is hard to carry a full cup even; Vinegar is the son of wine; The last ounce broke the camel's back; Long-lived trees make roots first; -- and the like. In their primary sense these are trivial facts, but we repeat them for the value of their analogical import. What is true of proverbs, is true of all fables, parables, and allegories.

This relation between the mind and matter is not fancied by some poet, but stands in the will of God, and so is free to be known by all men. It appears to men, or it does not appear. When in fortunate hours we ponder this miracle, the wise man doubts, if, at all other times, he is not blind and deaf; for the universe becomes transparent, and the light of higher laws than its own, shines through it. It is the standing problem which has exercised the wonder and the study of every fine genius since the world began; from the era of the Egyptians and the Brahmins, to that of Pythagoras, of Plato, of Bacon, of Leibnitz, of Swedenborg. There sits the Sphinx at the road-side, and from age to age, as each prophet comes by, he tries his fortune at reading her riddle. There seems to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms; and day and night, river and storm, beast and bird, acid and alkali, preexist in necessary Ideas in the mind of God, and are what they are by virtue of preceding affections, in the world of spirit. A Fact is the end or last issue of spirit. The visible creation is the terminus or the circumference of the invisible world. "Material objects," said a French philosopher, "are necessarily kinds of scoriae of the substantial thoughts of the Creator, which must always preserve an exact relation to their first origin; in other words, visible nature must have a spiritual and moral side."

This doctrine is abstruse, and though the images of "garment," "scoriae," "mirror," &c., may stimulate the fancy, we must summon the aid of subtler and more vital expositors to make it plain. "Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth," -- is the fundamental law of criticism. A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text. By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects of nature, so that the world shall be to us an open book, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause.

A new interest surprises us, whilst, under the view now suggested, we contemplate the fearful extent and multitude of objects; since "every object rightly seen, unlocks a new faculty of the soul." That which was unconscious truth, becomes, when interpreted and defined in an object, a part of the domain of knowledge, -- a new weapon in the magazine of power. Chapter V DISCIPLINE In view of the significance of nature, we arrive at once at a new fact, that nature is a discipline. This use of the world includes the preceding uses, as parts of itself.

Space, time, society, labor, climate, food, locomotion, the animals, the mechanical forces, give us sincerest lessons, day by day, whose meaning is unlimited. They educate both the Understanding and the Reason. Every property of matter is a school for the understanding, -- its solidity or resistance, its inertia, its extension, its figure, its divisibility. The understanding adds, divides, combines, measures, and finds nutriment and room for its activity in this worthy scene. Meantime, Reason transfers all these lessons into its own world of thought, by perceiving the analogy that marries Matter and Mind.

1. Nature is a discipline of the understanding in intellectual truths. Our dealing with sensible objects is a constant exercise in the necessary lessons of difference, of likeness, of order, of being and seeming, of progressive arrangement; of ascent from particular to general; of combination to one end of manifold forces. Proportioned to the importance of the organ to be formed, is the extreme care with which its tuition is provided, -- a care pretermitted in no single case. What tedious training, day after day, year after year, never ending, to form the common sense; what continual reproduction of annoyances, inconveniences, dilemmas; what rejoicing over us of little men; what disputing of prices, what reckonings of interest, -- and all to form the Hand of the mind; -- to instruct us that "good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!"

The same good office is performed by Property and its filial systems of debt and credit. Debt, grinding debt, whose iron face the widow, the orphan, and the sons of genius fear and hate; -- debt, which consumes so much time, which so cripples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be forgone, and is needed most by those who suffer from it most. Moreover, property, which has been well compared to snow, -- "if it fall level to-day, it will be blown into drifts to-morrow," -- is the surface action of internal machinery, like the index on the face of a clock. Whilst now it is the gymnastics of the understanding, it is hiving in the foresight of the spirit, experience in profounder laws.

The whole character and fortune of the individual are affected by the least inequalities in the culture of the understanding; for example, in the perception of differences. Therefore is Space, and therefore Time, that man may know that things are not huddled and lumped, but sundered and individual. A bell and a plough have each their use, and neither can do the office of the other. Water is good to drink, coal to burn, wool to wear; but wool cannot be drunk, nor water spun, nor coal eaten. The wise man shows his wisdom in separation, in gradation, and his scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as nature. The foolish have no range in their scale, but suppose every man is as every other man. What is not good they call the worst, and what is not hateful, they call the best.

In like manner, what good heed, nature forms in us! She pardons no mistakes. Her yea is yea, and her nay, nay.

The first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those first steps which the farmer, the hunter, and the sailor take,) teach that nature's dice are always loaded; that in her heaps and rubbish are concealed sure and useful results.

How calmly and genially the mind apprehends one after another the laws of physics! What noble emotions dilate the mortal as he enters into the counsels of the creation, and feels by knowledge the privilege to BE! His insight refines him. The beauty of nature shines in his own breast. Man is greater that he can see this, and the universe less, because Time and Space relations vanish as laws are known.

Here again we are impressed and even daunted by the immense Universe to be explored. "What we know, is a point to what we do not know." Open any recent journal of science, and weigh the problems suggested concerning Light, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, Physiology, Geology, and judge whether the interest of natural science is likely to be soon exhausted.

Passing by many particulars of the discipline of nature, we must not omit to specify two.

The exercise of the Will or the lesson of power is taught in every event. From the child's successive possession of his several senses up to the hour when he saith, "Thy will be done!" he is learning the secret, that he can reduce under his will, not only particular events, but great classes, nay the whole series of events, and so conform all facts to his character. Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the Saviour rode. It offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw material which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never weary of working it up. He forges the subtile and delicate air into wise and melodious words, and gives them wing as angels of persuasion and command. One after another, his victorious thought comes up with and reduces all things, until the world becomes, at last, only a realized will, -- the double of the man.

2. Sensible objects conform to the premonitions of Reason and reflect the conscience. All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is nature glorious with form, color, and motion, that every globe in the remotest heaven; every chemical change from the rudest crystal up to the laws of life; every change of vegetation from the first principle of growth in the eye of a leaf, to the tropical forest and antediluvian coal-mine; every animal function from the sponge up to Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong, and echo the Ten Commandments. Therefore is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment. Prophet and priest, David, Isaiah, Jesus, have drawn deeply from this source. This ethical character so penetrates the bone and marrow of nature, as to seem the end for which it was made. Whatever private purpose is answered by any member or part, this is its public and universal function, and is never omitted. Nothing in nature is exhausted in its first use. When a thing has served an end to the uttermost, it is wholly new for an ulterior service. In God, every end is converted into a new means. Thus the use of commodity, regarded by itself, is mean and squalid. But it is to the mind an education in the doctrine of Use, namely, that a thing is good only so far as it serves; that a conspiring of parts and efforts to the production of an end, is essential to any being. The first and gross manifestation of this truth, is our inevitable and hated training in values and wants, in corn and meat.

It has already been illustrated, that every natural process is a version of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the centre of nature and radiates to the circumference. It is the pith and marrow of every substance, every relation, and every process. All things with which we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun, -- it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. But the sailor, the shepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their several resorts, have each an experience precisely parallel, and leading to the same conclusion: because all organizations are radically alike. Nor can it be doubted that this moral sentiment which thus scents the air, grows in the grain, and impregnates the waters of the world, is caught by man and sinks into his soul. The moral influence of nature upon every individual is that amount of truth which it illustrates to him. Who can estimate this? Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman? how much tranquillity has been reflected to man from the azure sky, over whose unspotted deeps the winds forevermore drive flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or stain? how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes? What a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of Health!

Herein is especially apprehended the unity of Nature, -- the unity in variety, -- which meets us everywhere. All the endless variety of things make an identical impression. Xenophanes complained in his old age, that, look where he would, all things hastened back to Unity. He was weary of seeing the same entity in the tedious variety of forms. The fable of Proteus has a cordial truth. A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world.

Not only resemblances exist in things whose analogy is obvious, as when we detect the type of the human hand in the flipper of the fossil saurus, but also in objects wherein there is great superficial unlikeness. Thus architecture is called "frozen music," by De Stael and Goethe. Vitruvius thought an architect should be a musician. "A Gothic church," said Coleridge, "is a petrified religion." Michael Angelo maintained, that, to an architect, a knowledge of anatomy is essential. In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass. The law of harmonic sounds reappears in the harmonic colors. The granite is differenced in its laws only by the more or less of heat, from the river that wears it away. The river, as it flows, resembles the air that flows over it; the air resembles the light which traverses it with more subtile currents; the light resembles the heat which rides with it through Space. Each creature is only a modification of the other; the likeness in them is more than the difference, and their radical law is one and the same. A rule of one art, or a law of one organization, holds true throughout nature. So intimate is this Unity, that, it is easily seen, it lies under the undermost garment of nature, and betrays its source in Universal Spirit. For, it pervades Thought also. Every universal truth which we express in words, implies or supposes every other truth. It is like a great circle on a sphere, comprising all possible circles; which, however, may be drawn, and comprise it, in like manner. Every such truth is the absolute Ens seen from one side. But it has innumerable sides.

The central Unity is still more conspicuous in actions. Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it. An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature. "The wise man, in doing one thing, does all; or, in the one thing he does rightly, he sees the likeness of all which is done rightly."

Words and actions are not the attributes of brute nature. They introduce us to the human form, of which all other organizations appear to be degradations. When this appears among so many that surround it, the spirit prefers it to all others. It says, `From such as this, have I drawn joy and knowledge; in such as this, have I found and beheld myself; I will speak to it; it can speak again; it can yield me thought already formed and alive.' In fact, the eye, -- the mind, -- is always accompanied by these forms, male and female; and these are incomparably the richest informations of the power and order that lie at the heart of things. Unfortunately, every one of them bears the marks as of some injury; is marred and superficially defective. Nevertheless, far different from the deaf and dumb nature around them, these all rest like fountain-pipes on the unfathomed sea of thought and virtue whereto they alone, of all organizations, are the entrances.

It were a pleasant inquiry to follow into detail their ministry to our education, but where would it stop? We are associated in adolescent and adult life with some friends, who, like skies and waters, are coextensive with our idea; who, answering each to a certain affection of the soul, satisfy our desire on that side; whom we lack power to put at such focal distance from us, that we can mend or even analyze them. We cannot choose but love them. When much intercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence, and has increased our respect for the resources of God who thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal; when he has, moreover, become an object of thought, and, whilst his character retains all its unconscious effect, is converted in the mind into solid and sweet wisdom, -- it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time. Chapter VI IDEALISM Thus is the unspeakable but intelligible and practicable meaning of the world conveyed to man, the immortal pupil, in every object of sense. To this one end of Discipline, all parts of nature conspire.

A noble doubt perpetually suggests itself, whether this end be not the Final Cause of the Universe; and whether nature outwardly exists. It is a sufficient account of that Appearance we call the World, that God will teach a human mind, and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of congruent sensations, which we call sun and moon, man and woman, house and trade. In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul? The relations of parts and the end of the whole remaining the same, what is the difference, whether land and sea interact, and worlds revolve and intermingle without number or end, -- deep yawning under deep, and galaxy balancing galaxy, throughout absolute space, -- or, whether, without relations of time and space, the same appearances are inscribed in the constant faith of man? Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me. Be it what it may, it is ideal to me, so long as I cannot try the accuracy of my senses.

The frivolous make themselves merry with the Ideal theory, as if its consequences were burlesque; as if it affected the stability of nature. It surely does not. God never jests with us, and will not compromise the end of nature, by permitting any inconsequence in its procession. Any distrust of the permanence of laws, would paralyze the faculties of man. Their permanence is sacredly respected, and his faith therein is perfect. The wheels and springs of man are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand. It is a natural consequence of this structure, that, so long as the active powers predominate over the reflective, we resist with indignation any hint that nature is more short-lived or mutable than spirit. The broker, the wheelwright, the carpenter, the toll-man, are much displeased at the intimation.

But whilst we acquiesce entirely in the permanence of natural laws, the question of the absolute existence of nature still remains open. It is the uniform effect of culture on the human mind, not to shake our faith in the stability of particular phenomena, as of heat, water, azote; but to lead us to regard nature as a phenomenon, not a substance; to attribute necessary existence to spirit; to esteem nature as an accident and an effect.

To the senses and the unrenewed understanding, belongs a sort of instinctive belief in the absolute existence of nature. In their view, man and nature are indissolubly joined. Things are ultimates, and they never look beyond their sphere. The presence of Reason mars this faith. The first effort of thought tends to relax this despotism of the senses, which binds us to nature as if we were a part of it, and shows us nature aloof, and, as it were, afloat. Until this higher agency intervened, the animal eye sees, with wonderful accuracy, sharp outlines and colored surfaces. When the eye of Reason opens, to outline and surface are at once added, grace and expression. These proceed from imagination and affection, and abate somewhat of the angular distinctness of objects. If the Reason be stimulated to more earnest vision, outlines and surfaces become transparent, and are no longer seen; causes and spirits are seen through them. The best moments of life are these delicious awakenings of the higher powers, and the reverential withdrawing of nature before its God.

Let us proceed to indicate the effects of culture. 1. Our first institution in the Ideal philosophy is a hint from nature herself.

Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us. Certain mechanical changes, a small alteration in our local position apprizes us of a dualism. We are strangely affected by seeing the shore from a moving ship, from a balloon, or through the tints of an unusual sky. The least change in our point of view, gives the whole world a pictorial air. A man who seldom rides, needs only to get into a coach and traverse his own town, to turn the street into a puppet-show. The men, the women, -- talking, running, bartering, fighting, -- the earnest mechanic, the lounger, the beggar, the boys, the dogs, are unrealized at once, or, at least, wholly detached from all relation to the observer, and seen as apparent, not substantial beings. What new thoughts are suggested by seeing a face of country quite familiar, in the rapid movement of the rail-road car! Nay, the most wonted objects, (make a very slight change in the point of vision,) please us most. In a camera obscura, the butcher's cart, and the figure of one of our own family amuse us. So a portrait of a well-known face gratifies us. Turn the eyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it any time these twenty years!

In these cases, by mechanical means, is suggested the difference between the observer and the spectacle, -- between man and nature. Hence arises a pleasure mixed with awe; I may say, a low degree of the sublime is felt from the fact, probably, that man is hereby apprized, that, whilst the world is a spectacle, something in himself is stable.

2. In a higher manner, the poet communicates the same pleasure. By a few strokes he delineates, as on air, the sun, the mountain, the camp, the city, the hero, the maiden, not different from what we know them, but only lifted from the ground and afloat before the eye. He unfixes the land and the sea, makes them revolve around the axis of his primary thought, and disposes them anew. Possessed himself by a heroic passion, he uses matter as symbols of it. The sensual man conforms thoughts to things; the poet conforms things to his thoughts. The one esteems nature as rooted and fast; the other, as fluid, and impresses his being thereon. To him, the refractory world is ductile and flexible; he invests dust and stones with humanity, and makes them the words of the Reason. The Imagination may be defined to be, the use which the Reason makes of the material world. Shakspeare possesses the power of subordinating nature for the purposes of expression, beyond all poets. His imperial muse tosses the creation like a bauble from hand to hand, and uses it to embody any caprice of thought that is upper-most in his mind. The remotest spaces of nature are visited, and the farthest sundered things are brought together, by a subtle spiritual connection. We are made aware that magnitude of material things is relative, and all objects shrink and expand to serve the passion of the poet. Thus, in his sonnets, the lays of birds, the scents and dyes of flowers, he finds to be the of his beloved; time, which keeps her from him, is his ; the suspicion she has awakened, is her ; His passion is not the fruit of chance; it swells, as he speaks, to a city, or a state. In the strength of his constancy, the Pyramids seem to him recent and transitory. The freshness of youth and love dazzles him with its resemblance to morning. The wild beauty of this hyperbole, I may say, in passing, it would not be easy to match in literature.

This transfiguration which all material objects undergo through the passion of the poet, -- this power which he exerts to dwarf the great, to magnify the small, -- might be illustrated by a thousand examples from his Plays. I have before me the Tempest, and will cite only these few lines. Prospero calls for music to soothe the frantic Alonzo, and his companions; Again;

The perception of real affinities between events, (that is to say, of ideal affinities, for those only are real,) enables the poet thus to make free with the most imposing forms and phenomena of the world, and to assert the predominance of the soul.

3. Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty as his main end; the other Truth. But the philosopher, not less than the poet, postpones the apparent order and relations of things to the empire of thought. "The problem of philosophy," according to Plato, "is, for all that exists conditionally, to find a ground unconditioned and absolute." It proceeds on the faith that a law determines all phenomena, which being known, the phenomena can be predicted. That law, when in the mind, is an idea. Its beauty is infinite. The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both. Is not the charm of one of Plato's or Aristotle's definitions, strictly like that of the Antigone of Sophocles? It is, in both cases, that a spiritual life has been imparted to nature; that the solid seeming block of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a thought; that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast masses of nature with an informing soul, and recognised itself in their harmony, that is, seized their law. In physics, when this is attained, the memory disburthens itself of its cumbrous catalogues of particulars, and carries centuries of observation in a single formula.

Thus even in physics, the material is degraded before the spiritual. The astronomer, the geometer, rely on their irrefragable analysis, and disdain the results of observation. The sublime remark of Euler on his law of arches, "This will be found contrary to all experience, yet is true;" had already transferred nature into the mind, and left matter like an outcast corpse.

4. Intellectual science has been observed to beget invariably a doubt of the existence of matter. Turgot said, "He that has never doubted the existence of matter, may be assured he has no aptitude for metaphysical inquiries." It fastens the attention upon immortal necessary uncreated natures, that is, upon Ideas; and in their presence, we feel that the outward circumstance is a dream and a shade. Whilst we wait in this Olympus of gods, we think of nature as an appendix to the soul. We ascend into their region, and know that these are the thoughts of the Supreme Being. "These are they who were set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When he prepared the heavens, they were there; when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep. Then they were by him, as one brought up with him. Of them took he counsel."

Their influence is proportionate. As objects of science, they are accessible to few men. Yet all men are capable of being raised by piety or by passion, into their region. And no man touches these divine natures, without becoming, in some degree, himself divine. Like a new soul, they renew the body. We become physically nimble and lightsome; we tread on air; life is no longer irksome, and we think it will never be so. No man fears age or misfortune or death, in their serene company, for he is transported out of the district of change. Whilst we behold unveiled the nature of Justice and Truth, we learn the difference between the absolute and the conditional or relative. We apprehend the absolute. As it were, for the first time, we exist. We become immortal, for we learn that time and space are relations of matter; that, with a perception of truth, or a virtuous will, they have no affinity.

5. Finally, religion and ethics, which may be fitly called, -- the practice of ideas, or the introduction of ideas into life, -- have an analogous effect with all lower culture, in degrading nature and suggesting its dependence on spirit. Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not. They are one to our present design. They both put nature under foot. The first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature. It does that for the unschooled, which philosophy does for Berkeley and Viasa. The uniform language that may be heard in the churches of the most ignorant sects, is,------"Contemn the unsubstantial shows of the world; they are vanities, dreams, shadows, unrealities; seek the realities of religion." The devotee flouts nature. Some theosophists have arrived at a certain hostility and indignation towards matter, as the Manichean and Plotinus. They distrusted in themselves any looking back to these flesh-pots of Egypt. Plotinus was ashamed of his body. In short, they might all say of matter, what Michael Angelo said of external beauty, "it is the frail and weary weed, in which God dresses the soul, which he has called into time."

It appears that motion, poetry, physical and intellectual science, and religion, all tend to affect our convictions of the reality of the external world. But I own there is something ungrateful in expanding too curiously the particulars of the general proposition, that all culture tends to imbue us with idealism. I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons. Let us speak her fair. I do not wish to fling stones at my beautiful mother, nor soil my gentle nest. I only wish to indicate the true position of nature in regard to man, wherein to establish man, all right education tends; as the ground which to attain is the object of human life, that is, of man's connection with nature. Culture inverts the vulgar views of nature, and brings the mind to call that apparent, which it uses to call real, and that real, which it uses to call visionary. Children, it is true, believe in the external world. The belief that it appears only, is an afterthought, but with culture, this faith will as surely arise on the mind as did the first.

The advantage of the ideal theory over the popular faith, is this, that it presents the world in precisely that view which is most desirable to the mind. It is, in fact, the view which Reason, both speculative and practical, that is, philosophy and virtue, take. For, seen in the light of thought, the world always is phenomenal; and virtue subordinates it to the mind. Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul. Therefore the soul holds itself off from a too trivial and microscopic study of the universal tablet. It respects the end too much, to immerse itself in the means. It sees something more important in Christianity, than the scandals of ecclesiastical history, or the niceties of criticism; and, very incurious concerning persons or miracles, and not at all disturbed by chasms of historical evidence, it accepts from God the phenomenon, as it finds it, as the pure and awful form of religion in the world. It is not hot and passionate at the appearance of what it calls its own good or bad fortune, at the union or opposition of other persons. No man is its enemy. It accepts whatsoever befalls, as part of its lesson. It is a watcher more than a doer, and it is a doer, only that it may the better watch. Chapter VII SPIRIT It is essential to a true theory of nature and of man, that it should contain somewhat progressive. Uses that are exhausted or that may be, and facts that end in the statement, cannot be all that is true of this brave lodging wherein man is harbored, and wherein all his faculties find appropriate and endless exercise. And all the uses of nature admit of being summed in one, which yields the activity of man an infinite scope. Through all its kingdoms, to the suburbs and outskirts of things, it is faithful to the cause whence it had its origin. It always speaks of Spirit. It suggests the absolute. It is a perpetual effect. It is a great shadow pointing always to the sun behind us.

The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.

Of that ineffable essence which we call Spirit, he that thinks most, will say least. We can foresee God in the coarse, and, as it were, distant phenomena of matter; but when we try to define and describe himself, both language and thought desert us, and we are as helpless as fools and savages. That essence refuses to be recorded in propositions, but when man has worshipped him intellectually, the noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God. It is the organ through which the universal spirit speaks to the individual, and strives to lead back the individual to it.

When we consider Spirit, we see that the views already presented do not include the whole circumference of man. We must add some related thoughts.

Three problems are put by nature to the mind; What is matter? Whence is it? and Whereto? The first of these questions only, the ideal theory answers. Idealism saith: matter is a phenomenon, not a substance. Idealism acquaints us with the total disparity between the evidence of our own being, and the evidence of the world's being. The one is perfect; the other, incapable of any assurance; the mind is a part of the nature of things; the world is a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day. Idealism is a hypothesis to account for nature by other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry. Yet, if it only deny the existence of matter, it does not satisfy the demands of the spirit. It leaves God out of me. It leaves me in the splendid labyrinth of my perceptions, to wander without end. Then the heart resists it, because it balks the affections in denying substantive being to men and women. Nature is so pervaded with human life, that there is something of humanity in all, and in every particular. But this theory makes nature foreign to me, and does not account for that consanguinity which we acknowledge to it.

Let it stand, then, in the present state of our knowledge, merely as a useful introductory hypothesis, serving to apprize us of the eternal distinction between the soul and the world.

But when, following the invisible steps of thought, we come to inquire, Whence is matter? and Whereto? many truths arise to us out of the recesses of consciousness. We learn that the highest is present to the soul of man, that the dread universal essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for which all things exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates; that behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; one and not compound, it does not act upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves: therefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old. As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God; he is nourished by unfailing fountains, and draws, at his need, inexhaustible power. Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man? Once inhale the upper air, being admitted to behold the absolute natures of justice and truth, and we learn that man has access to the entire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator in the finite. This view, which admonishes me where the sources of wisdom and power lie, and points to virtue as to carries upon its face the highest certificate of truth, because it animates me to create my own world through the purification of my soul.

The world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in the unconscious. But it differs from the body in one important respect. It is not, like that, now subjected to the human will. Its serene order is inviolable by us. It is, therefore, to us, the present expositor of the divine mind. It is a fixed point whereby we may measure our departure. As we degenerate, the contrast between us and our house is more evident. We are as much strangers in nature, as we are aliens from God. We do not understand the notes of birds. The fox and the deer run away from us; the bear and tiger rend us. We do not know the uses of more than a few plants, as corn and the apple, the potato and the vine. Is not the landscape, every glimpse of which hath a grandeur, a face of him? Yet this may show us what discord is between man and nature, for you cannot freely admire a noble landscape, if laborers are digging in the field hard by. The poet finds something ridiculous in his delight, until he is out of the sight of men. Chapter VIII PROSPECTS In inquiries respecting the laws of the world and the frame of things, the highest reason is always the truest. That which seems faintly possible -- it is so refined, is often faint and dim because it is deepest seated in the mind among the eternal verities. Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole. The savant becomes unpoetic. But the best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there remains much to learn of his relation to the world, and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities, but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility. He will perceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student than preciseness and infallibility; that a guess is often more fruitful than an indisputable affirmation, and that a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments.

For, the problems to be solved are precisely those which the physiologist and the naturalist omit to state. It is not so pertinent to man to know all the individuals of the animal kingdom, as it is to know whence and whereto is this tyrannizing unity in his constitution, which evermore separates and classifies things, endeavoring to reduce the most diverse to one form. When I behold a rich landscape, it is less to my purpose to recite correctly the order and superposition of the strata, than to know why all thought of multitude is lost in a tranquil sense of unity. I cannot greatly honor minuteness in details, so long as there is no hint to explain the relation between things and thoughts; no ray upon the metaphysics of conchology, of botany, of the arts, to show the relation of the forms of flowers, shells, animals, architecture, to the mind, and build science upon ideas. In a cabinet of natural history, we become sensible of a certain occult recognition and sympathy in regard to the most unwieldly and eccentric forms of beast, fish, and insect. The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter's at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also, -- faint copies of an invisible archetype. Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks that wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every mountain stratum, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or atmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open. A perception of this mystery inspires the muse of George Herbert, the beautiful psalmist of the seventeenth century. The following lines are part of his little poem on Man.
"Nothing hath got so far
But man hath caught and kept it as his prey;
His eyes dismount the highest star;
He is in little all the sphere.
Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Find their acquaintance there.

"For us, the winds do blow,
The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow;
Nothing we see, but means our good,
As our delight, or as our treasure;
The whole is either our cupboard of food,
Or cabinet of pleasure.

"The stars have us to bed:
Night draws the curtain; which the sun withdraws.
Music and light attend our head.
All things unto our flesh are kind,
In their descent and being; to our mind,
In their ascent and cause.

"More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of. In every path,
He treads down that which doth befriend him
When sickness makes him pale and wan.
Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him."

The perception of this class of truths makes the attraction which draws men to science, but the end is lost sight of in attention to the means. In view of this half-sight of science, we accept the sentence of Plato, that, "poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history." Every surmise and vaticination of the mind is entitled to a certain respect, and we learn to prefer imperfect theories, and sentences, which contain glimpses of truth, to digested systems which have no one valuable suggestion. A wise writer will feel that the ends of study and composition are best answered by announcing undiscovered regions of thought, and so communicating, through hope, new activity to the torpid spirit.

I shall therefore conclude this essay with some traditions of man and nature, which a certain poet sang to me; and which, as they have always been in the world, and perhaps reappear to every bard, may be both history and prophecy.

`The foundations of man are not in matter, but in spirit. But the element of spirit is eternity. To it, therefore, the longest series of events, the oldest chronologies are young and recent. In the cycle of the universal man, from whom the known individuals proceed, centuries are points, and all history is but the epoch of one degradation.

`We distrust and deny inwardly our sympathy with nature. We own and disown our relation to it, by turns. We are, like Nebuchadnezzar, dethroned, bereft of reason, and eating grass like an ox. But who can set limits to the remedial force of spirit?

`A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams. Now, the world would be insane and rabid, if these disorganizations should last for hundreds of years. It is kept in check by death and infancy. Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise.

`Man is the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing currents. Out from him sprang the sun and moon; from man, the sun; from woman, the moon. The laws of his mind, the periods of his actions externized themselves into day and night, into the year and the seasons. But, having made for himself this huge shell, his waters retired; he no longer fills the veins and veinlets; he is shrunk to a drop. He sees, that the structure still fits him, but fits him colossally. Say, rather, once it fitted him, now it corresponds to him from far and on high. He adores timidly his own work. Now is man the follower of the sun, and woman the follower of the moon. Yet sometimes he starts in his slumber, and wonders at himself and his house, and muses strangely at the resemblance betwixt him and it. He perceives that if his law is still paramount, if still he have elemental power, if his word is sterling yet in nature, it is not conscious power, it is not inferior but superior to his will. It is Instinct.' Thus my Orphic poet sang.

At present, man applies to nature but half his force. He works on the world with his understanding alone. He lives in it, and masters it by a penny-wisdom; and he that works most in it, is but a half-man, and whilst his arms are strong and his digestion good, his mind is imbruted, and he is a selfish savage. His relation to nature, his power over it, is through the understanding; as by manure; the economic use of fire, wind, water, and the mariner's needle; steam, coal, chemical agriculture; the repairs of the human body by the dentist and the surgeon. This is such a resumption of power, as if a banished king should buy his territories inch by inch, instead of vaulting at once into his throne. Meantime, in the thick darkness, there are not wanting gleams of a better light, -- occasional examples of the action of man upon nature with his entire force, -- with reason as well as understanding. Such examples are; the traditions of miracles in the earliest antiquity of all nations; the history of Jesus Christ; the achievements of a principle, as in religious and political revolutions, and in the abolition of the Slave-trade; the miracles of enthusiasm, as those reported of Swedenborg, Hohenlohe, and the Shakers; many obscure and yet contested facts, now arranged under the name of Animal Magnetism; prayer; eloquence; self-healing; and the wisdom of children. These are examples of Reason's momentary grasp of the sceptre; the exertions of a power which exists not in time or space, but an instantaneous in-streaming causing power. The difference between the actual and the ideal force of man is happily figured by the schoolmen, in saying, that the knowledge of man is an evening knowledge, vespertina cognitio, but that of God is a morning knowledge, matutina cognitio.

The problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty, is solved by the redemption of the soul. The ruin or the blank, that we see when we look at nature, is in our own eye. The axis of vision is not coincident with the axis of things, and so they appear not transparent but opake. The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself. He cannot be a naturalist, until he satisfies all the demands of the spirit. Love is as much its demand, as perception. Indeed, neither can be perfect without the other. In the uttermost meaning of the words, thought is devout, and devotion is thought. Deep calls unto deep. But in actual life, the marriage is not celebrated. There are innocent men who worship God after the tradition of their fathers, but their sense of duty has not yet extended to the use of all their faculties. And there are patient naturalists, but they freeze their subject under the wintry light of the understanding. Is not prayer also a study of truth, -- a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily, without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations, and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation.

It will not need, when the mind is prepared for study, to search for objects. The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. What is a day? What is a year? What is summer? What is woman? What is a child? What is sleep? To our blindness, these things seem unaffecting. We make fables to hide the baldness of the fact and conform it, as we say, to the higher law of the mind. But when the fact is seen under the light of an idea, the gaudy fable fades and shrivels. We behold the real higher law. To the wise, therefore, a fact is true poetry, and the most beautiful of fables. These wonders are brought to our own door. You also are a man. Man and woman, and their social life, poverty, labor, sleep, fear, fortune, are known to you. Learn that none of these things is superficial, but that each phenomenon has its roots in the faculties and affections of the mind. Whilst the abstract question occupies your intellect, nature brings it in the concrete to be solved by your hands. It were a wise inquiry for the closet, to compare, point by point, especially at remarkable crises in life, our daily history, with the rise and progress of ideas in the mind.

So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, -- What is truth? and of the affections, -- What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. Then shall come to pass what my poet said; `Nature is not fixed but fluid. Spirit alters, moulds, makes it. The immobility or bruteness of nature, is the absence of spirit; to pure spirit, it is fluid, it is volatile, it is obedient. Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit. So fast will disagreeable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes, pests, madhouses, prisons, enemies, vanish; they are temporary and shall be no more seen. The sordor and filths of nature, the sun shall dry up, and the wind exhale. As when the summer comes from the south; the snow-banks melt, and the face of the earth becomes green before it, so shall the advancing spirit create its ornaments along its path, and carry with it the beauty it visits, and the song which enchants it; it shall draw beautiful faces, warm hearts, wise discourse, and heroic acts, around its way, until evil is no more seen. The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation, -- a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God, -- he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight.'

           
           
       

Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Nature’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Nature’ is an 1836 essay by the American writer and thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82). In this essay, Emerson explores the relationship between nature and humankind, arguing that if we approach nature with a poet’s eye, and a pure spirit, we will find the wonders of nature revealed to us.

You can read ‘Nature’ in full here . Below, we summarise Emerson’s argument and offer an analysis of its meaning and context.

Emerson begins his essay by defining nature, in philosophical terms, as anything that is not our individual souls. So our bodies, as well as all of the natural world, but also all of the world of art and technology, too, are ‘nature’ in this philosophical sense of the world. He urges his readers not to rely on tradition or history to help them to understand the world: instead, they should look to nature and the world around them.

In the first chapter, Emerson argues that nature is never ‘used up’ when the right mind examines it: it is a source of boundless curiosity. No man can own the landscape: it belongs, if it belongs to anyone at all, to ‘the poet’. Emerson argues that when a man returns to nature he can rediscover his lost youth, that wide-eyed innocence he had when he went among nature as a boy.

Emerson states that when he goes among nature, he becomes a ‘transparent eyeball’ because he sees nature but is himself nothing: he has been absorbed or subsumed into nature and, because God made nature, God himself. He feels a deep kinship and communion with all of nature. He acknowledges that our view of nature depends on our own mood, and that the natural world reflects the mood we are feeling at the time.

In the second chapter, Emerson focuses on ‘commodity’: the name he gives to all of the advantages which our senses owe to nature. Emerson draws a parallel with the ‘useful arts’ which have built houses and steamships and whole towns: these are the man-made equivalents of the natural world, in that both nature and the ‘arts’ are designed to provide benefit and use to mankind.

The third chapter then turns to ‘beauty’, and the beauty of nature comprises several aspects, which Emerson outlines. First, the beauty of nature is a restorative : seeing the sky when we emerge from a day’s work can restore us to ourselves and make us happy again. The human eye is the best ‘artist’ because it perceives and appreciates this beauty so keenly. Even the countryside in winter possesses its own beauty.

The second aspect of beauty Emerson considers is the spiritual element. Great actions in history are often accompanied by a beautiful backdrop provided by nature. The third aspect in which nature should be viewed is its value to the human intellect . Nature can help to inspire people to create and invent new things. Everything in nature is a representation of a universal harmony and perfection, something greater than itself.

In his fourth chapter, Emerson considers the relationship between nature and language. Our language is often a reflection of some natural state: for instance, the word right literally means ‘straight’, while wrong originally denoted something ‘twisted’. But we also turn to nature when we wish to use language to reflect a ‘spiritual fact’: for example, that a lamb symbolises innocence, or a fox represents cunning. Language represents nature, therefore, and nature in turn represents some spiritual truth.

Emerson argues that ‘the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.’ Many great principles of the physical world are also ethical or moral axioms: for example, ‘the whole is greater than its part’.

In the fifth chapter, Emerson turns his attention to nature as a discipline . Its order can teach us spiritual and moral truths, but it also puts itself at the service of mankind, who can distinguish and separate (for instance, using water for drinking but wool for weaving, and so on). There is a unity in nature which means that every part of it corresponds to all of the other parts, much as an individual art – such as architecture – is related to the others, such as music or religion.

The sixth chapter is devoted to idealism . How can we sure nature does actually exist, and is not a mere product within ‘the apocalypse of the mind’, as Emerson puts it? He believes it doesn’t make any practical difference either way (but for his part, Emerson states that he believes God ‘never jests with us’, so nature almost certainly does have an external existence and reality).

Indeed, we can determine that we are separate from nature by changing out perspective in relation to it: for example, by bending down and looking between our legs, observing the landscape upside down rather than the way we usually view it. Emerson quotes from Shakespeare to illustrate how poets can draw upon nature to create symbols which reflect the emotions of the human soul. Religion and ethics, by contrast, degrade nature by viewing it as lesser than divine or moral truth.

Next, in the seventh chapter, Emerson considers nature and the spirit . Spirit, specifically the spirit of God, is present throughout nature. In his eighth and final chapter, ‘Prospects’, Emerson argues that we need to contemplate nature as a whole entity, arguing that ‘a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments’ which focus on more local details within nature.

Emerson concludes by arguing that in order to detect the unity and perfection within nature, we must first perfect our souls. ‘He cannot be a naturalist until he satisfies all the demands of the spirit’, Emerson urges. Wisdom means finding the miraculous within the common or everyday. He then urges the reader to build their own world, using their spirit as the foundation. Then the beauty of nature will reveal itself to us.

In a number of respects, Ralph Waldo Emerson puts forward a radically new attitude towards our relationship with nature. For example, although we may consider language to be man-made and artificial, Emerson demonstrates that the words and phrases we use to describe the world are drawn from our observation of nature. Nature and the human spirit are closely related, for Emerson, because they are both part of ‘the same spirit’: namely, God. Although we are separate from nature – or rather, our souls are separate from nature, as his prefatory remarks make clear – we can rediscover the common kinship between us and the world.

Emerson wrote ‘Nature’ in 1836, not long after Romanticism became an important literary, artistic, and philosophical movement in Europe and the United States. Like Wordsworth and the Romantics before him, Emerson argues that children have a better understanding of nature than adults, and when a man returns to nature he can rediscover his lost youth, that wide-eyed innocence he had when he went among nature as a boy.

And like Wordsworth, Emerson argued that to understand the world, we should go out there and engage with it ourselves, rather than relying on books and tradition to tell us what to think about it. In this connection, one could undertake a comparative analysis of Emerson’s ‘Nature’ and Wordsworth’s pair of poems ‘ Expostulation and Reply ’ and ‘ The Tables Turned ’, the former of which begins with a schoolteacher rebuking Wordsworth for sitting among nature rather than having his nose buried in a book:

‘Why, William, on that old gray stone, ‘Thus for the length of half a day, ‘Why, William, sit you thus alone, ‘And dream your time away?

‘Where are your books?—that light bequeathed ‘To beings else forlorn and blind! ‘Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed ‘From dead men to their kind.

Similarly, for Emerson, the poet and the dreamer can get closer to the true meaning of nature than scientists because they can grasp its unity by viewing it holistically, rather than focusing on analysing its rock formations or other more local details. All of this is in keeping with the philosophy of Transcendentalism , that nineteenth-century movement which argued for a kind of spiritual thinking instead of scientific thinking based narrowly on material things.

Emerson, along with Henry David Thoreau, was the most famous writer to belong to the Transcendentalist movement, and ‘Nature’ is fundamentally a Transcendentalist essay, arguing for an intuitive and ‘poetic’ engagement with nature in the round rather than a coldly scientific or empirical analysis of its component parts.

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13 Essays About Nature: Use These For Your Next Assignment

Essays about nature can look at the impact of human behavior on the environment, or on the impact of nature on human beings. Check out these suggestions.

Nature is one of humanity’s greatest gifts. It provides food, shelter, and even medication to help us live healthier, happier lives. It also inspires artists, poets, writers, and photographers because of its beauty.

Essays about nature can take many different paths. Descriptive essays about the beauty of nature can inspire readers. They give the writer the chance to explore some creativity in their essay writing. You can also write a persuasive essay arguing about an environmental topic and how humans harm the natural environment. You can also write an informative essay to discuss a particular impact or aspect of the natural world and how it impacts the human beings who live within it.

If you need to write a nature essay, read on to discover 13 topics that can work well. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

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1. How Happiness Is Related to Nature Connectedness

2. why protecting nature is everyone’s responsibility, 3. how technological advancements can help the environment, 4. why global warming is a danger for future generations, 5. how deforestation impacts the beauty of nature, 6. the relationship between plants and human beings, 7. the health benefits of spending time in nature, 8. what are the gifts of nature, 9. the importance of nature to sustain human life, 10. the beauty of non-living things in nature, 11. does eco-tourism help or hurt the natural world, 12. how sustainability benefits the natural environment, 13. does agriculture hurt or help nature.

Essays About Nature

Exposure to nature has a significant positive impact on mood and overall mental health. In other words, happiness and nature connectedness have a close link. Your nature essay can explore the research behind this and then build on that research to show why nature conservation is so important.

This essay on nature is important because it shows why people need the natural environment. Nature provides more than just the natural resources we need for life. Spending time in the fresh air and sunshine actually makes us happier, so behaviors that harm nature harm your potential happiness.

Planet earth is a precious gift that is often damaged by the selfish activities of human beings. All human beings have the potential to hurt the natural environment and the living creatures in that environment, and thus protecting nature is everyone’s responsibility. You can build this into an essay and explore what that responsibility may look like to different groups.

For the child, for example, protecting nature may be as simple as picking up trash in the park, but for the CEO of a manufacturing company, it may look like eco-friendly company policies. For an adult, it may look like shopping for a car with lower emissions. Take a look at the different ways people can protect nature and why it is essential.

Technology is often viewed as the enemy of nature, but you can find technological advancements helping rather than harming nature. For example, light bulbs that use less energy or residential solar panel development have reduced the average home’s amount of energy. Your essay could explore some inventions that have helped nature.

After looking at these technologies, dive into the idea that technology, when used well, has a significant positive impact on the environment, rather than a negative one. The key is developing technology that works with conservation efforts, rather than against them.

Essays About Nature: Why global warming is a danger for future generations

Global warming is a hot topic in today’s society, but the term gets used so often, that many people have tuned it out. You can explore the dangers of global warming and how it potentially impacts future generations. You can also touch on whether or not this problem has been over-blown in education and media.

This essay should be full of facts and data to back up your opinions. It could also touch on initiatives that could reduce the risks of global warming to make the future brighter for the next generation.

Much has been written about the dangers of deforestation on the overall ecosystem, but what about its effect on nature’s beauty? This essay topic adds an additional reason why countries should fight deforestation to protect green spaces and the beauty of nature.

In your essay, strike a balance between limiting deforestation and the need to harvest trees as natural resources. Look at ways companies can use these natural resources without destroying entire forests and ecosystems. You might also be interested in these essays about nature .

People need plants, and this need can give you your essay topic. Plants provide food for people and for animals that people also eat. Many pharmaceutical products come from plants originally, meaning they are vital to the medical field as well.

Plants also contribute to the fresh air that people breathe. They filter the air, removing toxins and purifying the air to make it cleaner. They also add beauty to nature with their foliage and flowers. These facts make plants a vital part of nature, and you can delve into that connection in your nature essay.

Spending time in nature not only improves your mental health, but it also improves your physical health . When people spend time in nature, they have lower blood pressure and heart rates. They also produce fewer damaging stress hormones and reduced muscle tension. Shockingly, spending time in nature may actually reduce mortality rates.

Take some time to research these health benefits, and then weave them into your essay. By showing the health benefits of nature exposure, you can build an appreciation for nature in your audience. You may inspire people to do more to protect the natural environment.

Nature has given people many gifts. Our food all comes from nature in its most basic form, from fruits and vegetables to milk and meats. It provides the foundation for many medicines and remedies. These gifts alone make it worth protecting.

Yet nature does much more. It also gives the gift of better mental health. It can inspire feelings of wonder in people of all ages. Finally, it provides beauty and tranquility that you cannot reproduce anywhere else. This essay is more descriptive and reflective than factual, but it can be an exciting topic to explore.

Can humans live without nature? Based on the topics already discussed, the answer is no. You can use this fact to create an essay that connects nature to the sustenance of human life. Without nature, we cannot survive.

One way to look at this importance is to consider the honey bee . The honey bee seems like a simple part of the natural world, yet it is one of the most essential. Without bees, fruits and vegetables will not get pollinated as easily, if at all. If bees disappear, the entire food system will struggle. Thus, bees, and many other parts of nature, are vital to human life.

Have you ever felt fully inspired by a glorious sunset or sunrise? Have you spent time gazing at a mountain peak or the ocean water crashing on the shoreline and found your soul refreshed? Write about one of these experiences in your essay.

Use descriptive words to show how the non-living parts of nature are beautiful, just like the living creatures and plants that are part of nature. Draw from personal experiences of things you have seen in nature to make this essay rich and engaging. If you love nature, you might also be interested in these essays about camping .

Ecotourism is tourism designed to expose people to nature. Nature tours, safaris, and even jungle or rainforest experiences are all examples of ecotourism. It seems like ecotourism would help the environment by making people more aware, but does it really?

For your essay, research if ecotourism helps or hurts the environment. If you find it does both, consider arguing which is more impactful, the positive side or the negative side. On the positive side, ecotourism emphasizes sustainability in travel and highlights the plight of endangered species, leading to initiatives that protect local ecosystems. On the negative side, ecotourism can hurt the ecosystems at the same time by bringing humans into the environment, which automatically changes it. Weigh these pros and cons to see which side you fall on.

For more help with this topic, read our guide explaining what is persuasive writing ?

Sustainability is the practice of taking care of human needs and economic needs while also protecting the natural environment for future generations. But do sustainable practices work? This essay topic lets you look at popular eco-friendly practices and determine if they are helpful to the environment, or not.

Sustainability is a hot topic, but unfortunately, some practices labeled as sustainable , aren’t helpful to the environment. For example, many people think they are doing something good when tossing a plastic bottle in the recycling bin, but most recycling centers simply throw away the bottle if that little plastic ring is present, so your effort is wasted. A better practice is using a reusable water bottle. Consider different examples like this to show how sustainability can help the environment, but only when done well.

Essays About Nature: Does agriculture hurt or help nature?

Agriculture is one way that humans interact with and change the natural environment. Planting crops or raising non-native animals impacts the nature around the farm. Does this impact hurt or help the local natural ecosystem?

Explore this topic in your essay. Consider the impact of things like irrigation, fertilization, pesticides, and the introduction of non-native plants and animals to the local environment. Consider ways that agriculture can benefit the environment and come to a conclusion in your essay about the overall impact.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

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Essay on Love For Environment

Students are often asked to write an essay on Love For Environment in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Love For Environment

Understanding love for environment.

Love for the environment means caring for all nature and doing what’s best to keep it healthy. It’s about protecting trees, animals, and clean air and water. It’s not just about enjoying the beauty of nature, but also understanding that we need a healthy environment to live.

Why Should We Love the Environment?

We should love the environment because it gives us life. The air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat all come from the environment. Without it, we cannot survive. So, it’s very important to love and protect our environment.

How Can We Show Love for the Environment?

We can show love for the environment in many ways. We can plant trees, recycle, and save water. We can also learn more about the environment and teach others to do the same. By doing these things, we can help keep the environment healthy.

The Result of Loving the Environment

When we love and care for the environment, it becomes better for everyone. We get clean air to breathe, fresh water to drink, and healthy food to eat. Plus, the environment looks more beautiful when it’s healthy. This is why we should all love the environment.

250 Words Essay on Love For Environment

Why love the environment.

Our environment gives us everything we need to live. It provides us with air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and a place to live. So, it is only fair that we give back by loving and caring for it.

Showing Love for Environment

There are many ways to show love for our environment. We can plant trees, recycle waste, save water and power, and avoid littering. We can also learn about different animals and plants, and how to protect them.

Benefits of Loving the Environment

When we love our environment, we help to keep it clean and healthy. This is good for us too, as it means we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. It also helps to protect animals and plants, which are important for our planet’s balance.

In conclusion, loving our environment is very important. It helps us to live healthy and happy lives, and it also helps to protect our planet for future generations. So, let’s all do our part to love and care for our environment.

500 Words Essay on Love For Environment

Introduction.

Love for the environment is a deep affection we have for the natural world around us. It’s about caring for the trees, the water, the air, and all living creatures. It is a feeling that comes from understanding the importance of the environment in our lives and wanting to protect it.

Why We Should Love the Environment

The environment is also home to countless species of plants and animals. By loving and protecting the environment, we help to save these species from extinction. This is important because each species plays a unique role in the ecosystem and contributes to the balance of nature.

The Threats to the Environment

Sadly, our environment is under threat. Pollution, deforestation, climate change, and other human activities are harming the environment. These actions not only damage the environment but also threaten our own survival.

How to Show Love for the Environment

So, how can we show our love for the environment? There are many ways. We can reduce, reuse, and recycle to cut down on waste. We can plant trees and create habitats for wildlife. We can conserve water and energy. We can educate others about the importance of the environment. And we can speak up for environmental policies that protect our planet.

In conclusion, love for the environment is not just about feeling affection for nature. It’s about understanding the importance of the environment, recognizing the threats it faces, and taking action to protect it. It’s about caring for our planet as if our lives depend on it—because they do. By showing love for the environment, we not only protect nature but also ensure a healthy and sustainable future for ourselves and generations to come.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Love For Nature (Essay Sample)

Love for nature.

The word nature usually associates with beauty and calmness. Whenever a person hears of the word nature, a feeling of enthusiasm, freshness, uplift and happiness is felt.  People understand nature as anything that is on the earth that is comprised of the surrounding such as, the vegetation, animals, food, water, plants, the buildings, plantations and soil among others. However, some understand nature as the surrounding that is revealed uniquely in terms of different shapes. Such as the green and charming mountains, the snow-capped mountain peaks, the rising and setting the sun on the horizon which does not feed away from the memory.  Other beautiful sceneries such as oceans, forests, rivers and valleys form part of nature. Human belief and love for nature differ depending on the culture as well as their social settings. In Stone Age period, human being derived its food from nature through the gathering of fruits, hunting of the wild animals before the early agrarian revolution when people started practicing agriculture as a source of food. In these early ages, the man also used nature as places for worship. However, with the advent of the industrial revolution and early settler, many people never cared about nature as a source of life due to its vast coverage that seemed untouchable. Therefore, accessibility of minerals, need for more agricultural production, and encroachment into the forested areas led to more destruction of the beautiful nature.  Even though mankind has caused such damages to nature, all benefits of mankind are derived from nature hence it is essential to love and care for nature.

Nature is a source of inspiration. There is no doubt that nature brings about inspiration. This is usually realized when a person’s mind is full of stress and everything seems difficult and overshadowed in the mind. Taking a walk in the park at any moment brings about excitement due to the admiration of the different features. The display of flora and fauna provide an endless description of the beauty that flows in a person’s mind.  This due to the uniqueness of nature coupled with the beauty of the sun rays observed from the horizon.  The beautiful dew drops on the leave blades and on the grass are iridescent pearls. At night, the crescent moon that is silvery and the twinkling milky way are entertaining. The waterfalls and the roaring oceans, thunder and flash lightning with rainfall give the violent aspect of nature.

Each and every season comes with its own beauty and uniqueness. For instance, summer season brings good heat and nice sun rays. This brings mellow mood coupled with starry summer nights that come with their fresh air cool breeze. On a separate note, the autumn comes with its cry skies with the mad wind in gray streets with nicely falling leaves. This is the time to enjoy the loneliness and share the passion with the weather.  The winter is always good due to its magic take away of the universe fantasy due to the fluffy snows. It brings the beauty of Christmas with new expectations of New Year. Lastly, spring has welcoming warmth coupled with a beauty of nature whereby plants produce new leaves and the blossoming of the new plants. There is usually a refreshing air with aromas that makes a person fall in love with nature. This kind of feeling brings about hope, healing, new discovery and better future.

In conclusion, it is difficult to deny the beauty of nature that makes a person fall in love with its uniqueness in different seasons, the nature of the terrains, the landscape, and the Horizon Mountains are indeed beautiful to watch.

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As I attempt to tackle this lofty topic, I have some reservations. Writing about how to love nature is dangerous territory. The risks of spiritual pomposity or airy-fairy Walden-esque prose gather all around, waiting for the first chance to jump onto the page and turn this article into utter fluff.    

There is also the issue of wondering if I’m qualified. Qualified?? Thank you for the encouragement, internalized-evil-stepmother (a.k.a. my rather bitchy inner critic). Why would I not be qualified to write about how to be a nature lover? Oh, because I do not have a degree in botany. I do not teach wilderness survival. I don’t even have a dog.

Ah, but wait! I am extremely qualified, because I’m human. And humans are animals. And even though it doesn’t seem like it to most people, nature is not something out there —we are nature. So really I am Nature, writing about how to love Nature. (Eek! Dangerously close to vague holistic babble. Let’s step back from there, slowly, like you would from a rattlesnake on the trail.)

And this article is not about having a love affair with yourself. (That is a separate, and deep, topic for another day.)

It’s about how be a Nature lover in the way that the word is casually used now, as in: walks in the woods, smelling flowers, stars and sunsets, rivers and rocks, etc. Basically the green and dew-covered opposite of all things urban, including concrete, computers, phones, and anything “streaming” that is not a babbling brook.

And as for qualification, there is also the simple fact that I am an avid lover of nature. I feel completely enraptured in the company of rivers and rocks, wildflowers and trees. See, totally qualified. (Inner critic temporarily silenced but still scowling.)

As I child had some semblance of a relationship with nature, for a little girl growing up in suburbia in the 1980s. I collected my fair share of bugs and four-leaved clovers and ran around barefoot all summer. Nature stopped being cool sometime around high school, when the big cities sparkled from a distance promising endless excitement with their clubs and concerts and dizzying shopping opportunities such as hip thrift stores and Tower Records.

By the time I was 30 the urban excitement wore off, and the constant noise and bustle and limited view of the night sky started to irritate me. My husband and I moved to a small and picturesque mountain town where you can smell the pine trees after heavy rain. We walked, we gardened, we occasionally camped, and we even learned to hunt for wild edible mushrooms. But we also worked, had two children, and settled into the abyss of taking care of the house and kids.

Nature, all too often, was just the view out the window.

And something was haunting me. One day in late November, in a deep dive of self-inquiry, I asked: 

How can I strengthen my connection with the natural world?

The question was like a seed planted in fall that would emerge months later into something splendid and nourishing. By just asking the question, without consciously realizing it, I had set an intention. And as my curiosity grew, I began to crave the answer. In a subtle way, just by wondering how I can develop a profound relationship with Nature, I had taken the first step: asking for permission.

Asking Nature for permission is a curious and rather esoteric concept. We see it hidden in old myths and fairy tales, but it is invisible in pop culture.

“Why should I give you the fire?” croons Baba Yaga. “Because I ask.” replied the girl, which turned out to be the only answer that wouldn’t result in her death. *

The best way I can explain this ethereal concept will again take us to the cliff’s edge, where describing something unseen yet experienced can suddenly plummet us into a free fall of new-age nausea. But there is something uncanny about the effects of asking a question . The question itself becomes a key that opens doors. If we don’t dare to ask the question, the doors remain shut.

The question “ How can I strengthen my connection with the natural world?” sat patiently in the pages of my notebook and also in the back of my mind. Even without an answer, it began to exert its effects. Questions are powerful in that way, like an injection that you cannot undo, they can be far more potent than advice from a friend or even a well-intended weekend workshop.

As the question ran through my veins, I embarked on a courageous effort at self-care to offset the demands of motherhood and the prosaic routines that had become my life. I started to spend bits of free time at the river. Lying on hot granite boulders in the blazing California summer, the constant roar of the river water carried all my thoughts downstream without me having to hear them. And something happened to me, I began to change.

The shift wasn’t subtle either. It was river-style change, infused with raging white waters and their unstoppable capacity to maneuver around any obstacle. At the river’s edge the four elements worked their alchemy, light and mist, stone and wind, and stories began to emerge.

Nature speaks clearly, if we just learn  to listen.

To listen means to turn down the volume on our own thoughts. It means giving nature the gift of our attention. We do this by refusing to watch whatever movie our mind wants to entertain us with, the one about what we will do later that day, or the one about that situation at work, or the conversation we had yesterday. To listen means to step out of our head and into our body, and to fully experience the reality that is actually surrounding us at any given moment.

When we do this, we begin to see lessons in nature that speak to the world of human affairs. How a small stone placed exactly right can settle a huge boulder translates into how a small but precise action can stop a seemingly more powerful force. What clearing land for fire safety and chipping wood have in common with the vast and varied terrain of our psyche .  What basket weaving and a tarantula can teach us about creating the life we desire, or how to harness Spider Medicine .

When we do not pay attention to the reality that surrounds us, our attention is split, and we are absorbed in our mind. We may “see” images or “hear” conversations, but those faculties are at the expense of seeing what is actually in our field of vision, or hearing the sounds that are really happening all around us.

So we must choose to exist in the present moment , and being present is indeed a choice, no matter how difficult it may feel if we aren’t used to it. It is choice we must make vigilantly, over and over again, 10,000 times a day, because the dream world of the mind is seductive and it is so easy to wander off back into the world of our thoughts.  

Being present is a multi-sensory experience. When we are living in the present moment, we see the world that surrounds us. We hear the sounds of our immediate environment. We notice the scents on the breeze, and the way the breeze touches our skin. We feel which muscles are working as we sit a certain way, how hard or soft whatever we are sitting on is. We notice where we are holding tension, the taste in on our tongue, our thirst, our hunger. It is a vivid symphony of experience, constantly shifting and never the same. It is a stirring and refreshing change from our often repetitive and all too familiar thoughts .

When we practice being present in Nature, that’s where the entrance to the rabbit hole lies. Enter it and we suddenly find ourselves in awe of the gestalt of the natural world and our place in it, or mesmerized by the striking beauty of a flower that is smaller than a pea. And if being mesmerized by a flower doesn’t sound appealing to you, then you’ve never experienced it. We’ve all looked at flowers, but merely looking at a flower (while your attention is on the thoughts in your mind) is not the same as seeing the flower. I’m here to tell you that you’ve been missing out, all this time you’ve been having sex without ever having an orgasm.

When we give Nature your full attention, it will engage with us. It will speak to us in thoughts we didn’t expect to have. It will share morsels of uncanny insight and intoxicating inspiration. It will provide us with the strength and wisdom to solve problems. It will flood our days with wonder and raw unrestrained beauty.

This is somewhat dangerous territory . . . it is not a path for the meek. Like many other mind-altering substances, flirting with Nature is highly addictive. And like many other addictions, we may begin to neglect other aspects of life. Our unread emails may creep up to four figures. We may lose interest in our cell phone. We may become aware of the unrewarding relationships in our lives and suddenly have the courage to distance ourselves from them.

These are the natural consequences of boldly trading in day dreams for reality. Of having the humility to realize that our thoughts are not the entire universe . Becoming a Nature lover means waking up to the force of creation that is unfolding all around us and within us, and realizing that we are only as separate from this power as we choose to be.

Ready for a deep dive into nature connection? Check out the nature mentoring offerings at Wildcrafted Roots .

——————————— (*extracted from the Russian fairy tale of Vasalisa as retold in  W omen Who Run With Wolves,  Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés)

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The Heart of the Wild: Essays on Nature, Conservation, and the Human Future

Ben A. Minteer and Jonathan B. Losos, eds. The Heart of the Wild: Essays on Nature, Conservation, and the Human Future . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024.

As the human species floods Earth, changing the climate, driving species to extinction, exploiting and degrading the natural world in many ways to provide for the needs and wants of eight and soon ten billion people, questions rise like mosquitoes out of wet summer grass. In this book, two scholars invited colleagues who have written extensively on human relationships with nature to consider two questions: “What do we need to observe, experience, and value in nature and the wild as it changes under human influences in order to square our role within it, now and in the future? And how can we keep a love of nature and wild things alive in an increasingly human-defined age?” They divided the essays submitted into three parts – Part I. Conservation’s Shifting Ground; Part II. Wilderness, Wildness, Wild: Legacies and Liabilities; Part III. Knowing Nature in the Human Age. The result is a thought-provoking read.

The sixteen respondents to the editor’s questions range widely in their backgrounds and their thoughts about the questions posed. As a reviewer of this book, I should disclose that I am an “old school” wilderness advocate, an admirer of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and others who have argued that a measure of wild places must be protected as much as possible. I am a critic of those who argue that there is no such thing as “wild” nature anymore, that we are in the Anthropocene epoch, defined by human influence on nature everywhere, so since no place is untouched by human influence, the very idea of wilderness is passé. I am ecocentrist rather than an anthropocentrist in my thinking about relations with nature, though I certainly consider humans part of most ecosystems.  I am all for exploration of questions like those posed here. The world is unquestionably changing and is rapidly and severely strained by many human population-related influences, so reflection on where we are and should be in relation to nature is essential, which makes this an important book, not merely an abstract exercise.

The views of contributors on wildness, wilderness, and human relations with nature vary widely. At one end of the spectrum, journalist Emma Maris argues that while “autonomy” might be valuable to “individual selves” like the badger she has been observing in an urban neighborhood, for us humans she does not think “one even needs the concept of wilderness or wildness to create a robust environmental ethic.” Furthermore, she sees “Wilderness” as mostly a “colonial myth” and doesn’t use the word “except to debunk it.” Eileen Crist, a scholar who has written extensively on wilderness, extinction, and human relations with nature, disagrees in her essay “Affirming the Wilderness Ideal.” She critiques what she calls “New Environmentalism,” writing that “Wilderness criticism, and new environmentalism in its wake, thus enshrine a founding principle of Western civilization: that humans are sole creators of meaning and that humans are sole stakeholders when it comes to the fate of the natural world. Upholding that age-old Western anthropocentrism, which ideologically bankrolled nature’s destruction over centuries and millennia, it is deeply ironic that wilderness critics repudiate wilderness as a putatively Western ideal.” She makes the case for rewilding, “a type of ecological restoration with the goal of returning natural areas to wild self-governed states.”

Other contributors fall between these positions, Richard Shine arguing that shifting baselines require careful thought about how we value nature, and what we value in it. Jonathan Losos sees the necessity of rethinking the concept “invasive species,” concluding that “Keeping a love of the wild alive will require us to love a different kind of ‘wild,’ one that has less fidelity to historical assemblages and older notions of ecological ‘integrity’ and that is more about healthy and sustainably functioning systems.” Hal Herzog discusses some of the moral dilemmas involved in keeping cats as pets. Peter Raven briefly recounts what big trouble we are in and how we got into this fix, asking whether we are capable of recognizing that acting in the general interest “is actually the way to serve our own interests too.” He recognizes that acting for the “eco” can be at the same time in the interest of the “anthropo” as well.

As to the second question, how to keep “a love of wild nature and wild things alive in an increasingly human-defined world,” the essayists also take diverse positions. Ben Minteer visits the work of renowned landscape photographer Ansel Adams, explaining how Adams taught generations “ how to see and photograph natural scenes and the wilderness, and above all how to appreciate them.” He concludes that though we live in human-centered times, we still need his pictures “if only because they remind us that we haven’t grown ‘too big for nature,’ as some of the more exuberant boosters of the Anthropocene have asserted.” Philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore, in her inimitable personal style, argues with Henry David Thoreau that “No. Wildness is not enough for the preservation of the world.” In feral land, land formerly controlled by humans but now on its own, “is the preservation of the world.” Thomas Lowe Fleischner eloquently makes the case for the practice of natural history, defining it as “a practice of attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy.” It is, he says, “a practice of paying attention.”

Other contributors agree with Fleischner, but assert that for many, physically encountering nature to pay such attention to it is simply impossible or very difficult. Few have access to wilderness but, Martha Crump writes, likely can find nature in backyards, gardens, vacant lots, and urban and suburban parks where they can learn to practice natural history. We who recognize the need to connect with nature should go all out to help others, especially children, discover wild and human-altered natural places so they can be appreciated and respected. Others suggest that alternative ways of observing nature, such as videos and virtual nature experiences, can be useful, though Susan Clayton explores the limitations of this approach. For those who might scoff at the value of digital images of animals, Bill Adams makes a good case for the value of “digital avatars” that is well worth considering. Veteran wildlife scientist Joel Berger agrees, a bit reluctantly, that “In bizarre ways, the digital world can help connect with nature.” An informative nature documentary, with the incredible photography done today, might motivate people, especially the young, to seek out their own adventures outside.

In his afterword Harry W. Greene, mentor to many scientists and naturalists, asks us not to be boxed in by our long-established ideas about how we can and should relate to the natural world because, whether we like it or not, change in that world is happening and our thinking needs to change with it if there is to be any hope of addressing questions like those posed in this book. In his “futuristic daydreams,” he sees woodland-savanna ecosystems meeting human needs as well as those of big predators and herbivores. Parks would keep wildlife populations healthy and “provide benchmarks for sparing versus sharing, and offer places for wilderness recreation and contemplation.” Indigenous people would play prominent roles in rewilding “shared and spared lands.” “In other words,” Greene writes, “pulling together ecological, cultural, economic and political pieces of a wickedly difficult puzzle — conserving predators on working landscapes — well, maybe someday . . . In the meantime, inspired by the Indigenous perspectives of Salmón and Kimmerer, ‘attitudes with actions, gratitude with reciprocity’ feels to me like a worthy mantra for these perilous times.”

Several authors in this collection caution, as Susan Clayton writes, that environmentalists may hurt their cause “by disparaging an anthropocentric perspective on nature and insisting the only valid perspective is one that is not swayed by human interests or values.” Is this a sincere criticism, or a straw man? Many environmentalists I know, some of whom prefer the term “conservationist,” do not take the extreme position that “human interests or values” should not be part of the reason to be concerned about protecting the wild, be it the backyard or the “big wild.” There is a clear element of what I would call enlightened self-interest in their advocacy for if the natural world upon which we depend collapses, we will all suffer the consequences. As many argue today, as much as half the world should be protected from human degradation, but this doesn’t mean half the world should be wilderness. Some of it should be, but much of it should be cared for far better than it has been. Harry Greene likes the term of his colleague Daniel Janzen who says humans should be “wildland gardeners.” They would be motivated by far more than the profit-driven system that dominates today, inspired by their appreciation of the world gained from natural history. Yet perhaps “gardening” wilderness is not the right metaphor for it connotes so much calculated human involvement that the wild character of land and its other-than-human community is negated. Human restraint, which is the core of the wilderness idea, would likely be absent, humans in charge. I love gardening, but do we know enough to be able to garden all land? No way, as natural history teaches us! How about a dash of humility here?

Yet, while perhaps the disparate visions of the contributors to this book are  “futurist daydream[ers],” are they not worth considering along with the idea of just leaving some of nature alone? Reading the essays in The Heart of the Wild stimulated much thought for this reader and will hopefully do so for many others. It is impossible to do justice to all the contributors to this volume, but a taste of their thinking should whet appetites to sit down with this book and carefully consider what the authors have to say and, with “attitudes with actions, gratitude with reciprocity,” get to work in the interest of all beings, human and the myriad other fellow travelers on our finite Earth.

Get your own copy of the book here: The Heart of the Wild: Essays on Nature, Conservation, and the Human Future .

David Brower, then Executive Director of the Sierra Club, gave a talk at Dartmouth College in 1965 on the threat of dams to Grand Canyon National Park. John, a New Hampshire native who had not yet been to the American West, was flabbergasted. “What Can I do?” he asked. Brower handed him a Sierra Club membership application, and he was hooked, his first big conservation issue being establishment of North Cascades National Park.

After grad school at the University of Oregon, John landed in Bellingham, Washington, a month before the park was created. At Western Washington University he was in on the founding of Huxley College of Environmental Studies, teaching environmental education, history, ethics and literature, ultimately serving as dean of the College.

He taught at Huxley for 44 years, climbing and hiking all over the West, especially in the North Cascades, for research and recreation.  Author and editor of several books, including Wilderness in National Parks , John served on the board of the National Parks Conservation Association, the Washington Forest Practices Board, and helped found and build the North Cascades Institute.

Retired and now living near Taos, New Mexico, he continues to work for national parks, wilderness, and rewilding the earth.

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The only acceptable position here is that of Eileen Crist. The rest are like the “green” energy hucksters, trying to protect their lifeSTYLES instead of trying to protect life on Earth.

The entire planet should be wilderness. The only reason that it’s not is that humans are both grossly overpopulated, and are living unnaturally, the latter of which includes but is not limited to overconsumption. There is no excuse for not fighting for every inch of wilderness we can, and restoring that which has been lost eventually. Anything less is inadequate and unacceptable.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was as a gem concealed; Me my burning ray revealed." Koran

E very promise of the soul has innumerable fulfilments; each ofnt. Nature, uncontainable, flowing, forelooking, in the first sentiment of kindness anticipates already a benevolence which shall lose all particular regards in its general light. The introduction to this felicity is in a private and tender relation of one to one, which is the enchantment of human life; which, like a certain divine rage and enthusiasm, seizes on man at one period, and works a revolution in his mind and body; unites him to his race, pledges him to the domestic and civic relations, carries him with new sympathy into nature, enhances the power of the senses, opens the imagination, adds to his character heroic and sacred attributes, establishes marriage, and gives permanence to human society.

The natural association of the sentiment of love with the heyday of the blood seems to require, that in order to portray it in vivid tints, which every youth and maid should confess to be true to their throbbing experience, one must not be too old. The delicious fancies of youth reject the least savour of a mature philosophy, as chilling with age and pedantry their purple bloom. And, therefore, I know I incur the imputation of unnecessary hardness and stoicism from those who compose the Court and Parliament of Love. But from these formidable censors I shall appeal to my seniors. For it is to be considered that this passion of which we speak, though it begin with the young, yet forsakes not the old, or rather suffers no one who is truly its servant to grow old, but makes the aged participators of it, not less than the tender maiden, though in a different and nobler sort. For it is a fire that, kindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole world and all nature with its generous flames. It matters not, therefore, whether we attempt to describe the passion at twenty, at thirty, or at eighty years. He who paints it at the first period will lose some of its later, he who paints it at the last, some of its earlier traits. Only it is to be hoped that, by patience and the Muses' aid, we may attain to that inward view of the law, which shall describe a truth ever young and beautiful, so central that it shall commend itself to the eye, at whatever angle beholden.

And the first condition is, that we must leave a too close and lingering adherence to facts, and study the sentiment as it appeared in hope and not in history. For each man sees his own life defaced and disfigured, as the life of man is not, to his imagination. Each man sees over his own experience a certain stain of error, whilst that of other men looks fair and ideal. Let any man go back to those delicious relations which make the beauty of his life, which have given him sincerest instruction and nourishment, he will shrink and moan. Alas! I know not why, but infinite compunctions embitter in mature life the remembrances of budding joy, and cover every beloved name. Every thing is beautiful seen from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour, if seen as experience. Details are melancholy; the plan is seemly and noble. In the actual world — the painful kingdom of time and place — dwell care, and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy. Round it all the Muses sing. But grief cleaves to names, and persons, and the partial interests of to-day and yesterday.

Love and you shall be loved.

The strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion which this topic of personal relations usurps in the conversation of society. What do we wish to know of any worthy person so much, as how he has sped in the history of this sentiment? What books in the circulating libraries circulate? How we glow over these novels of passion, when the story is told with any spark of truth and nature! And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover. The earliest demonstrations of complacency and kindness are nature's most winning pictures. It is the dawn of civility and grace in the coarse and rustic. The rude village boy teases the girls about the school-house door; — but to-day he comes running into the entry, and meets one fair child disposing her satchel; he holds her books to help her, and instantly it seems to him as if she removed herself from him infinitely, and was a sacred precinct. Among the throng of girls he runs rudely enough, but one alone distances him; and these two little neighbours, that were so close just now, have learned to respect each other's personality. Or who can avert his eyes from the engaging, half-artful, half-artless ways of school-girls who go into the country shops to buy a skein of silk or a sheet of paper, and talk half an hour about nothing with the broad-faced, good-natured shop-boy. In the village they are on a perfect equality, which love delights in, and without any coquetry the happy, affectionate nature of woman flows out in this pretty gossip. The girls may have little beauty, yet plainly do they establish between them and the good boy the most agreeable, confiding relations, what with their fun and their earnest, about Edgar, and Jonas, and Almira, and who was invited to the party, and who danced at the dancing-school, and when the singing-school would begin, and other nothings concerning which the parties cooed. By and by that boy wants a wife, and very truly and heartily will he know where to find a sincere and sweet mate, without any risk such as Milton deplores as incident to scholars and great men.

I have been told, that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations. But now I almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words. For persons are love's world, and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the power of love, without being tempted to unsay, as treasonable to nature, aught derogatory to the social instincts. For, though the celestial rapture falling out of heaven seizes only upon those of tender age, and although a beauty overpowering all analysis or comparison, and putting us quite beside ourselves, we can seldom see after thirty years, yet the remembrance of these visions outlasts all other remembrances, and is a wreath of flowers on the oldest brows. But here is a strange fact; it may seem to many men, in revising their experience, that they have no fairer page in their life's book than the delicious memory of some passages wherein affection contrived to give a witchcraft surpassing the deep attraction of its own truth to a parcel of accidental and trivial circumstances. In looking backward, they may find that several things which were not the charm have more reality to this groping memory than the charm itself which embalmed them. But be our experience in particulars what it may, no man ever forgot the visitations of that power to his heart and brain, which created all things new; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry, and art; which made the face of nature radiant with purple light, the morning and the night varied enchantments; when a single tone of one voice could make the heart bound, and the most trivial circumstance associated with one form is put in the amber of memory; when he became all eye when one was present, and all memory when one was gone; when the youth becomes a watcher of windows, and studious of a glove, a veil, a ribbon, or the wheels of a carriage; when no place is too solitary, and none too silent, for him who has richer company and sweeter conversation in his new thoughts, than any old friends, though best and purest, can give him; for the figures, the motions, the words of the beloved object are not like other images written in water, but, as Plutarch said, "enamelled in fire," and make the study of midnight.

Thou art not gone being gone, where'er thou art, Thou leav'st in him thy watchful eyes, in him thy loving heart."

In the noon and the afternoon of life we still throb at the recollection of days when happiness was not happy enough, but must be drugged with the relish of pain and fear; for he touched the secret of the matter, who said of love, —

All other pleasures are not worth its pains";

and when the day was not long enough, but the night, too, must be consumed in keen recollections; when the head boiled all night on the pillow with the generous deed it resolved on; when the moonlight was a pleasing fever, and the stars were letters, and the flowers ciphers, and the air was coined into song; when all business seemed an impertinence, and all the men and women running to and fro in the streets, mere pictures.

The passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant. Nature grows conscious. Every bird on the boughs of the tree sings now to his heart and soul. The notes are almost articulate. The clouds have faces as he looks on them. The trees of the forest, the waving grass, and the peeping flowers have grown intelligent; and he almost fears to trust them with the secret which they seem to invite. Yet nature soothes and sympathizes. In the green solitude he finds a dearer home than with men.

Fountain-heads and pathless groves, Places which pale passion loves, Moonlight walks, when all the fowls Are safely housed, save bats and owls, A midnight bell, a passing groan, — These are the sounds we feed upon."

Behold there in the wood the fine madman! He is a palace of sweet sounds and sights; he dilates; he is twice a man; he walks with arms akimbo; he soliloquizes; he accosts the grass and the trees; he feels the blood of the violet, the clover, and the lily in his veins; and he talks with the brook that wets his foot.

The heats that have opened his perceptions of natural beauty have made him love music and verse. It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under any other circumstances.

The like force has the passion over all his nature. It expands the sentiment; it makes the clown gentle, and gives the coward heart. Into the most pitiful and abject it will infuse a heart and courage to defy the world, so only it have the countenance of the beloved object. In giving him to another, it still more gives him to himself. He is a new man, with new perceptions, new and keener purposes, and a religious solemnity of character and aims. He does not longer appertain to his family and society; _he_ is somewhat; _he_ is a person; _he_ is a soul.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy - Ralph Waldo Emerson

And here let us examine a little nearer the nature of that influence which is thus potent over the human youth. Beauty, whose revelation to man we now celebrate, welcome as the sun wherever it pleases to shine, which pleases everybody with it and with themselves, seems sufficient to itself. The lover cannot paint his maiden to his fancy poor and solitary. Like a tree in flower, so much soft, budding, informing love-liness is society for itself, and she teaches his eye why Beauty was pictured with Loves and Graces attending her steps. Her existence makes the world rich. Though she extrudes all other persons from his attention as cheap and unworthy, she indemnifies him by carrying out her own being into somewhat impersonal, large, mundane, so that the maiden stands to him for a representative of all select things and virtues. For that reason, the lover never sees personal resemblances in his mistress to her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a likeness to her mother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her blood. The lover sees no resemblance except to summer evenings and diamond mornings, to rainbows and the song of birds.

The ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue. Who can analyze the nameless charm which glances from one and another face and form? We are touched with emotions of tenderness and complacency, but we cannot find whereat this dainty emotion, this wandering gleam, points. It is destroyed for the imagination by any attempt to refer it to organization. Nor does it point to any relations of friendship or love known and described in society, but, as it seems to me, to a quite other and unattainable sphere, to relations of transcendent delicacy and sweetness, to what roses and violets hint and fore-show. We cannot approach beauty. Its nature is like opaline doves'-neck lustres, hovering and evanescent. Herein it resembles the most excellent things, which all have this rainbow character, defying all attempts at appropriation and use. What else did Jean Paul Richter signify, when he said to music, "Away! away! thou speakest to me of things which in all my endless life I have not found, and shall not find." The same fluency may be observed in every work of the plastic arts. The statue is then beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of criticism, and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it, and to say what it is in the act of doing. The god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition _from_ that which is representable to the senses, _to_ that which is not. Then first it ceases to be a stone. The same remark holds of painting. And of poetry, the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavours after the unattainable. Concerning it, Landor inquires "whether it is not to be referred to some purer state of sensation and existence."

In like manner, personal beauty is then first charming and itself, when it dissatisfies us with any end; when it becomes a story without an end; when it suggests gleams and visions, and not earthly satisfactions; when it makes the beholder feel his unworthiness; when he cannot feel his right to it, though he were Caesar; he cannot feel more right to it than to the firmament and the splendors of a sunset.

Hence arose the saying, "If I love you, what is that to you?" We say so, because we feel that what we love is not in your will, but above it. It is not you, but your radiance. It is that which you know not in yourself, and can never know.

This agrees well with that high philosophy of Beauty which the ancient writers delighted in; for they said that the soul of man, embodied here on earth, went roaming up and down in quest of that other world of its own, out of which it came into this, but was soon stupefied by the light of the natural sun, and unable to see any other objects than those of this world, which are but shadows of real things. Therefore, the Deity sends the glory of youth before the soul, that it may avail itself of beautiful bodies as aids to its recollection of the celestial good and fair; and the man beholding such a person in the female sex runs to her, and finds the highest joy in contemplating the form, movement, and intelligence of this person, because it suggests to him the presence of that which indeed is within the beauty, and the cause of the beauty.

If, however, from too much conversing with material objects, the soul was gross, and misplaced its satisfaction in the body, it reaped nothing but sorrow; body being unable to fulfil the promise which beauty holds out; but if, accepting the hint of these visions and suggestions which beauty makes to his mind, the soul passes through the body, and falls to admire strokes of character, and the lovers contemplate one another in their discourses and their actions, then they pass to the true palace of beauty, more and more inflame their love of it, and by this love extinguishing the base affection, as the sun puts out the fire by shining on the hearth, they become pure and hallowed. By conversation with that which is in itself excellent, magnanimous, lowly, and just, the lover comes to a warmer love of these nobilities, and a quicker apprehension of them. Then he passes from loving them in one to loving them in all, and so is the one beautiful soul only the door through which he enters to the society of all true and pure souls. In the particular society of his mate, he attains a clearer sight of any spot, any taint, which her beauty has contracted from this world, and is able to point it out, and this with mutual joy that they are now able, without offence, to indicate blemishes and hindrances in each other, and give to each all help and comfort in curing the same. And, beholding in many souls the traits of the divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is divine from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover ascends to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the Divinity, by steps on this ladder of created souls.

Somewhat like this have the truly wise told us of love in all ages. The doctrine is not old, nor is it new. If Plato, Plutarch, and Apuleius taught it, so have Petrarch, Angelo, and Milton. It awaits a truer unfolding in opposition and rebuke to that subterranean prudence which presides at marriages with words that take hold of the upper world, whilst one eye is prowling in the cellar, so that its gravest discourse has a savor of hams and powdering-tubs. Worst, when this sensualism intrudes into the education of young women, and withers the hope and affection of human nature, by teaching that marriage signifies nothing but a housewife's thrift, and that woman's life has no other aim.

Laugh as much you breath and love as long as you live

But this dream of love, though beautiful, is only one scene in our play. In the procession of the soul from within outward, it enlarges its circles ever, like the pebble thrown into the pond, or the light proceeding from an orb. The rays of the soul alight first on things nearest, on every utensil and toy, on nurses and domestics, on the house, and yard, and passengers, on the circle of household acquaintance, on politics, and geography, and history. But things are ever grouping themselves according to higher or more interior laws. Neighbourhood, size, numbers, habits, persons, lose by degrees their power over us. Cause and effect, real affinities, the longing for harmony between the soul and the circumstance, the progressive, idealizing instinct, predominate later, and the step backward from the higher to the lower relations is impossible. Thus even love, which is the deification of persons, must become more impersonal every day. Of this at first it gives no hint. Little think the youth and maiden who are glancing at each other across crowded rooms, with eyes so full of mutual intelligence, of the precious fruit long hereafter to proceed from this new, quite external stimulus. The work of vegetation begins first in the irritability of the bark and leaf-buds. From exchanging glances, they advance to acts of courtesy, of gallantry, then to fiery passion, to plighting troth, and marriage. Passion beholds its object as a perfect unit. The soul is wholly embodied, and the body is wholly ensouled.

Her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say her body thought."

Romeo, if dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine. Life, with this pair, has no other aim, asks no more, than Juliet, — than Romeo. Night, day, studies, talents, kingdoms, religion, are all contained in this form full of soul, in this soul which is all form. The lovers delight in endearments, in avowals of love, in comparisons of their regards. When alone, they solace themselves with the remembered image of the other. Does that other see the same star, the same melting cloud, read the same book, feel the same emotion, that now delight me? They try and weigh their affection, and, adding up costly advantages, friends, opportunities, properties, exult in discovering that willingly, joyfully, they would give all as a ransom for the beautiful, the beloved head, not one hair of which shall be harmed. But the lot of humanity is on these children. Danger, sorrow, and pain arrive to them, as to all. Love prays. It makes covenants with Eternal Power in behalf of this dear mate. The union which is thus effected, and which adds a new value to every atom in nature, for it transmutes every thread throughout the whole web of relation into a golden ray, and bathes the soul in a new and sweeter element, is yet a temporary state. Not always can flowers, pearls, poetry, protestations, nor even home in another heart, content the awful soul that dwells in clay. It arouses itself at last from these endearments, as toys, and puts on the harness, and aspires to vast and universal aims. The soul which is in the soul of each, craving a perfect beatitude, detects incongruities, defects, and disproportion in the behaviour of the other. Hence arise surprise, expostulation, and pain. Yet that which drew them to each other was signs of loveliness, signs of virtue; and these virtues are there, however eclipsed. They appear and reappear, and continue to attract; but the regard changes, quits the sign, and attaches to the substance. This repairs the wounded affection. Meantime, as life wears on, it proves a game of permutation and combination of all possible positions of the parties, to employ all the resources of each, and acquaint each with the strength and weakness of the other. For it is the nature and end of this relation, that they should represent the human race to each other. All that is in the world, which is or ought to be known, is cunningly wrought into the texture of man, of woman.

The person love does to us fit, Like manna, has the taste of all in it."

The world rolls; the circumstances vary every hour. The angels that inhabit this temple of the body appear at the windows, and the gnomes and vices also. By all the virtues they are united. If there be virtue, all the vices are known as such; they confess and flee. Their once flaming regard is sobered by time in either breast, and, losing in violence what it gains in extent, it becomes a thorough good understanding. They resign each other, without complaint, to the good offices which man and woman are severally appointed to discharge in time, and exchange the passion which once could not lose sight of its object, for a cheerful, disengaged furtherance, whether present or absent, of each other's designs. At last they discover that all which at first drew them together,— those once sacred features, that magical play of charms, — was deciduous, had a prospective end, like the scaffolding by which the house was built; and the purification of the intellect and the heart, from year to year, is the real marriage, foreseen and prepared from the first, and wholly above their consciousness. Looking at these aims with which two persons, a man and a woman, so variously and correlatively gifted, are shut up in one house to spend in the nuptial society forty or fifty years, I do not wonder at the emphasis with which the heart prophesies this crisis from early infancy, at the profuse beauty with which the instincts deck the nuptial bower, and nature, and intellect, and art emulate each other in the gifts and the melody they bring to the epithalamium.

Thus are we put in training for a love which knows not sex, nor person, nor partiality, but which seeks virtue and wisdom everywhere, to the end of increasing virtue and wisdom. We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state. But we are often made to feel that our affections are but tents of a night. Though slowly and with pain, the objects of the affections change, as the objects of thought do. There are moments when the affections rule and absorb the man, and make his happiness dependent on a person or persons. But in health the mind is presently seen again, — its overarching vault, bright with galaxies of immutable lights, and the warm loves and fears that swept over us as clouds, must lose their finite character and blend with God, to attain their own perfection. But we need not fear that we can lose any thing by the progress of the soul. The soul may be trusted to the end. That which is so beautiful and attractive as these relations must be succeeded and supplanted only by what is more beautiful, and so on for ever.

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15 reasons why i'm a nature lover and will fight for the environment.

Here are some of the reasons that I am proud to be a supporter of planting trees and keeping our world clean.

Here are some of the reasons that I am proud to be a supporter of planting trees and keeping our world clean. Hopefully these will inspire you to begin taking small day-to-day steps to fight for the environment. (Photos by tentree ambassador  @anpassey )

1)  Emotional Health  – Being in nature improves your mental and  emotional health . I want to protect the things that keep me happy.

2)  Physical Health –  Nature improves your physical health, too. Breathing in fresh air while going on a mountain hike will not only clear your head and body of pollutants and toxins, but it will boost your aerobic health and make you stronger.

3)  Pollution Hurts Us –  When the earth is dirty and polluted, we are essentially making ourselves more sick too. Research has shown that we can develop cancer, asthma, heart disease, and other chronic diseases from pollution.

4)  A Healthy Earth = Healthy People  – As aboriginal activist Bobby McLeod once said: “When the earth is sick and polluted, human health is impossible…. To heal ourselves we must heal our planet, and to heal our planet we must heal ourselves.”

5)  Resources –  We rely on nature for resources, food, and shelter — without it, we’d have nothing. Learning to conserve and protect this is vital for our own survival.

6)  Rainforests –  The earth naturally provides us with life-saving medicines, beautiful biodiversity, and healthy living. When we destroy rainforests, we’re depleting our own resources to save ourselves later on. This is just one of the many reasons why Tentree is paving the way to start rebuilding forests.

7)  Oceans –  In addition to many parts of the world relying on ocean fishing to eat, oceans are vast worlds that hold many secrets we don’t even fully understand. If we pollute our water and over-exploit marine fisheries ( which is already happening ), killing off many species of fish, we won’t have a chance to study the untouched world of the sea. Nor will we preserve the fish species we rely on for food.

8)  Air –  Air is the most essential building block of life, yet it’s the first thing to get hurt when we build cities, factories, highways. There are many ways to lower your own carbon footprint.

9)  It Is Our Home –  You like to keep a clean house and living space because it makes you feel good and healthy. On a very big scale, earth is our home. Even though we don’t own it, we should treat it as our ultimate home.

10)  Everything Counts –  I care because I know that even the little things matter a lot. Often great change starts from a small action, and if you start to live in a more environmentally-friendly way, soon others will follow. Start by being mindful and following these  10 easy ways to improve the environment  on a day-to-day basis.

11)  Living is Giving –  Caring about nature makes you connect to something greater than yourself, and this brings more meaning to your life.

12)  Our Kids –  Your grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren will thank you for it. Do you want to be remembered as a person who followed the crowd and went the easy route in being careless about the earth, or do you want to be the one who was way ahead of their time and took steps to conserve the most precious thing we have?

13)  The Earth Is Alive  – The earth is a living, breathing work of art. We should treat it as an ancient masterpiece that can’t be recreated any other way.

14)  We Can Make A Difference –  We can solve many of the world’s major problems by being more mindful towards our environment. Sustainable living and reducing air or water pollution will impact millions of people around the world.

15)  It’s Up To Us –  If you don’t stand up for the world, no one will. So don’t be afraid to tell people to stop idling their car, or to pick up their trash. It will make a difference!

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My Love for Animals and How They Have Strengthened My Compassion for All Living Things

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Published: Aug 23, 2018

Words: 889 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

  • American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved from https://www.aspca.org/about-us
  • Animal Legal Defense Fund. (n.d.). About ALDF.
  • Animal Welfare Institute. (n.d.). Our Mission. Retrieved from https://awionline.org/content/our-mission
  • Humane Society of the United States. (n.d.). About Us.
  • PETA. (n.d.). About PETA.
  • Smith, J. A. (2016). The Benefits of Animals - for Individuals, Families, Communities, and Society. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/201607/the-benefits-animals-individuals-families-communities-and-society
  • University of Missouri Extension. (2016). The Benefits of Pets for Human Health.
  • Van Houtte, B. A. (2017). The impact of companion animals on human health and well-being: A review of literature. International Journal of Social Science Studies, 5(10), 68-75.
  • Wells, D. L. (2019). The effects of animals on human health and well-being. Journal of Social Issues, 75(3), 523-543.
  • Wilson, C. C., & Turner, D. C. (2008). Companion animals in human health. In Handbook on animal-assisted therapy (pp. 7-26). Academic Press.

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essay on nature lover

A woman paddles a kayak on a quiet river

Americans love nature but don’t feel empowered to protect it, new research shows

essay on nature lover

Assistant Professor, Indiana University

Disclosure statement

Jessica Eise receives funding from the National Science Foundation to explore how to create enduring change in environmental public behavior to support actions that will effectively address climate change and its impacts on society.

Indiana University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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Climate change has been in the news for more than 40 years . It’s typically covered as a scientific or political issue . However, social scientists like me have found that feelings and values are what drive people toward broad, collective change – not charts, graphs or images.

Surveys confirm that the majority of Americans now believe that climate change is real . But many adults seem to feel too exhausted, defeated or powerless to do anything about it.

I am leading a large multiyear research project funded by the National Science Foundation that examines how to tap into morals, ethics and spirituality to create enduring behavioral shifts on this issue. In the pilot study for this project, which has not been published yet, we recently surveyed 275 U.S. adults to understand their relationship with and feelings toward the natural world.

This is a first step toward understanding how to start communicating differently about climate change. Climate change is altering weather patterns, temperatures and seasons, which people are now beginning to feel in nearly all locations in the world.

Many people said that when they thought of nature, it raised happy memories of climbing trees, stomping in puddles or watching sunsets. But underneath, they described fraught relationships with the environment – a tense blend of love, longing, guilt and worry.

No predetermined answers

We used an open-ended survey that allowed respondents to answer however they wished, without predetermined choices. For example, we asked “What is your personal relationship with nature?” and gave respondents a blank box to write down their own interpretation.

Open-ended questions are coded line by line by a team of researchers – a time-consuming process that limits the number of survey participants. Large surveys typically use close-ended questions that are more straightforward to analyze and are easier to administer to larger numbers of people.

However, using this approach meant that responses were not limited or prompted by a researcher’s ideas. The themes we found arose out of participants’ own thoughts and feelings.

How do people think about and engage with nature?

To understand people’s relationships with nature, we asked several questions. In one set we asked, “How are humans and nature related? What is the role of humans in nature?” Over half of respondents (53%) noted that we should care for and preserve Earth. Some 45% explicitly mentioned the benefits of nature for human health and well-being. And 27% discussed how humans depend on Earth and its resources.

About a quarter of responses (26%) mentioned that humans can choose to be positive or negative forces in nature. This was closely followed by statements that humans take too much from nature (23%).

People with cameras, looking out to sea

When analyzing another question, “What is your personal relationship with nature?” we noted prominent themes and how participants tended to connect them to one another. For instance, participants reported that, to them, nature represented beauty, health, joy, childhood and escape.

To connect with nature, respondents said they commonly engaged in activities such as taking walks outdoors, going camping, watching sunsets or gardening. However, many said that barriers – such as time constraints, lack of physical access or being distracted by technology – prevented them from connecting with nature in the ways they wanted.

Wanting to do better

Underlying all of this were strong feelings of love, longing, worry and guilt. These emotions showed up most commonly in responses – usually through a literal statement, although sometimes by alluding to the emotion.

When discussing love, participants were most direct. They usually simply said, “I love it, honestly” or “Love it.” Longing was often expressed in slightly more varied ways, such as stating “It makes me sad to not be outside as much as I would hope to,” or “Wish I could go hiking and other things to get closer.”

Worry and guilt emerged in responses such as: “I try my best to respect the environment and take care of it. I know I can do better”; “I take care of it the best I can, but I wouldn’t say I make any large gestures either”; and “I don’t appreciate it enough.” One person simply responded: “Appreciation, respect, care, sadness.”

This question had asked, “What is your personal relationship with nature?” We did not guide respondents to list their feelings. Yet, the responses were laden with emotions.

No sense of how to help

The way in which people talk about or portray an issue – their words, symbols, phrases or images – is called a frame. Frames highlight a subset of an issue , which then generally becomes people’s primary way of thinking about something.

Positive self-efficacy frames – in other words, a belief that people can make a difference – have been largely absent from conversations about climate change . Political or distant environmental frames are more common.

For example, prominent images typically contain political figures or distant environmental impacts, such as smokestacks or melting ice . These tend to leave people feeling powerless or feeling that they have little to offer.

Our survey findings reflect these frames. People feel longing, guilt and worry toward the environment, with virtually no mention of hope, excitement or empowerment.

From paralysis to engagement

Social scientists have been learning through climate change research that some emotions paralyze and others catalyze . Is it possible to reduce paralysis and match love for nature with hope?

Other surveys show that Americans’ concern for future generations is rising, that they are worried about harm to plants and animals and that nearly all groups see human actions as the cause of these concerns . However, as long as people lack a personal sense that they have the ability to make change, they won’t take steps such as telling political leaders to act.

Our next phase of research will build on findings from this survey by examining how ethical, moral and spiritual considerations influence behavior . We want to know what’s required for these ideas to invoke a sense of personal empowerment that’s necessary to take action.

When someone focuses on their connection with one another and future generations, it draws on a different set of ethics and sense of self – and that can motivate action.

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Fall River woman, 62, remembered as lover of nature, TV and shopping

The Fall River woman who died in mid-August after being hit by a car was remembered as someone who loved to shop, watch TV and enjoy nature.

Donalda Maria (Almeida) Ferreira, 62, was killed when she was hit by a 42-year-old woman driving a Chevrolet Sonic near 278 President Ave. on Aug. 16, authorities said.

Ferreira was born in Bretanha, Azores to Joao DeAlmeida and the late Maria Estrella Almeida, according to her obituary .

She liked going shopping, getting her nails done and watching TV, namely true crime documentaries and comedy shows, the obituary added.

  • Read More: Sterling quarry worker who died ‘loved hard’ and ‘was a fierce protector’

On top of that she enjoyed butterflies and the beach, the obituary said.

Donalda leaves behind many of her family and friends, including her father, her two daughters, Melinda Ramsay and her friends Kevin Pontes and Jennifer Ferreira and her friend Mark Springer, Jr., the obituary said.

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  • NEWS EXPLAINER
  • 28 August 2024

Mpox is spreading rapidly. Here are the questions researchers are racing to answer

  • Sara Reardon

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Coloured transmission electron micrograph of mpox (previously monkeypox) virus particles (orange) within an infected cell (yellow).

Monkeypox virus particles (shown in this coloured electron micrograph) can spread through close contact with people and animals. Credit: NIAID/Science Photo Library

When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public-health emergency over mpox earlier this month , it was because a concerning form of the virus that causes the disease had spread to multiple African countries where it had never been seen before. Since then, two people travelling to Africa — one from Sweden and one from Thailand — have become infected with that type of virus, called clade 1b, and brought it back to their countries.

essay on nature lover

Monkeypox virus: dangerous strain gains ability to spread through sex, new data suggest

Although researchers have known about the current outbreak since late last year, the need for answers about it is now more pressing than ever. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has spent decades grappling with monkeypox clade I virus — a lineage to which Ib belongs. But in the past, clade I infections usually arose when a person came into contact with wild animals, and outbreaks would fizzle.

Clade Ib seems different, and is spreading largely through contact between humans, including through sex . Around 18,000 suspected cases of mpox, many of them among children, and at least 600 deaths potentially attributable to the disease have been reported this year in the DRC alone.

How does this emergency compare with one declared in 2022, when mpox cases spread around the globe? How is this virus behaving compared with the version that triggered that outbreak, a type called clade II? And will Africa be able to rein this one in? Nature talks with researchers about information they are rushing to gather.

Is clade Ib more deadly than the other virus types?

It’s hard to determine, says Jason Kindrachuk, a virologist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. He says that the DRC is experiencing two outbreaks simultaneously. The clade I virus, which has been endemic in forested regions of the DRC for decades, circulates in rural regions where people get it from animals. That clade was renamed Ia after the discovery of clade Ib. Studies in animals suggest that clade I is deadlier than clade II 1 — but Kindrachuk says that it’s hard to speculate on what that means for humans at this point.

Even when not fatal, mpox can trigger fevers, aches and painful fluid-filled skin lesions.

essay on nature lover

Growing mpox outbreak prompts WHO to declare global health emergency

Although many reports state that 10% of clade I infections in humans are fatal, infectious-disease researcher Laurens Liesenborghs at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, doubts that this figure is accurate. Even the WHO’s latest estimate of a 3.5% fatality rate for people with mpox in the DRC might be high.

There are many reasons that fatality estimates might be unreliable, Liesenborghs says. For one, surveillance data captures only the most severe cases; many people who are less ill might not seek care at hospitals or through physicians, so their infections go unreported.

Another factor that can confound fatality rates is a secondary health condition. For example, people living with HIV — who can represent a large proportion of the population in many African countries — die from mpox at twice the rate of the general population 2 , especially if their HIV is untreated. And the relatively high death rate among children under age 5 could be partly because of malnutrition, which is common among kids in rural parts of the DRC, Liesenborghs says.

Is clade Ib more transmissible than other types?

The clade 1b virus has garnered particular attention because epidemiological data suggest that it transmits more readily between people than previous strains did, including through sexual activity, whereas clade Ia mostly comes from animals. An analysis posted ahead of peer review on the preprint server medRxiv 3 shows that clade Ib’s genome contains genetic mutations that seem to have been induced by the human immune system, suggesting that it has been in humans for some time. Clade Ia genomes have fewer of these mutations.

But Liesenborghs says that the mutations and clades might not be the most important factor in understanding how monkeypox virus spreads. Although distinguishing Ia from Ib is useful in tracking the disease, he says, the severity and transmissibility of the disease could be affected more by the region where the virus is circulating and the people there. Clade Ia, for instance, seems to be more common in sparsely populated rural regions where it is less likely to spread far. Clade Ib is cropping up in densely populated areas and spreading more readily.

Jean Nachega, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, says that scientists don’t understand many aspects of mpox transmission — they haven’t even determined which animal serves as a reservoir for the virus in the wild, although rodents are able to carry it. “We have to be very humble,” Nachega says.

How effective are vaccines against the clade I virus?

Just as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, health experts are looking to vaccines to help curb this mpox outbreak. Although there are no vaccines designed specifically against the monkeypox virus, there are two vaccines proven to ward off a related poxvirus — the one that causes smallpox. Jynneos, made by biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic in Hellerup, Denmark, contains a type of poxvirus that can’t replicate but can trigger an immune response. LC16m8, made by pharmaceutical company KM Biologics in Kumamoto, Japan, contains a live — but weakened — version of a different poxvirus strain.

essay on nature lover

Hopes dashed for drug aimed at monkeypox virus spreading in Africa

Still, it’s unclear how effective these smallpox vaccines are against mpox generally. Dimie Ogoina, an infectious-disease specialist at Niger Delta University in Wilberforce Island, Nigeria, points out that vaccines have been tested only against clade II virus in European and US populations, because these shots were distributed by wealthy nations during the 2022 global outbreak . And those recipients were primarily young, healthy men who have sex with men, a population that was particularly susceptible during that outbreak. One study in the United States found that one dose of Jynneos was 80% effective at preventing the disease in at-risk people, whereas two doses were 82% effective 4 ; the WHO recommends getting both jabs.

People in Africa infected with either the clade Ia or 1b virus — especially children and those with compromised immune systems — might respond differently. However, one study in the DRC found that the Jynneos vaccine generally raised antibodies against mpox in about 1,000 health-care workers who received it 5 .

But researchers are trying to fill in some data gaps. A team in the DRC is about to launch a clinical trial of Jynneos in people who have come into close contact with the monkeypox virus — but have not shown symptoms — to see whether it can prevent future infection, or improve outcomes if an infection arises.

Will the vaccines help to rein in the latest outbreak?

Mpox vaccines have been largely unavailable in Africa, but several wealthy countries have pledged to donate doses to the DRC and other affected African nations. The United States has offered 50,000 Jynneos doses from its national stockpile, and the European Union has ordered 175,000, with individual member countries pledging extra doses. Bavarian Nordic has also added another 40,000. Japan has offered 3.5 million doses of LC16m8 — for which only one jab is recommended instead of two.

essay on nature lover

Monkeypox in Africa: the science the world ignored

None of them have arrived yet, though, says Espoir Bwenge Malembaka, an epidemiologist at the Catholic University of Bukavu in the DRC. Low- and middle-income nations cannot receive vaccines until the WHO has deemed the jabs safe and effective. And the WHO has not given its thumbs up yet. It is evaluating data from vaccine manufacturers, delaying donors’ ability to send the vaccines.

Even when the vaccines arrive, Bwenge Malembaka says, “it’s really a drop in the bucket”. The African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, estimates that 10 million doses are needed to rein in the outbreak.

Bwenge Malembaka says that the uncertainty over vaccine arrival has made it difficult for the government to form a distribution plan. “I don’t know how one can go about this kind of challenge,” he says. Bwenge Malembaka suspects that children are likely to receive doses first, because they are highly vulnerable to clade I, but officials haven’t decided which regions to target. It’s also unclear how the government would prioritize other vulnerable populations such as sex workers, who have been affected by clade Ib. Their profession is criminalized in the DRC, so they might not be able to come forward for treatment.

Researchers lament that public-health organizations didn’t provide vaccines and other resources as soon as the clade I outbreak was identified, especially given lessons learnt from the 2022 global mpox outbreak. “The opportunity was there a couple months ago to cut this transmission chain, but resources weren’t available,” Liesenborghs says. “Now, it will be more challenging to tackle this outbreak, and the population at risk is much broader.”

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02793-9

Americo, J. L., Earl, P. L. & Moss, B. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 120 , e2220415120 (2023).

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Yinka-Ogunleye, A. et al. BMJ Glob. Health 8 , e013126 (2023).

Kinganda-Lusamaki, E. et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.13.24311951 (2024).

Yeganeh, N. et al. Vaccine 42 , 125987 (2024).

Priyamvada, L. et al. Vaccine 40 , 7321–7327 (2022).

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FACULTY POSITION IN THE MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF REPRODUCTION

Dallas, Texas (US)

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern Medical Center)

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FACULTY RECRUITING IN GENE REGULATION

Permanent researcher positions for materials science.

NIMS (Tsukuba, Japan) invites international applications from researchers who can conduct research in materials science.

Tsukuba, Ibaraki (JP)

National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)

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Osaka University Immunology Frontier Research Center Postdoctoral Researcher

IFReC, Osaka University in Japan offers Advanced Postdoc Positions for Immunology, Cell Biology, Bioinformatics and Bioimaging.

Suita Campus, Osaka University in Osaka, Japan

Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University

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As a Teenager in Europe, I Went to Nudist Beaches All the Time. 30 Years Later, Would the Experience Be the Same?

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In July 2017, I wrote an article about toplessness for Vogue Italia. The director, actor, and political activist Lina Esco had emerged from the world of show business to question public nudity laws in the United States with 2014’s Free the Nipple . Her film took on a life of its own and, thanks to the endorsement from the likes of Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and Willow Smith, eventually developed into a whole political movement, particularly on social media where the hashtag #FreeTheNipple spread at lightning speed. The same year as that piece, actor Alyssa Milano tweeted “me too” and encouraged others who had been sexually assaulted to do the same, building on the movement activist Tarana Burke had created more than a decade earlier. The rest is history.

In that Vogue article, I chatted with designer Alessandro Michele about a shared memory of our favorite topless beaches of our youth. Anywhere in Italy where water appeared—be it the hard-partying Riviera Romagnola, the traditionally chic Amalfi coast and Sorrento peninsula, the vertiginous cliffs and inlets of Italy’s continuation of the French Côte d’Azur or the towering volcanic rocks of Sicily’s mythological Riviera dei Ciclopi—one was bound to find bodies of all shapes and forms, naturally topless.

In the ’90s, growing up in Italy, naked breasts were everywhere and nobody thought anything about it. “When we look at our childhood photos we recognize those imperfect breasts and those bodies, each with their own story. I think of the ‘un-beauty’ of that time and feel it is actually the ultimate beauty,” Michele told me.

Indeed, I felt the same way. My relationship with toplessness was part of a very democratic cultural status quo. If every woman on the beaches of the Mediterranean—from the sexy girls tanning on the shoreline to the grandmothers eating spaghetti al pomodoro out of Tupperware containers under sun umbrellas—bore equally naked body parts, then somehow we were all on the same team. No hierarchies were established. In general, there was very little naked breast censorship. Free nipples appeared on magazine covers at newsstands, whether tabloids or art and fashion magazines. Breasts were so naturally part of the national conversation and aesthetic that Ilona Staller (also known as Cicciolina) and Moana Pozzi, two porn stars, cofounded a political party called the Love Party. I have a clear memory of my neighbor hanging their party’s banner out his window, featuring a topless Cicciolina winking.

A lot has changed since those days, but also since that initial 2017 piece. There’s been a feminist revolution, a transformation of women’s fashion and gender politics, the absurd overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction in New York, the intensely disturbing overturning of Roe v Wade and the current political battle over reproductive rights radiating from America and far beyond. One way or another, the female body is very much the site of political battles as much as it is of style and fashion tastes. And maybe for this reason naked breasts seem to populate runways and street style a lot more than they do beaches—it’s likely that being naked at a dinner party leaves more of a permanent mark than being naked on a glamorous shore. Naked “dressing” seems to be much more popular than naked “being.” It’s no coincidence that this year Saint Laurent, Chloé, Ferragamo, Tom Ford, Gucci, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, and Valentino all paid homage to sheer dressing in their collections, with lacy dresses, see-through tops, sheer silk hosiery fabric, and close-fitting silk dresses. The majority of Anthony Vaccarello’s fall 2024 collection was mostly transparent. And even off the runway, guests at the Saint Laurent show matched the mood. Olivia Wilde appeared in a stunning see-through dark bodysuit, Georgia May Jagger wore a sheer black halter top, Ebony Riley wore a breathtaking V-neck, and Elsa Hosk went for translucent polka dots.

In some strange way, it feels as if the trends of the ’90s have swapped seats with those of today. When, in 1993, a 19-year-old Kate Moss wore her (now iconic) transparent, bronze-hued Liza Bruce lamé slip dress to Elite Model Agency’s Look of the Year Awards in London, I remember seeing her picture everywhere and feeling in awe of her daring and grace. I loved her simple sexy style, with her otherworldly smile, the hair tied back in a bun. That very slip has remained in the collective unconscious for decades, populating thousands of internet pages, but in remembering that night Moss admitted that the nude look was totally unintentional: “I had no idea why everyone was so excited—in the darkness of Corinne [Day’s] Soho flat, the dress was not see-through!” That’s to say that nude dressing was usually mostly casual and not intellectualized in the context of a larger movement.

Double Date! Amal and George Clooney, and Brad Pitt and Ines de Ramon, Take Venice

But today nudity feels loaded in different ways. In April, actor and author Julia Fox appeared in Los Angeles in a flesh-colored bra that featured hairy hyper-realist prints of breasts and nipples, and matching panties with a print of a sewn-up vagina and the words “closed” on it, as a form of feminist performance art. Breasts , an exhibition curated by Carolina Pasti, recently opened as part of the 60th Venice Biennale at Palazzo Franchetti and showcases works that span from painting and sculpture to photography and film, reflecting on themes of motherhood, empowerment, sexuality, body image, and illness. The show features work by Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, and an incredible painting by Bernardino Del Signoraccio of Madonna dell’Umiltà, circa 1460-1540. “It was fundamental for me to include a Madonna Lactans from a historical perspective. In this intimate representation, the Virgin reveals one breast while nurturing the child, the organic gesture emphasizing the profound bond between mother and child,” Pasti said when we spoke.

Through her portrayal of breasts, she delves into the delicate balance of strength and vulnerability within the female form. I spoke to Pasti about my recent musings on naked breasts, which she shared in a deep way. I asked her whether she too noticed a disparity between nudity on beaches as opposed to the one on streets and runways, and she agreed. Her main concern today is around censorship. To Pasti, social media is still far too rigid around breast exposure and she plans to discuss this issue through a podcast that she will be launching in September, together with other topics such as motherhood, breastfeeding, sexuality, and breast cancer awareness.

With summer at the door, it was my turn to see just how much of the new reread on transparency would apply to beach life. In the last few years, I noticed those beaches Michele and I reminisced about have grown more conservative and, despite being the daughter of unrepentant nudists and having a long track record of militant topless bathing, I myself have felt a bit more shy lately. Perhaps a woman in her 40s with two children is simply less prone to taking her top off, but my memories of youth are populated by visions of bare-chested mothers surveilling the coasts and shouting after their kids in the water. So when did we stop? And why? When did Michele’s era of “un-beauty” end?

In order to get back in touch with my own naked breasts I decided to revisit the nudist beaches of my youth to see what had changed. On a warm day in May, I researched some local topless beaches around Rome and asked a friend to come with me. Two moms, plus our four children, two girls and two boys of the same ages. “Let’s make an experiment of this and see what happens,” I proposed.

The kids all yawned, but my friend was up for it. These days to go topless, especially on urban beaches, you must visit properties that have an unspoken nudist tradition. One of these in Rome is the natural reserve beach at Capocotta, south of Ostia, but I felt a bit unsure revisiting those sands. In my memory, the Roman nudist beaches often equated to encounters with promiscuous strangers behind the dunes. I didn’t want to expose the kids, so, being that I am now a wise adult, I went ahead and picked a compromise. I found a nude-friendly beach on the banks of the Farfa River, in the rolling Sabina hills.

We piled into my friend’s car and drove out. The kids were all whining about the experiment. “We don’t want to see naked mums!” they complained. “Can’t you just lie and say you went to a nudist beach?”

We parked the car and walked across the medieval fairy-tale woods until we reached the path that ran along the river. All around us were huge trees and gigantic leaves. It had rained a lot recently and the vegetation had grown incredibly. We walked past the remains of a Roman road. The colors all around were bright green, the sky almost fluorescent blue. The kids got sidetracked by the presence of frogs. According to the indications, the beach was about a mile up the river. Halfway down the path, we bumped into a couple of young guys in fanny packs. I scanned them for signs of quintessential nudist attitude, but realized I actually had no idea what that was. I asked if we were headed in the right direction to go to “the beach”. They nodded and gave us a sly smile, which I immediately interpreted as a judgment about us as mothers, and more generally about our age, but I was ready to vindicate bare breasts against ageism.

We reached a small pebbled beach, secluded and bordered by a huge trunk that separated it from the path. A group of girls was there, sharing headphones and listening to music. To my dismay they were all wearing the tops and bottoms of their bikinis. One of them was in a full-piece bathing suit and shorts. “See, they are all wearing bathing suits. Please don’t be the weird mums who don’t.”

At this point, it was a matter of principle. My friend and I decided to take our bathing suits off completely, if only for a moment, and jumped into the river. The boys stayed on the beach with full clothes and shoes on, horrified. The girls went in behind us with their bathing suits. “Are you happy now? my son asked. “Did you prove your point?”

I didn’t really know what my point actually was. I think a part of me wanted to feel entitled to those long-gone decades of naturalism. Whether this was an instinct, or as Pasti said, “an act that was simply tied to the individual freedom of each woman”, it was hard to tell. At this point in history, the two things didn’t seem to cancel each other out—in fact, the opposite. Taking off a bathing suit, at least for my generation who never had to fight for it, had unexpectedly turned into a radical move and maybe I wanted to be part of the new discourse. Also, the chances of me going out in a fully sheer top were slim these days, but on the beach it was different. I would always fight for an authentic topless experience.

After our picnic on the river, we left determined to make our way—and without children—to the beaches of Capocotta. In truth, no part of me actually felt very subversive doing something I had been doing my whole life, but it still felt good. Once a free breast, always a free breast.

This article was originally published on British Vogue .

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The 2.0 PTR: What You Need to Know

The 2.0 PTR: What You Need to Know

The armies of the Burning Hells grow restless, anxious to inflict more wounds upon Sanctuary. Muster the strength to protect your home, wanderer.

The 2.0 Public Test Realm (PTR) for Diablo IV will be available from September 4–11 , offering you the chance to test upcoming changes and features releasing for the base game with the next Season and the Vessel of Hatred Expansion.

The purpose of the PTR is to test updates and features before the launch of Season 6. Then, using your feedback, we’ll adjust the content within before it goes live for everyone. The feedback we receive helps us to fine-tune balance changes, eliminate bugs, and create the best experience possible. Having a PTR gives us a chance to test new systems, and we’re grateful for your assistance.

The fires of Hell burn bright in their anticipation of your arrival! Here is what the 2.0 PTR will be previewing.

Why Make Systemic Changes?

Leveling adjustments, new difficulties system, paragon updates, item quality rework, new class skills and passives, runewords: a new source of power, wander boldly with party finder, features offered for testing, how to provide feedback, how to install the ptr, 2.0 ptr patch notes.

Please note that this is a preview for PTR content, which is subject to change. The content shown in this PTR will be accessible to all players upon launch and won’t require the Vessel of Hatred Expansion to experience (unless otherwise noted).

Developer’s Note: Our original vision for character progression was that you would have a grand journey, traversing through World Tiers, swapping out gear, gaining incremental strength through the Paragon system. We felt that was fun the first time, but on repeated play throughs, World Tier III and Sacred items felt artificial and added a lot of stat bloat that didn’t make the game more fun. Since launch we’ve added endgame features, like Infernal Hordes and The Pit of the Artificer. Vessel of Hatred will expand the endgame line up even further, adding Dark Citadel and Undercity to the mix. Our hope is that these new systemic changes allow for new characters to reach the endgame faster.

Back to Top

The way Paragon Points function has been adjusted. Going forward, earned Paragon Points will now be tied to Realm versus Character Level. This means that all Paragon Levels earned will be shared across all your characters on the same Realm. To support this shift, we’ve made a variety of alterations to the leveling journey, other stats, and monster levels. Numbers and values are also more easily understandable.

Paragon and Character Level Split

Paragon and character levels are now split out, with Levels 1–60 representing character level. This means you can earn an additional 10 Skill Points, opening additional avenues of character customization. Starting at Level 60, players will begin to earn Paragon Levels which can be used to unlock Paragon Nodes.

Characters above Level 50 will have all their experience-based Paragon Points converted to a Paragon Level. Here’s an example of this change:

  • If your character is Level 100 currently, once these changes go into effect, your character level will be reduced to 50, and all 200 Paragon Points your character has earned with be converted to Realm-wide Paragon Levels. If your character is Level 50 and below, nothing will change for them.
Developer’s Note: The changes to leveling and Paragon were made with the intent of getting you to endgame activities and gear at a more rapid pace and making it easier to ramp up your alt characters for the fight ahead.

Stat Adjustments

In addition to splitting out character and Paragon levels, we've revisited stats like Health, Armor, and Core Stats.

Developer’s Note: We’ve received player feedback stating that the numbers used to depict stats and damage have gotten out of control. We’ve adjusted stats in a way that makes the information more consumable. This change has no bearing on the strength of your character.

Standard Difficulties

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Developer’s Note: Much of what drove these changes was noticing that it was more fun to be able to control your difficulty and reward pacing using Profane Mindcages and Tormented versions of bosses.

World Tiers have been changed to Difficulties, a new way to control your challenge and reward. The first 4 Difficulties—known as Standard Difficulties—are Normal, Hard, Expert, and Penitent. The purpose of Standard Difficulties tiers is to temper your character while you strive to hit character Level 60, the new maximum.

  • Normal is a slower-paced mode suited for those looking for a lighter challenge.
  • Hard and Expert offer an increased challenge for those looking to test their mettle and play at a faster pace.
  • Penitent isn’t for the faint of heart. Those looking to pave a path to the new Torment Difficulties will face off against heightened danger. Play at your own peril!

As you accelerate in Difficulty, the amount of Gold and experience you earn will rise too. Here’s how to unlock each Difficulty:

  • Normal and Hard are unlocked by default.
  • Expert is unlocked after completing Diablo IV’s prologue.
  • Penitent is unlocked upon reaching Level 50.

Your Gateway to Hell: Torment Difficulties

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Making it to the new Torment Difficulties is the mark of a veteran warrior—this is where the endgame truly begins. In Torment Difficulties, your progression is directly linked to the Pit. As you strive to higher Pit Tiers, the Torment Difficulty you have access to will also increase. The higher the Torment Difficulty, the more likely you are to encounter Legendary and Ancestral item drops. Here’s the breakdown of how to unlock each Torment Difficulty:

  • Reaching Level 60 unlocks the Pit and Tiers 1–20 of it. Beating Pit Tier 20 unlocks Torment Tier I.
  • Beating Pit Tier 35 unlocks Torment II.
  • Beating Pit Tier 50 unlocks Torment III.
  • Beating Pit 65 unlocks Torment IV.

As if danger wasn’t abundant enough in Sanctuary, Torment Difficulties foster a new hazard: Curses. While playing in Torment Difficulties, your armor and Resistances are reduced as follows:

  • Torment 1: -250 Armor and -25% All Resist
  • Torment 2: -500 Armor and -50% All Resist
  • Torment 3: -750 Armor and -75% All Resist
  • Torment 4: -1000 Armor and -100% All Resist

By adding more Difficulties and separating them out in this way, players now have increased choice in how they engage with the risk and reward style of Diablo IV going forward.

Monster Levels

Monsters will no longer have their level displayed and will scale to the Difficulty you’re playing on.

Developer’s Note: We received feedback at launch about level scaling and feeling weak. By removing monster levels entirely and leaning into Difficulty, you now have the freedom to more precisely choose your challenge level.
Developer’s Note: There were a few issues with Paragon Glyphs, the Pit, and Nightmare Dungeons. We received feedback that the Pit rewards were feeling lackluster. We wanted to make the action of upgrading Glyphs more satisfying, while simultaneously offering better rewards for pushing deep into the Pit. Our desire was to give Glyphsmore power, but the Glyph upgrading experience system did not scale well and was needlessly grindy. So, to achieve this goal, we moved Paragon Glyphs upgrading out of Nightmare Dungeons and into the Pit, and also redesigned the system to give more control over how quickly Glyphs can be upgraded.

Glyphs have undergone a metamorphosis to better meld with the other changes we’ve made.

  • Upgrading a Glyph is no longer driven by experience. Instead, you’re given attempts to increase your Glyph’s Rank by completing Pit Tiers.
  • Three attempts to upgrade your Glyph’s Rank are rewarded for successfully completing the Artificer’s Mastery, and a bonus attempt for not dying.
  • Each upgrade attempt can be used to increase any Glyph that isn’t already at max level. The chance to upgrade your Glyph is based on the level of the Glyph and the Tier of the Pit you complete. For example, completing a Pit Tier that is 10 higher than your Glyph’s Rank guarantees an upgrade Rank.
  • Completing a Pit Tier that is significantly higher than your Glyph’s current Rank grants bonus upgrade ranks per attempt.

Every 20-level difference between the completed Pit Tier and Glyph Rank grants a bonus upgrade per attempt. Here’s an example of this system in action:

Three deathless Pit Tier 30 runs would take a Glyph all the way up to Rank 19, rapidly unlocking the additional Radius Size increase:

First Pit Run

  • Attempt 1: Glyph Rank increases from 1 to 3.
  • Attempt 2: Glyph Rank increases from 3 to 5.
  • Attempt 3: Glyph Rank increases from 5 to 7.
  • Bonus Attempt 4: Glyph Rank increases from 7 to 9.

Second Pit Run

  • Attempt 1: Glyph Rank increases from 9 to 11.
  • Attempt 2: Glyph Rank increases from 11 to 12.
  • Attempt 3: Glyph Rank increases from 12 to 13.
  • Bonus Attempt 4: Glyph Rank increases from 13 to 14.

Third Pit Run

  • Attempt 1: Glyph Rank increases from 14 to 14 (Radius Size increase).
  • Attempt 2: Glyph Rank increases from 15 to 16.
  • Attempt 3: Glyph Rank increases from 16 to 17.
  • Bonus Attempt 4: Glyph Rank increases from 17 to 18.

The maximum level of a Glyph has been increased from 21 to 100. At Level 45, a Rare Glyph can be upgraded to a Legendary Glyph using Gem Fragments with the following bonuses:

  • The Glyph’s Radius Size has increased from 4 to 5.
  • The Glyph gains an additional affix.

Paragon Boards

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Each Class has received 1 new Paragon Board. These Paragon Boards each come with a new Legendary Node as well. Additionally, only 5 Paragon Boards can be equipped, including your starting board.

Developer’s Note: With the introduction of so many new sources of power, namely Legendary Glyphs, we wanted the focus to be more on which board and glyphs you want. By limiting the number of boards, we can inject more power into choices made within the system.

The number of Paragon Points that can be earned by leveling has increased from 200 to 300.

Developer’s Note: Limiting the number of Paragon Boards attached allows us to concentrate more of the power into the boards and Glyphs themselves. This puts more of the decision-making focus on boards and Glyphs that fit your build.
Developer’s Note: We felt Sacred and Ancestral Items lost their specialness and flair due to how common they became. These changes transform Ancestral items into mighty endgame items worth the chase.

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Ancestral Items

  • Ancestral items start dropping in Torment 1.
  • Ancestral items always drop at Item Power 800, the highest possible.
  • Greater Affixes only appear on Ancestral items.
  • Ancestral items always contain at least 1 Greater Affix.

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  • Sacred Items will no longer drop. Any Sacred Items you have on your character will be marked as ‘Legacy.’ They can continue to be used but cannot be upgraded.
  • Non-Ancestral items are capped at Item Power 750. Legendary items dropped when you’re Level 60 will always be Item Power 750.
  • Item Power 750 items can now be Masterworked up to 4 times.
  • Because Character Levels are being re-adjusted in the new Realm-wide Paragon system, items with Item Power over 540 are being adjusted to 540. Affixes on these adjusted items will be rerolled at the highest values in their respective ranges.

1 New Skill for Each Class

Martial experts in Sanctuary have developed new techniques to vanquish darkness. Now you must learn them for yourself. Each of these Skills uncovers a new direction to take your Class build.

  • Enhanced Mighty Throw: While a thrown weapon is out, gain 25%[+] increased Attack Speed.
  • Fighter’s Mighty Throw: Swapping weapons near any of your thrown weapons creates an additional pulse. Each extra pulse generates 3% of your Maximum Life as a Barrier for 5 seconds.
  • Warrior’s Mighty Throw: Mighty Throw's impact deals 200%[x] increased damage and Stuns enemies for 2 seconds.
  • Enhanced Stone Burst: Stone Burst's final explosion damage is increased by 25%[x] within the initial radius.
  • Primal Stone Burst: While Channeling Stone Burst, and for 2 seconds after it ends, gain 30%[+] Attack Speed.
  • Raging Stone Burst: Stone Burst costs 66%[x] more Spirit, and its final explosion deals 50%[x] more damage.

Necromancer

  • Supreme Soulrift: Every soul absorbed increases your damage by 1%, up to 30%. This bonus persists for 5 seconds after Soulrift ends.
  • Prime Soulrift: Enemies with their souls ripped out become Vulnerable for 2 seconds. Damaging enemies affected by Soulrift has a 5% chance for their souls to be ripped out and absorbed.
  • Enhanced Dance of Knives: Moving 30 meters while Channeling Dance of Knives grants 4 Charges.
  • Methodical Dance of Knives: When you stop Channeling Dance of Knives, drop up to 12 Stun Grenades, each dealing 20% Weapon damage. The Channeled duration determines how many are dropped.
  • Disciplined Dance of Knives: Dance of Knives Slows enemies hit by 25% for 3 seconds. Each Knife has a 20% chance to pierce the enemy.
  • Enhanced Familiar: Familiar passively applies an effect to nearby enemies, based on their element. Fire Familiar: Applies 94% Burning damage to enemies. Cold Familiar: Applies 15% Chill to enemies. Lightning Familiar: Stuns enemies for 1 second.
  • Summoned Familiar: While you have two or more different element Familiars summoned, gain 3% Damage Reduction. Familiar Element is no longer tied to your previous cast skill. Instead, the Familiar Element progresses in sequence. The sequence is Fire to Cold, Cold to Lightning and Lightning to Fire.
  • Invoked Familiar: While a Familiar is active, gain 10%[x] increased damage to skills that deal its damage type.

5 New Passives for Each Class

Refine your character into the ultimate agent of destruction with 5 new Passives for each Class. We’ve also added additional connections for some Passives in each Class’s Skill Tree. This means there are more avenues to unlock these Passives, allowing greater flexibility when leveling.

  • Belligerence: Damaging an enemy with a Basic Skill increases your damage by 3/6/9% for 4 seconds.
  • Heavy Hitter: Your Ultimate Skills deal 15/30/45% more damage.
  • Warpath: After Overpowering, you deal 4% increased damage for 4 seconds.
  • Irrepressible: Casting a Weapon Mastery Skill Fortifies you for 10% of your Maximum Life.
  • Barbed Carapace [Key Passive]: For every 25 Fury you spend, you gain 10%[+] Thorns for 8 seconds, up to 120%. Casting a Skill with a Cooldown grants you Unhindered for 5 seconds. During this time, you deal 100% of your Thorns as physical damage to Close enemies every second.
  • Humanity: You deal 5/10/15%[x] more damage while in Human form.
  • Catastrophe: You deal 5/10/15%[x] more damage for 8 seconds after casting an Ultimate skill.
  • Feral Aptitude: You deal 3%[x] increased damage while Healthy and 3%[x] increased damage while above 100% Movement Speed. These bonuses can stack.
  • Backlash: You deal 4%[x] increased damage for 5 seconds after casting a Defensive Skill.
  • One with Nature [Key Passive]: Your Companion Skills each gain 1 additional companion and deal 50%[x] increased damage. Gain the Passive Effect of Ravens, Wolves and Poison Creeper.
  • Necrotic Fortitude: Lucky Hit: Your damage has up to a 5/10/15% chance to grant a Barrier for 5% of your Maximum Life for 6 seconds.
  • Finality: You deal 5/10/15%[x] increased damage for 8 seconds after casting an Ultimate Skill.
  • Titan's Fall: While Fortified you deal 6/12/18%[x] increased damage to Elites.
  • Precision Decay: Your Lucky Hit chance is increased by 5/10/15%[+].
  • Affliction [Key Passive]: Enemies affected by Vulnerable, Crowd Control, or Shadow Damage over Time are infected with Affliction and take 15%[x] increased damage from you and your Minions. Your Curse Skills deal 80%(Weapon Damage) Shadow damage to enemies that have Affliction. This amount increases by 30%[x] of your damage to Crowd Control, Vulnerable, and Shadow Damage over Time combined.
  • Target Practice: Your Critical Strike Chance with Marksman and Cutthroat Skills is increased by 3/6/9%.
  • Balestra: Gain 4/8/12% increased Damage for 4 seconds after using Evade.
  • Evasive: After Dodging an attack, gain 2/4/6% Damage Reduction for 4 seconds.
  • Unto Dawn: Your Ultimate skills deal 15/30/45%[x] increased damage.
  • Alchemical Admixture [Key Passive]: Dealing 3 different types of non-physical damage increases the Potency of your Imbuement skills by 40% for 5 seconds. This Potency is further increased by 20% of the total amount of your Bonus Damage to Poison, Shadow, and Cold.
  • Evocation: Gain 4% Cooldown Reduction.
  • Energy Focus: You generate a 6 second Barrier for 0.5/1.0/1.5% of your Maximum Life every second up to 30%. This effect is lost for 5 seconds after losing health.
  • Dampen Layer: You gain 2/4/6% Damage Reduction while you have an active Barrier.
  • Elemental Synergies: Your Frost, Shock, and Pyromancy damage is increased by 1/2/3%[x] for each skill you have equipped of that type.
  • 25%[x] increased damage
  • 45%[+] Mana Regeneration
  • 20%[+] Attack Speed

Outside of the 2.0 PTR, Runewords are a feature that can only be accessed if you have the Vessel of Hatred Expansion.

Runewords are a way to take your character’s power to a new level by creating your own abilities. There are two types of Runes you’ll find in Sanctuary: Ritual and Invocation. Runes of Ritual specify actions you must take to trigger them, and Runes of Invocation grant a powerful effect when you meet said trigger.

Let’s take the Bac Rune of Ritual as an example. Its condition is for your character to move 5 meters.

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And then there’s the Jah Rune of Invocation. Its effect is: Replace your next Evade with the Sorcerer’s Teleport (2 sec cooldown).

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Runes work off a resource system called Offering, which is generated by Runes of Ritual upon meeting their listed condition. Runes of Invocation consume this Offering to activate their effects. The more demanding of a requirement, the more Offering the Rune of Ritual will generate. On the inverse, the Offering requirement to activate a Rune of Invocation scales with the strength of its effect.

You may generate more Offering than is required to activate your Rune of Invocation. This is where another mechanic, Overflow, comes into play. Many Runes of Invocation apply a bonus to their effects when more Offering than requires is generated, cranking them up a notch briefly.

To make a Runeword, you must socket a Rune of Ritual and a Rune of Invocation into an item containing two Sockets, such as Chest, Leg, and Two-Handed weapon slots. The Helm slot has also received an additional Socket and can now house a Runeword. Any Rune of Ritual is compatible with any Rune of Invocation. Runes come in 3 rarities: Magic, Rare, and Legendary. The higher a Rune’s rarity, the more potent its effect will be.

Here’s an example of how two Runes formed into a Runeword would function:

Let’s use the Bac Rune of Ritual as an example again: While equipped, every 5 meters your character moves will generate 50 Offering.

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And we’ll pair it again with the Jah Rune of Invocation, which has an effect of: Replace your next Evade with the Sorcerer’s Teleport (2 sec cooldown). Requires 500 Offering.

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Having both the Bac and Jah Runes equipped to an item you’re wearing created the BacJah Runeword. It also means that every time your character travels 5 meters, they will generate 50 Offering. Once they have generated at least 500 Offering, their next Evade is replaced with the Sorcerer’s Teleport.

Runewords can give you access to Skills from other Classes. They can also do things like temporarily increase your Movement Speed, Skills, and more. There are 17 Runes of Ritual and 28 Runes of Invocation available. With a multitude of ways to pair them, the sky’s the limit. Here are the tooltips for all 45 Runes:

Ritual Runes:

  • Gain: 50 Offering.
  • Cast a Skill with a Cooldown.
  • Gain: 25 Offering.
  • Cast the same non-Channeled Skill 3 times in a row.
  • Gain: 10 Offering.
  • Lucky Hit: Up to a 100% chance against Injured enemies.
  • Gain: 300 Offering.
  • Deal damage after not taking any within 5 seconds. (Resets if Invulnerable.)
  • Cast a non-Channeled Core Skill.
  • Gain: 150 Offering.
  • Evoke power from another Class.
  • Cast an Ultimate Skill.
  • Gain: 1000 Offering.
  • Become Injured or Crowd Controlled (Cooldown: 20 seconds).
  • Gain: 5 Offering.
  • Inflict a Crowd Control that isn't Slow or Chill.
  • Cast Evade.
  • Travel 5 meters.
  • Your Minion or Companion kills an enemy or dies.
  • Gain: 100 Offering.
  • Drink a Healing Potion.
  • Gain: 2 Offering.
  • Spend 5% of your Maximum Resource.
  • Cast a Skill after moving. (Cooldown: 0.2 seconds)
  • Lose 1% of your Maximum Life.
  • Stand still for 0.3 seconds.

Invocation Runes:

  • Requires: 800 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration). Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Barbarian's Challenging Shout, reducing your damage taken.
  • Requires: 500 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration). Cooldown: 2 Seconds.
  • Evoke the Barbarian's Enhanced War Cry, increasing your Movement Speed and damage dealt.
  • Requires: 400 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration). Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Gain +3 to all Skills for 5 seconds.
  • Requires: 25 Offering (Overflow: Gain Multiple Stacks). Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Gain 2.5% Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds, up to 25%.
  • Requires: 700 Offering Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Your next Skill cast will be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower.
  • Requires: 800 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration) Cooldown: 1 second.
  • Evoke the Druid's Earthen Bulwark, granting yourself a Barrier.
  • 500 Offering Cooldown: 5 Seconds.
  • Evoke the Druid's Petrify, Stunning enemies and increasing your Critical Strike Damage against them.
  • Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: Further Reduced Cooldowns) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Reduce your active Cooldowns by 0.25 seconds.
  • Requires: 5 Offering (Overflow: Increased Resource Restored) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Restore 1 Primary Resource.
  • 400 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Restore an Evade charge and gain 6% Movement Speed for 5 seconds, up to 30%.
  • Requires: 200 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Gain 20% Maximum Life for 4 seconds.
  • Requires: 100 Offering Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Necromancer's Horrid Decrepify, Slowing enemies, reducing their damage, and letting you Execute them.
  • Evoke the Necromancer's Abhorrent Iron Maiden, counterattacking damage from enemies and Healing you when they die.
  • Requires: 400 Offering (Overflow: Further Increased Damage) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Your next non-Basic Skill cast spends all of your Primary Resource to deal up to 100% increased damage.
  • Requires: 200 Offering (Overflow: Further Reduced Cooldown) Cooldown: 2 Seconds.
  • Reduce your active Ultimate Cooldown by 4 seconds.
  • Requires: 700 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration) Cooldown: 6 Seconds.
  • Evoke the Rogue's Countering Concealment, gaining Dodge Chance, Movement Speed, Unstoppable, and Stealth.
  • Requires: 150 Offering (Overflow: Gain Multiple Shadows) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Gain a shadow from the Rogue's Dark Shroud, reducing damage taken per shadow.
  • Requires: 500 Offering Cooldown: 2 Seconds.
  • Replace your next Evade with the Sorcerer's Teleport, blinking further, dealing damage, and becoming Unstoppable.
  • Requires: 400 Offering (Overflow: Increased Size) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Sorcerer's Mystical Frost Nova, inflicting Freeze and Vulnerable onto enemies.
  • Requires: 250 Offering Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Spiritborn's Concussive Stomp, dealing damage and Knocking Down enemies.
  • Requires: 500 Offering Cooldown: 3 Seconds.
  • Evoke the Spiritborn's Vortex, dealing damage and Pulling In enemies.
  • Requires: 25 Offering (Overflow: Increased Bolts Spawned) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Druid's Dancing Bolts, seeking and dealing damage to enemies.
  • Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: Increased Size) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Barbarian's Earthquake, dealing damage to enemies within.
  • Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • You leave the Necromancer's Desecrated Ground behind you for 3 seconds, dealing damage to enemies within.
  • Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: Increased Grenades Spawned) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Rogue's Stun Grenades, Stunning and dealing damage to enemies.
  • Requires: 25 Offering (Overflow: Increased Meteorites Spawned) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Sorcerer's Meteorites, dealing damage to enemies.
  • Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: Increased Swarms Spawned) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Evoke the Spiritborn's Pestilent Swarm, dealing damage to enemies.
  • Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: Summon Multiple Wolves) Cooldown: 1 Second.
  • Summon a Spirit Wolf to attack enemies for 8 seconds.

Keep these aspects about Runes in mind:

  • They are tradeable.
  • Runes stack and will be stored in a new socketable inventory tab.
  • A maximum of 2 Runewords can be equipped (4 Runes total).
  • The same Rune cannot be equipped twice.

Rune Crafting

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Runes can be used to craft other Runes.

  • You can use 3 Runes with the same name to craft a new Rune. The Rune created from crafting is guaranteed to be different than the ones used.
  • When non-Legendary Runes are used to craft, there is a chance to create a Rune of the next highest rarity.

Runes can also be used to craft Mythics at the Jeweler.

  • Each one requires: 1 Resplendent Spark, 10 Legendary Runes of a specific name, 10 Rare Runes of a specific name, and 10 Magic Runes of a specific name to craft.

How to Obtain Runes During the PTR

Runes of any rarity can be acquired throughout Sanctuary as a monster drop. For testing during the PTR, 2 caches containing each Rune can be acquired from the ‘PTR boost’ NPC located in Zarbinzet through a dialogue option. To give you enough time to experience everything the 2.0 PTR has to offer, Runes will not be available in the PTR until September 6 . We cannot wait to see the formidable Runeword combinations you come up with during the PTR.

Party Finder is here to help you locate the right allies! This new feature allows you to find wanderers of a similar mettle within Sanctuary.

Go Far, Go Together

Party Finder gives you the ability to list the type of party you’re looking for, set what game type or activity you’d like to run, where you’d like to play, and add preferences for both casual and completionist players alike.

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You can use Party Finder to list or find a party for multiple activities within Sanctuary: from slaying through Nightmare Dungeons, selecting Wings to complete in the Dark Citadel, and finding other players to share Materials to summon Endgame Bosses, to completing your Codex of Power. Party Finder can be accessed in a variety of ways, with quick access via the Map, in-game Menu, or through a pre-set action on your emote wheel.

We will have servers for PTR in our largest regions: North America, Europe, Korea and Japan, South America, and Australia. Characters on your account have been copied ahead of time to help prepare for the PTR, although some of their items may be out of date compared to how they are currently set up in-game. Once you log-in through Battle.net, your account will carry over the following account-based progress:

  • Campaign Completion
  • Mounts and Skill Points
  • Altar of Lilith Stat bonuses

As many of the changes in this PTR are systematic, the following features will be offered to aid players in testing everything. At the Boost NPC in Kyovashad you can:

  • There are options to increase yourself to Level 50 and 60.
  • This includes the Campaign, Strongholds, Waypoints, and Fog.
  • Complete your Class Mechanic
  • Unlock All Torment Tiers
  • Fully Upgrade Your Potion
  • Max All Aspects
  • Max All Paragon Glyphs
  • Generate Legendaries
  • Grant All Uniques
  • Grant All Runes
  • Grant All Temper Manuals
  • Grant All Materials and Gold and Obols
  • Upgraded Potions
  • Fully unlocked Paragon Glyphs

These commands can be ran all at once or individually. The Boost NPC will be available starting September 6. For the first bit of the 2.0 PTR, we want to be able to collect information and feedback about a player’s natural experience without any modifiers.

Your feedback on the changes you will see and experience in the PTR is important to us and is vital in ensuring the 2.0 PTR is the best it can be when it goes live in Diablo IV proper. If you participate in the PTR, please let us know what you think!

You can provide feedback through the in-game feedback tool or the Diablo IV PTR forums . Pressing the Esc key while in the in-game menu will bring up the Report a Bug menu. You can select the dropdown filter and select the In-game feedback tool to provide feedback without leaving the game.

Here are the steps to join the PTR:

  • Open the Blizzard Battle.net App and select Diablo IV from your Games list.
  • Select the Public Test Realm option.
  • Click Install to Install the PTR client. This becomes a Play button when ready.
  • Click Play to log in to the PTR, and select any of the available Test Servers.
  • Note: Create a Seasonal Mechanic for any testing related to the Seasonal themes.
  • Enter the game and test the 2.0 PTR!

If you’re a PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate user, you’ll be able to access the PTR through the same flow as other Battle Net users. Access the Battle Net client through the Xbox App, then continue to access the PTR through Battle Net.

Game Updates

Accessibility.

  • Players may now enable Hybrid Targeting, a new feature that allows for proximity selection of interactables to be used when mouse movement is disabled. This is meant to assist with item selection in instances where cursor targeting could prove challenging.

Gem Changes

  • The drop quantity of Gem Fragments now increases as you ascend Difficulties.
  • Requires 100,000 gem fragments to craft.
  • Grand provides a 50% increase in power from the previous tier, Royal.
  • Ruby armor effect changed from % Max Life to + Strength.
  • Amethyst armor effect changed from +Strength to +% Barrier Generation.
  • Diamond armor effect changed from +% Barrier Generation to + All Stats.
  • Many Gem stat bonuses have been adjusted to better reflect Patch 2.0 numbers.
  • Ruby (+ Strength), Emerald (+ Dexterity), Topaz (+ Intelligence), Sapphire (+ Willpower): +25/50/75/100/150.
  • Amethyst (+% Barrier Generation): +2/4/6/8/12.
  • Diamond (+ All Stats): +8/16/24/32/50.
  • Skull (+% Healing Received): +4/6/8/10/15.

All Classes

Mythic Unique Items

Heir of Perdition - Mythic Unique Helm

  • Inherent: +200% Damage to Angels and Demons
  • +20% Critical Strike Chance
  • +20% Lucky Hit Chance
  • +20% Movement Speed
  • +2 to Core Skills
  • Succumb to hatred and earn Mother’s Favor, increasing your damage dealt by 60%[x]. Briefly steal Mother’s Favor from Nearby allies by slaughtering enemies.

Shroud of False Death - Mythic Unique Chest Armor

  • Inherent: +1 to All Passives
  • +111 All Stats
  • +222 Maximum Life
  • +333% Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth
  • 11.1% Resource Generation
  • If you haven't attacked in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40%[+] Movement Speed.

Shattered Vow - Mythic Unique Polearm

  • Inherent: +400% Damage to Healthy Enemies
  • +444 Maximum Life
  • +29.6% Attack Speed while Berserking
  • +444.4% Damage Over Time
  • Lucky Hit: Up to a +44.4% Chance to Become Berserking
  • Execute enemies afflicted by more Damage over Time than remaining Life.

New Recipe Sharpened Finesse

  • +X% Basic Skill Damage
  • +X% Core Skill Damage
  • +X% Ultimate Skill Damage (Moved from Worldly Finesse)

Elemental Surge Tempering Recipe has been split into two recipes

  • Lucky Hit: Chance to Deal Cold Damage
  • Lucky Hit: Chance to Deal Poison Damage
  • Lucky Hit: Chance to Deal Shadow Damage
  • Lucky Hit: Chance to Deal Physical Damage
  • Lucky Hit: Chance to Deal Fire Damage
  • Lucky Hit: Chance to Deal Lightning Damage

All class's Skill Trees have been updated to create new connections between nodes.

Active Skill

Mighty Throw - Weapon Mastery Skill - 12 second Cooldown

  • Base Skill: Hurl your weapon, dealing 60% Weapon damage upon impact and sticking in the ground. While in the ground, your weapon pulses and deals 15% Weapon damage every second for 4 seconds.
  • Enhanced Mighty Throw: While a thrown weapon is out, gain 25% [+] increased Attack Speed.
  • Fighter's Mighty Throw: Swapping weapons near any of your thrown weapons creates an additional pulse. Each extra pulse generates 3% of your Maximum Life as a Barrier for 6 seconds.
  • Warrior's Mighty Throw: Mighty Throw's impact deals 200%[x] increased damage and Stuns enemies for 2 seconds.

Passive Skills

Barbed Carapace

  • Key Passive: For every 25 Fury you spend, you gain 10%[+] Thorns for 8 seconds, up to 120%. Casting a Skill with a Cooldown grants you Unhindered for 5 seconds. During this time, you deal 100% of your Thorns as physical damage to Close enemies every second.

Belligerence

  • Damaging an enemy with a Basic Skill increases your damage by 3/6/9%[x] for 4 seconds.

Heavy Hitter

  • Your Ultimate Skills deal 15/30/45%[x] more damage.
  • After Overpowering, you deal 4/8/12%[x] increased damage for 4 seconds.

Irrepressible

  • Casting a Weapon Mastery Skill Fortifies you for 10/20/30% of your Maximum Life.

Unique Item

Ugly Bastard Helm - Unique Helm

  • +X% Resistance to All Elements
  • X% Wrath of the Berserker Cooldown Reduction
  • Lucky Hit: Up to a 40% Chance to deal +X Fire Damage
  • +X to Prolific Fury
  • Explode when activating Wrath of the Berserker, dealing [100-300% Weapon Damage] Fire damage to enemies. While Berserking, damage you would deal is converted to Fire damage and deal 10-30%[x] increased Fire damage.

Legendary Aspects

Aspect of Shattering Steel - Offensive Aspect

  • Steel Grasp and Iron Maelstrom launch up to 10 metal shards that deal (80-280% of Weapon Damage) Physical damage.

Aspect of the Flaming Rampage - Offensive Aspect

  • Charge gains an additional Charge. Each target hit by it explodes for [69-129% of Weapon Damage] Fire damage to surrounding enemies.

Tempering Recipes

Bleed Innovation – New Utility Recipe

  • +X% Rend Effect Size (Moved from Bleed Augments)
  • +X% Rupture Size (Moved from Bleed Augments)
  • +X Skill Ranks to Hamstring Passive

Barbarian Breach – New Utility Recipe

  • +X Skill Ranks to Expose Vulnerability Passive (Moved from Bleed Augments)
  • +X Skill Ranks to Pressure Point Passive (Moved from Bleed Augments)
  • +X% Kick Vulnerable Duration (Moved from Barbarian Innovation)

Brute Innovation – New Utility Recipe

  • +X% Hammer of the Ancients Effect Size (Moved from Furious Augments)
  • +X% Upheaval Size (Moved from Furious Augments)
  • +X% Mighty Throw Size

Core Augments – Barbarian New Weapon Recipe

  • +X% Chance for Hammer of the Ancients to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Whirlwind to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Upheaval to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Double Swing to Hit Twice

Brawling Augments – New Weapon Recipe

  • +X% Chance for Charge to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Kick to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Leap to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Ground Stomp to Hit Twice

Weapon Augments – New Weapon Recipe

  • +X% Chance for Mighty Throw to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Steel Grasp to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Death Blow to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Iron Maelstrom to Hit Twice

Paragon Board

Legendary Node

  • Force of Nature: Your Earthquakes have a 75% chance to spawn a Dust Devil every second that deals 180% Weapon damage. Earthquake damage is increased by 30% of your Damage vs Close bonus, up to a maximum of 150%.

Rare Nodes:

  • Squall: +10.0% Dust Devil Damage, +10 Strength
  • Catalyst: +45.0% Earthquake Damage, +10.0% Physical Damage
  • Alloyed: +45.0% Earthquake Duration, + 20 Armor
  • Raw Power: +10.0% Physical Damage, +10 Strength
  • Denial: +3.0% Resistance to All Elements, +20 Armor
  • Tenacity: 4.0% Maximum Life, +20 Armor

Stone Burst - Earth Core Skill - 30 Spirit Cost

  • Base Skill: Gather stones beneath your enemies then detonate them dealing 80% Weapon damage. Channeling deals 20% Weapon damage and increases the size of the affected area, up to a 400% increase after 1.0 seconds.
  • Primal Stone Burst: While Channeling Stone Burst and for 2 seconds afterwards, you gain 30%[+] Attack Speed.

One With Nature

  • Key Passive: Your Companion Skills each gain 1 additional companion and deal 50%[x] increased damage. Gain the Passive Effect of Ravens, Wolves and Poison Creeper.
  • You deal 5/10/15%[x] more damage while in Human form.
  • You deal 5/10/15%[x] more damage for 8 seconds after casting an Ultimate skill.

Feral Aptitude

  • You deal 3%[x] increased damage while Healthy and 3%[x] increased damage while above 100% Movement Speed. These bonuses can stack.
  • You deal 4%[x] increased damage for 5 seconds after casting a Defensive Skill.

Stone of Vehemen - Unique Totem

  • Inherent: +X% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
  • +X Willpower
  • +X% Critical Strike Damage
  • +X% Chance for Stone Burst Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X to Stone Burst
  • While Channeling Stone Burst, and for 2 seconds afterwards, gain 15% Damage Reduction.
  • Stone Burst's final explosion deals 10-15%[x] increased damage, further increased by 10-15%[x] for each size increase.

Aspect of the Agile Wolf - Utility Aspect

  • Shred gains a 4th attack that hits all surrounding enemies, deals 20-60%[x] increased damage and Knocks Down enemies for 2 seconds.

Aspect of the Rabid Bear - Offensive Aspect

  • While Grizzly Rage is active, Skills that Critically Strike apply Rabies and your Poison damage is increased by 30-90%[x].

Stormcrow's Aspect - Offensive Aspect

  • Ravens now deal Lightning damage which is increased by 30-50%[x]. Ravens Active deals its full damage in half the time, and enemies inside it are Stunned.

Aspect of Shattered Defenses - Offensive Aspect

  • Stone Burst causes enemies to take 30-50%[x] increased damage from your other Skills for 5 seconds. Stone Burst's Spirit cost is reduced by 10.

Aspect of Anticline Burst - Offensive Aspect

  • Stone Burst deals 15-35%[x] increased damage and when Cast at or above 75 Spirit, it is immediately at its maximum size.

Lightning Augments

  • +X% Chance for Stormstrike to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Lightning Storm to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Cataclysm to Deal Double Damage
  • Untamed: Casting a Companion Skill grants +4 Ranks to all Companion Skills for 5 seconds.
  • Apex: +25.0% Companion Damage, +6.5% Damage Reduction from Elites
  • Ferocity: +2.5% Companion Cooldown Reduction, +20 Armor
  • Fortune: +5.0% Lucky Hit Chance, +10 Willpower
  • Resolve: +3.0% Resistance to All Elements, +10 Willpower
  • Tempest: +10.0% Vulnerable Damage, +15.0% Critical Strike Damage
  • Superiority: +15.0% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies, +4.0% Maximum Life

Soulrift - Darkness Ultimate Skill - 50 second Cooldown

  • Base Skill: For 8 seconds, you corrupt surrounding enemies, dealing 65% Weapon damage per second.
  • Prime Soulrift: Enemies with their souls absorbed become Vulnerable for 2 seconds. When damaging enemies affected by Soulrift, you have a 5% chance to absorb their soul.
  • Key Passive: Enemies affected by Vulnerable, Crowd Control, or Shadow Damage over Time are infected with Affliction and take 15%[x] increased damage from you and your Minions. Your Curse Skills deal 30% (Weapon Damage) Shadow damage to enemies that have Affliction. This amount increases by 30%[x] of your damage to Crowd Control, Vulnerable, and Shadow Damage over Time combined.

Titan's Fall

  • While Fortified you deal 6/12/18% increased damage to Elites.

Precision Decay

  • Your Lucky Hit chance is increased by 5/10/15%.
  • You deal 5/10/15%[x] increased damage for 8 seconds after casting an Ultimate Skill.

Necrotic Fortitude

  • Lucky Hit: Lucky Hit: Up to a 5/10/15% chance to grant yourself a Barrier for 5% of your Maximum Life for 6 seconds.

The Unmaker - Unique Helm

  • X% Damage Reduction while you Have a Barrier
  • X% Resource Generation
  • +X to Soulrift
  • +X to Imperfectly Balanced
  • Soulrift's duration is increased by 0.5 seconds for every 30 Essence you spend while it is active, up to 8 seconds. Soulrift deals 100-200% of its Shadow damage per second to surrounding enemies for every 30 Essence you gain while it is active.

Reaping Lotus' Aspect - Offensive Aspect

  • Sever no longer returns and instead splits into 3 specters that expand out and back from its apex. Sever deals 80-120% of normal damage.

Phasing Poltergeist's Aspect - Offensive Aspect

  • When Bone Spirit explodes, it spawns 3 spirits that seek nearby enemies and deal 20-40% of its damage. This effect can only occur once per cast.

Aspect of Fel Gluttony - Offensive Aspect

  • Your Golem Active also causes your Golem to erupt, dealing (200-400% of Weapon Damage) Physical damage to surrounding enemies. Your Golem consumes Corpses to reduce its remaining Cooldown by 1 second.

Bone Innovation - New Utility Recipe

  • +X% Bone Storm Duration
  • +X% Bone Spirit Explosion Size
  • +X% Bone Prison Duration

Blood Innovation - New Utility Recipe

  • +X% Blood Surge Nova Size
  • +X% Hemorrhage explosion size
  • +X% Blood Lance Duration

Decay Innovation - New Utility Recipe

  • +X% Blight Size
  • +X% Decompose Explosion Size
  • +X% Soulrift Duration

Execution Innovation - New Utility Recipe

  • +X% Sever Effect Size
  • +X% Reap Effect Duration
  • +X% Skeleton Priest Effect Duration
  • Frailty: Cursed enemies take 10%[x] increased damage from you and your Minions, increased by 10%[x] each second they are Cursed, up to 40%[x].
  • Lingering Shadow: +10% Shadow Damage Over Time, +10% Shadow Damage
  • Shadow Resilience: +10% Shadow Resistance, 4% Maximum Life
  • Calculated: +15% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies, +20 Armor
  • Preservation: +10 Intelligence, +20 Armor
  • Eradicate: +10% Vulnerable Damage, +10 Intelligence
  • Relentless: +2.5% Attack Speed, +4% Maximum Life

Dance of Knives - Cutthroat Agility Skill - 6 Charges, 1 second Charge Cooldown

  • Base Skill: Channel to launch knives at surrounding enemies, consuming one Charge per second and each knife dealing 42% damage. You gain 20%[+] Movement Speed and 10% Dodge Chance while Channeling Dance of Knives.
  • Enhanced Dance: Moving 30 meters while Channeling Dance of Knives grants 4 Charges.
  • Methodical Dance: When you stop Channeling Dance of Knives, drop up to 12 Stun Grenades, each dealing 20% Weapon damage. The Channeled duration determines how many are dropped.
  • Disciplined Dance: Each Dance of Knives knife Slows enemies by 25% for 3 seconds and has a 20% chance to pierce.

Alchemical Admixture

  • Key Passive: Dealing 3 different types of Non-Physical damage increases the Potency of your Imbuement skills by 40% for 5 seconds. This Potency is further increased by 20% of the total amount of your Bonus Damage to Poison, Shadow, and Cold.

Target Practice

  • 3/6/9% [+] Critical Strike Chance with Marksman and Cutthroat Skills
  • 4/8/12%[x] Damage for 4 seconds after using Evade.
  • After Dodging an attack, gain 2/4/6% Damage Reduction for 4 seconds.
  • Your Ultimate skills deal 15/30/45%[x] increased damage.

Pitfighter’s Gull - Unique Ring

  • Inherent: +X% Shadow Resistance
  • Inherent: +X% Resistance to All Elements
  • +X% Critical Strike Chance
  • +X% Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth
  • X% Smoke Grenade Cooldown Reduction
  • +X to Mending Obscurity
  • Casting Smoke Grenade increases your Critical Strike Damage by 33[x] for 3-6 seconds and leaves behind a cloud of shadows. While within the cloud, you gain Stealth once per second.

Aspect of Poisonous Clouds: Offensive Aspect

  • When entering Stealth, create a cloud that deals (600-780% of Weapon Damage) Poison damage over 6 seconds.

Aspect of Splintering Shards: Offensive Aspect

  • Lucky Hit: Up to a 100% chance when hitting or killing a Frozen enemy to create an ice splinter that fires away from them dealing (25%-50% of Weapon Damage) Cold damage and Chilling for 20-30%.

Aspect of Star Shards: Offensive Aspect

  • Knives from Dance of Knives have a 50% chance to shatter into 6 shards of metal on hit, dealing 100-120% Physical damage. Dance of Knives now spends Combo Points, granting up to 3 additional Charges that can exceed the Maximum.

Agile Augments - New Weapon Recipe

  • +X% Chance for Flurry to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Dance of Knives Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Dash to Deal Double Damage

Assassin Augments - New Weapon Recipe

  • Shadow Step Cleaves for +X% Damage
  • +X% Chance for Blade Shift to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Smoke Grenade to Deal Double Damage

Warped Augments - New Weapon Recipe

  • +X% Chance for Twisting Blades to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Rain of Arrows to Waves to Cast Twice
  • Invigorating Strike Cleaves for +X% Damage

Basic Augments — Rogue

  • Renamed to Marksman Augments — Basic to better reflect its existing contents

Core Augments — Rogue

  • Renamed to Marksman Augments — Core to better reflect its existing contents
  • Danse Macabre: Casting a Mobility or Subterfuge Skill increases the damage of your next Skill by 50%[x].
  • Assassin: +25% Damage to Healthy Enemies, +4% Maximum Life
  • Acrobat: +2.5% Mobility Cooldown Reduction, +10 Dexterity
  • Skulker: +2.5% Subterfuge Cooldown Reduction, +10 Dexterity
  • Giant Killer: +16% Damage to Elites, +3% Resistance to All Elements
  • Brawler: 4.5% Damage reduction from Close Enemies, +12% Damage to Close Enemies
  • Ranger: 6% Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies, +15% Damage to Distant Enemies

Familiar - Conjuration Skill - 3 Charges, 12 second Charge Cooldown

  • Summon a familiar matching the element of your last cast Skill for 8 seconds. It seeks enemies and periodically explodes, dealing 40% of its element's damage.
  • You may have up to 6 Familiars active at a time.
  • Fire: Applies 94% Burning damage over 4 seconds to enemies.
  • Cold: Applies 15% Chill to enemies.
  • Lightning: Stuns enemies for 1 second.
  • Your Familiars' elements no longer depends on your previous cast Skill, and instead follows a set sequence of Fire to Cold, Cold to Lightning, and Lightning to Fire.
  • While you have at least two different element Familiars active, you gain 3% Damage Reduction.
  • Invoked Familiar: While you have an active Familiar, you deal 10% increased damage of its type.

Enlightenment

  • 25% increased damage
  • 45% Mana Regeneration
  • 20% Attack Speed
  • Reduce all cooldowns by 4/8/12%.

Energy Focus

  • You generate a 6 second Barrier for 0.5/1.0/1.5% of your Maximum Life every second up to 30%. This effect is lost for 5 seconds after losing health.

Dampen Layer

  • You gain 2/4/6% Damage Reduction while you have an active Barrier.

Elemental Synergies

  • Your Frost, Shock, and Pyromancy Skills deal 1/2/3% increased damage for each Skill you have equipped of their type.

Sidhe's Bindings - Unique Gloves

  • +X% Non-Physical Damage
  • +X% Familiar Explosion Size
  • +X% Chance for Familiar to Hit Twice
  • +X to Familiar
  • Casting Familiar now summons all three elemental variants at once. Familiar's duration is increased by 25-50%[x] and its Cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds, but its maximum Charges are reduced by 1.

Aspect of Charged Flash - Offensive Aspect

  • After Charged Bolts hits enemies 50 times, your next 3 casts of Charged Bolts becomes waves that pierce and deal (200-240% Weapon Damage) Critical Shock Damage.

Aspect of Elemental Constellation - Offensive Aspect

  • Casting Pyromancy, Shock, and Frost Skills conjures a matching Elemental Dagger around you that pierces through enemies dealing (50-70% Weapon Damage) damage after 3 seconds. The damage increases by 100% per matching elemental skill you cast.

Aspect of Overheating - Offensive Aspect

  • After channeling Incinerate for 2 seconds it deals (30-70% Weapon Damage) Critical Fire damage per second for 5 seconds. Casting Incinerate refreshes and maintains this bonus.

Pyromancy Augments - Fiery - Weapon Recipe

  • +% Chance for Incinerate to do Double Damage.
  • +% Chance for Firewall to do Double Damage.
  • +% Chance for Meteorites to do Double Damage.

Frozen Augments - Frozen - Weapon Recipe

  • +% Chance for Blizzard to do Double Damage.
  • +% Chance for Ice Spike to do Double Damage.
  • +% Chance for Deep Freeze to do Double Damage.

Sorcerer Innovation - Utility Recipe

  • +% Frost Nova Size
  • +% Blizzard Size
  • +% Teleport Nova Size
  • Fundamental Release: Each Fire, Lightning, and Cold attack you make against an enemy increases the damage it takes from your attacks by 10%[x] per element, up to 30%[x].
  • +10% Vulnerable Damage / +10 Intelligence
  • +10% Non-Physical Damage / +10 Intelligence
  • 5% Damage Reduction from Burning Enemies / +20 Armor
  • 5% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies / +4% Maximum Life
  • +10% Damage to Burning Enemies / 16% Damage to Eiltes
  • 6.5% Damage Taken Over Time Reduction / 3% Resistance to All Elements

Balance Updates

  • Ultimate skills can now have additional ranks. Players can invest up to 5 skill points into their Ultimate Skill, and bonus ranks of Ultimate Skills now exist. The limitation of having one Ultimate Skill remains. Additionally, bonus to all skill ranks (i.e. from Harlequin's Crest) will only grant ranks to the Ultimate the player has learned.
  • Life Generation affixes now trigger when at Full Life, to contribute to Overhealing effects.
  • All Weapon Tempering affixes now grant multiplicative damage. See each class's section for more info.
  • Shield's inherent Blocked Damage Reduction reduced by 15%.

Deflecting Barrier

  • Previous: While you have a Barrier active, there is a 5-15% chance to ignore incoming direct damage from Distant enemies.
  • Now: You have a 5-12% chance after taking direct damage to gain a Barrier equal to 20% of your Maximum Life. This chance is doubled against Distant enemies.

Aspect of Slaughter

  • Previous: You Gain 20% Movement speed. This bonus is lost for 2.5-5.0 seconds after taking damage.
  • Now: You gain 20% Movement speed. Lose this bonus for 2.0-5.0 seconds after taking damage from a Close Enemy.

Starlight Aspect

  • Previous: Gain 25-40 Primary Resource for every 20% Life that you Heal.
  • Now: Gain 25-40 Primary Resource for every 20% Life that you Heal or every 200% that you Overheal when at Maximum Life.
  • Fury generation increased from 4 to 7.
  • Damage increased from 13% to 15%.

Enhanced Frenzy

  • Before – While Frenzy is granting 60% bonus Attack Speed, it also generates 3 additional Fury.
  • Now – While Frenzy is granting 60% bonus Attack Speed, the Fury costs of your Core Skills are reduced by 25%.

Combat Frenzy

  • Before – You gain 8% Damage Reduction for each stack of Frenzy you currently have.
  • Now – You gain 5% Damage Reduction and 5% Movement Speed per stack of Frenzy you currently have.

Battle Frenzy

  • Attack Speed per stack of Frenzy increased from 5% to 6%.

Ground Stomp

  • Damage increased from 9.5% to 20% Weapon Damage.

Enhanced Ground Stomp

  • Before – Increase Ground Stomp's duration by 1 second.
  • Now – Ground Stomp generates 60 Fury and has a 1 second increased Stun duration.

Tactical Ground Stomp

  • Before – Ground Stomp generates 60 Fury.
  • Now – Ground Stomp is now a Brawling Skill and deals 800% increased damage to Bosses. It also applies Vulnerable for 4 seconds.

Strategic Ground Stomp

  • Before – Reduce the Cooldown of your Ultimate Skill by 2 seconds for each enemy damaged by Ground Stomp.
  • Now – Reduce the Cooldown of your Ultimate Skill by 4 seconds per enemy damaged by Ground Stomp, up to 12 seconds.
  • Before – Your Bleeding effects Slow Healthy enemies by 20%.
  • Now – Your Bleeding effects have a 15% chance to Slow Healthy and Injured enemies by 70% each time they deal damage.

Slaying Strike

  • Damage to Injured reduced from 8% to 5%.

Unconstrained

  • Before – Increase Berserking's maximum duration by 5 seconds and increase its damage bonus to 60%.
  • Now – Berserking's damage bonus is increased to 60%. While below 65% Life, you are always Berserk and gain a 25% Physical Damage Reduction bonus.

The following lists all the affixes now available for each Tempering recipe.

Bleed Augments – Weapon Recipe

  • +X Skill Ranks to Cut to the Bone
  • +X% Chance for Rend to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Rupture to Deal Double Damage

Furious Augments – Weapon Recipe

  • Bash Cleaves for +Y% Damage
  • +X% Chance for Frenzy to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Lunging Strike to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Flay Duration (Moved from Bleed Augments)

Berserking Augments

  • Changed to a Utility recipe.
  • Renamed to Berserking Innovation.

Berserking Finesse – Offensive Recipe

  • +X% Dust Devil Damage added to this recipe. (Moved from Sandstorm Augments)

Barbarian Innovation – Utility Recipe

  • +X% Earthquake Size (Moved from Wasteland Augments)
  • +X% Frenzy Duration
  • +X% Stun Duration (Moved from Barbarian Control)

Wasteland Augments – Changed to a Utility recipe

  • +X% Ground Stomp Size
  • +X% Leap Size
  • +X% Dust Devil Size (Moved from Sandstorm Augments)

Sandstorm Augments – Weapon Recipe

  • Renamed to Natural Augments.
  • +X% Dust Devil Damage (additive) removed.
  • +X% Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Earthquakes to Cast Twice
  • +X% Earthquake Duration (Moved from Barbarian Innovation)

Demolition Finesse – Offensive Recipe

  • +X% Brawling Skill Damage
  • +X% Weapon Mastery Damage
  • +X% Damage While Iron Maelstrom is Active
  • The additive damage recipes for Death Blow, Charge, and Kick have been removed. Replacements have been added in new Weapon Tempering recipes.

Legendary Aspect

Of Giant Strides

  • Cooldown per enemy hit reduced from 2.5-5.0 to 1.3-2.5 seconds.
  • Maximum reduction reduced from 9 to 7 seconds.

Of Bul-Kathos

  • Earthquake damage increased by 30%. (From 105-165% to 137-217% Weapon Damage)

Of Earthquakes

  • Earthquake damage increased by 30%. (From 85-145% to 111-191% Weapon Damage)

Hemorrhage Board

  • Previous: 4% Damage Reduction from Bleeding Enemies / +10 Strength
  • Now: (Flayer) +10% Vulnerable Damage / +10 Strength
  • Previous: +10% Physical Damage Over Time / +10% Damage to Bleeding Enemies
  • Now: (Bloodbathed) 4% Damage Reduction from Bleeding Enemies / +10% Fire Resistance

Blood Rage Board

  • Previous: +10% Damage while Berserking / +15% Berserking Duration
  • Now: (Grit) 4% Damage Reduction from Bleeding / +4% Healing Received
  • Now: (Wrath) +10% Damage while Berserking / +10 Strength

Carnage Board

  • Previous: +5% Damage While Berserking / +16% Damage to Elites
  • Now: (Brash) 4% Damage Reduction from Close Enemies / +10% Fire Resistance
  • Previous: 4% Damage Reduction from Close Enemies / +10 Strength
  • Now: (Berserker) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Strength

Decimator Board

  • Previous: 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies and +10 Strength
  • Now: (Destroyer) +10% Physical Damage and +10 Strength
  • Previous: +10% Damage with Two-Handed Slashing Weapons / +10% Vulnerable Damage
  • Now: (Arrogance) 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies / 4% Healing Received

Bone Breaker Board

  • Previous: +10% Damage with Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons / +45% Overpower Damage
  • Now: (Vigor) 5% Damage Reduction while Healthy / 4% Healing Received
  • Previous: 5% Damage Reduction while Healthy / +10 Strength
  • Now: (Bludgeoner) +10% Damage with Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons / +10 Strength

Flawless Technique Board

  • Now: (Wild Force) +10% Damage with One-Handed Weapons / +10 Strength

Warbringer Board

  • Previous: +3% Resistance to All Elements / +10 Strength
  • Now: (Brute Force) +10% Damage while Fortified / +10 Strength
  • Previous: +10% Damage while Fortified / +6.5% Fortify Generation
  • Now: (Conditioned) +3% Resistance to All Elements / +4% Healing Received

Weapons Master Board

  • Previous: +20 Armor / +10 Strength
  • Now: +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Strength

Innate Debilitating Roar reworked

  • Previous - Debilitating Roar also slows enemies for 65% for its duration.
  • Now - Debilitating Roar increases your damage by 15%[x] for its duration.

Preserving Debilitating Roar

  • Healing increased from 4% to 6% of your Maximum Life per second while active.

Earthen Bulwark

  • Innate Earthen Bulwark's damage increased from 30% to 60% Weapon Damage.
  • Updated to more consistently Trample to your target destination, rather than stopping immediately upon hitting terrain.
  • Lightning Strike damage increased from 95% to 115% Weapon Damage.
  • Lightning Strikes now cannot hit the same target more than once every 0.5 seconds.
Developer’s Note: Cataclysm was previously updated to be guaranteed to hit an enemy with its lightning strikes, if one is in range. We really like how much better the skill feels to use with this change! However, It turned out to be a bit overpowered. Now we’re limiting how frequently Cataclysm's lightning strikes can repeatedly hit the same target to ensure that other Ultimate Skills can still be a competitive option in single target situations. The damage of the lightning strikes is being increased to compensate.

Ursine Strength

  • Damage bonus while Healthy reduced from 30%[x] to 15%[x].
  • Maximum Health bonus increased from 20%[x] to 30%[x].
  • Overpower damage bonus increased from 30%[x] to 45%[x].
Developer’s Note: Ursine Strength is one of the most popular Key Passives for Druids. It was designed with Werebear and or Overpower focused builds in mind. However, it is often being used in builds that have little interest in Werebear Skills or Overpower effects, simply because the 30%[x] Damage bonus while Healthy was generically powerful. We are reducing the power of this effect, while increasing the Maximum Health and Overpower damage bonuses to better support its Werebear and Overpower niche, and not be as generically appealing to other builds that it was not intended for.

Grizzly Rage

  • Overpowering Bosses now extends duration by 5 seconds.
  • Previous: When Shapeshifting into a new animal form, you deal 1/2/3%[x] increased damage for 8 seconds, up to 8/16/24%[x].
  • Now: Shapeshifting into a new animal form grants 1/2/3%[x] increased damage, up to 6/12/18%[x]. This bonus is lost after 3 seconds in Human form.

Heightened Senses

  • Previous: When Shapeshifting into an animal form, Werebear grants 3/6/9% Damage Reduction and Werewolf grants 2/4/6%[+] Movement Speed for 6 seconds. Bonuses are doubled while both are active.
  • Now: When Shapeshifting, Werebear grants 3/6/9% Damage Reduction and Werewolf grants 2/4/6%[+] Movement Speed. Both bonuses persist as long as you are in either animal form and are doubled while both are active. They are lost after 3 seconds in Human form.

Bestial Rampage

  • Previous: After being a Werewolf for 2 seconds, gain 30%[+] Attack Speed for 15 seconds. After being a Werebear for 2 seconds, deal 50%[x] increased damage for 15 seconds.
  • Now: When Shapeshifting, Werebear grants 30%[x] increases damage and Werewolf grants 20%[+] Attack Speed. Both bonuses persist as long as you are in either animal form, but are lost after 3 seconds in Human form.

Unique Items

Fleshrender

  • Damage increased from 100-300% to 200-400% of Weapon Damage.
  • Damage increase per 100 Willpower increased from 30%[x] to 50%[x].

Dolmen Stone

  • Boulders that are rotating in your Hurricane now Knockback enemies less to allow you to more consistently hit enemies with multiple Boulders. Boulders now more consistently hit enemies that are within your melee range.

Wildheart Hunger

  • Previous: When you Shapeshift into a Werewolf or Werebear, gain Wildheart for 5 seconds. Wildheart grants you 1-3%[x] stacking damage every 2 seconds, up to 20-60%[x].
  • Now: Shapeshifting into a new animal form increases the value of your Bestial Rampage bonuses by 2.0-5.0%, up to 20-50%[+]. This bonus decays by 2% per second.

Hunter’s Zenith

  • Previous: Gain a bonus when you kill with a Shapeshifting Skill: Werewolf: Your next Non-Ultimate Werebear Skill costs no Spirit and has no Cooldown. Werebear: Your next Werewolf Skill will Heal you for 104-522 when damage is first dealt.
  • Now: Every 30 seconds you spend in an animal form, your next Core Skill is guaranteed to Overpower and Critically Strike and deals 30-60%[x] increased damage. Casting Shapeshifting Skills reduces this timer by 1 second, or 2 seconds if you change to a new animal form.

All Weapon Tempering recipes have been updated with the following stats.

Storm Augments

  • +X% Chance for Wind Shear Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Tornado Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Hurricane to Deal Double Damage

Earth Augments

  • +X% Chance for Landslide Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Earth Spike Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Boulder Projectiles to Cast Twice

Werewolf Augments

  • +X% Chance for Shred to Hit Twice
  • +X% Rabies Duration
  • +X% Lacerate Duration
  • +X% Chance for Claw to Deal Double Damage

Werebear Augments

  • +X% Chance for Maul to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Pulverize to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Trample to Deal Double Damage

Companion Augments

  • +X% Chance for Wolves to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Poison Creeper to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Raven to Deal Double Damage

Moved or Removed Recipes

  • Companion Finesse Offensive Recipe converted to Companion Augments Weapon Recipe
  • Hurricane Damage and Cataclysm Damage removed from Storm Finesse
  • Boulder Damage and Earth Overpower Damage removed from Earth Finesse
  • Trample Damage, Rabies Damage, and Lacerate Damage removed from Shapeshifting Finesse
  • Grizzly Rage Duration moved from Werebear Augments to Shapeshifting Finesse
  • Hurricane Duration moved from Storm Augments to Nature Magic Innovation
  • Lightning Storm Duration Removed from Nature Magic Innovation

Starter Board

  • Previous: +3% Resistance to All Elements / +10 Willpower
  • Now: (Reclaim) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Willpower

Thunderstruck Board

  • Previous: 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies / +10 Willpower
  • Now: (Concentrated) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Willpower
  • Previous: +4% Potion Healing / 4% Maximum Life
  • Now: (Hubris) 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies / +4% Healing Received

Earthen Devastation Board

  • Now: (Crushing Earth) +15% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies / +10 Willpower
  • Previous: +10% Earth Damage / +15% Critical Strike Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
  • Now: (Resolve) +3% Resistance to All Elements / 4% Maximum Life

Survival Instincts Board

  • Previous: +2% Total Armor while in Werebear Form / +10 Willpower
  • Now: +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Willpower
  • Previous: +10% Damage while in Werebear Form / +45% Overpower Damage
  • Now: +2% Total Armor while in Werebear Form / 4% Maximum Life

Lust for Carnage Board

  • Previous: +4% Healing Received / +10 Willpower
  • Now: (Ripper) +15% Critical Strike Damage / +10 Willpower
  • Previous: +10% Werewolf Damage / +15% Critical Strike Damage
  • Now: +3% Resistance to All Elements / 4% Maximum Life

Heightened Malice Board

  • Previous: 4% Damage Reduction from Poisoned Enemies / +10 Willpower
  • Now: (Toxic Bane) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Willpower
  • Previous: +10% Damage to Poisoned Enemies / +10% Poison Damage
  • Now: (Nature-born) 4% Damage Reduction from Poisoned Enemies / +4% Healing Received

Inner Beast Board

  • Previous: +100 Armor / +10 Willpower
  • Now: +15% Critical Strike Damage / +10 Willpower
  • Previous: +15% Critical Strike Damage / +10% Physical Damage
  • Now: (Wilds) +3% Resistance to All Elements / +4% Healing Received

Constricting Tendrils Board

  • Previous: 4% Maximum Life / +10 Willpower
  • Now: (Devastation) +10% Nature Magic Damage / +10 Willpower
  • Previous: +10% Nature Magic Damage / +16% Damage to Elites
  • Now: (Courage) 4% Maximum Life / +20 Armor

Ancestral Guidance Board

  • Previous: +4% Potion Healing / +10 Life per Second
  • Now: (Guidance) +10% Damage / +10 Willpower
  • Previous - Blight Slows enemies by 25%.
  • Now - Blight's radius is increased by 15%.
  • Previous - Blight has a 30% chance to Immobilize enemies for 2.5 seconds on impact.
  • Now - Blight Chills enemies for 15% every second.

Blood Lance

  • Blood Lance now always pierces through enemies who are currently lanced, dealing 10% reduced damage to subsequent enemies beyond the first.
  • Previous - Blood Lance pierces through enemies who are currently lanced, dealing 10% reduced damage to subsequent enemies beyond the first.
  • Now - After casting Blood Lance 8 times, your next cast of Blood Lance is guaranteed to Overpower and spawns a Blood Orb under the first enemy hit.
  • Previous - After casting Blood Lance 8 times, your next cast of Blood Lance is guaranteed to Overpower and spawns a Blood Orb under the first enemy hit.
  • Now - Blood Lance deals 15%[x] increased Critical Strike Damage and 15%[x] increased Overpower Damage.
  • Previous - Blood Wave Slows enemies by 50% for 4 seconds.
  • Now - Casting Blood Wave grants 20% Damage Reduction for 10 seconds.
  • Blood Orbs spawned increased from 3 to 6.

Transfusion

  • Cooldown for spawning a Blood Orb reduced from 4 to 2 seconds.

Death's Approach

  • Movement Speed increased from 4/8/12% [+] to 5/10/15% [+].

Aspect of Cursed Aura

  • Tooltip updated to clarify that Curses are not cast, and so the curses would not benefit from Tempering.

Tidal Aspect

  • Additional Blood Waves now deal 100-120% of normal damage instead of dealing 50-30% reduced damage.

The Mortacrux

  • Inherent: +50% Damage
  • +126-180 Intelligence
  • +98-125% Critical Strike Damage
  • +70-85% Vulnerable Damage
  • +3-5 Ranks of Hewed Flesh Passive
  • Inherent: +100% Macabre and Corpse Damage
  • +36.5-50% Chance For Corpse Explosion to Deal Double Damage
  • Hewed Flesh also grants a Barrier for 8-10% Maximum Life for 4 seconds

Black River

  • +126-180 Intelligence Affix replaced with +36.5-50% Chance for Corpse Explosion to Deal Double Damage.

Bone Augments

  • +X% Chance for Bone Spirit to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Bone Splinter Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Bone Spear Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Bone Storm to Deal Double Damage

Blood Augments

  • +X% Chance for Blood Surge to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Blood Lance to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Hemorrhage to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Blood Wave to Deal Double Damage

Shadow Augments - Decay

  • +X% Chance for Blight Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Decompose to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Soulrift to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Affliction to Deal Double Damage

Shadow Augments - Execution

  • +X% Chance for Sever Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Reap to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Corpse Explosion to Deal Double Damage

Summoning Augments

  • +X% Chance for Army of the Dead to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Skeleton Mages Attacks to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Skeleton Warriors to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Golem to Hit Twice

Other Tempering Updates:

  • +X% Corpse Explosion Damage removed from Shadow Finesse
  • +X% Bone Spirit Damage removed from Bone Finesse
  • +X% Blight Slow Potency Tempering affix changed to +X% Blight Chill Potency on the Profane Cage
  • Previous: +200 Armor / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Grasp) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Intelligence

Cult Leader Board

  • Previous: 10% Damage Reduction for Your Minions / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: +15% Summon Crit Damage / +10 Intelligence

Hulking Monstrosity

  • Previous: +14% Golems Armor / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: +10% Summon Damage / +10 Intelligence

Flesh-Eater Board

  • Previous: +3% Resistance to All Elements / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Rend) +10% Damage / +10 Intelligence
  • Previous: +35% Ultimate Damage / +2.5% Attack Speed
  • Now: (Erudite) +3% Resistance to All Elements / 4% Maximum Life

Scent of Death

  • Previous: +100 Armor / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Seethe) +10% Damage / +10 Intelligence
  • Previous: +35% Ultimate Damage / +15% Crtitical Strike Damage
  • Now: 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies / +20 Armor

Bone Graft Board

  • Previous: 4% Maximum / +100 Armor
  • Previous: +15% Bone Critical Strike Damage / +10% Bone Damage
  • Now: +20 Armor / 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies
  • Now: (Splinter) +15% Bone Critical Strike Damage / +10 Intelligence

Blood Begets Blood Board

  • Previous: +5% Blood Orb Healing / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Aggression) +12.5% Damage while Healthy / +10 Intelligence
  • Previous: +45% Overpower Damage / +10% Damage
  • Now: (Blooddrinker) +5% Blood Orb Healing / 4% Maximum Life

Bloodbath Board

  • Now: 4% Damage Reduction while Fortified / +6.5% Fortify Generation
  • Previous: +4% Healing Received / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: +45% Overpower Damage / +10 Intelligence

Wither Board

  • Previous: +10% Shadow Resistance / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Gnawing Darkness) +10% Damage to Shadow Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies / +10 Intelligence
  • Previous: +10% Damage to Shadow Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies / +16% Damage to Elites
  • Now: (Gloom) +10% Shadow Resistance / +20 Armor

Enhanced Blade Shift

  • Previous: While Blade Shift is active you gain 20% Movement speed.
  • Now: While Blade Shift is active you gain 20% Movement speed. Moving through enemies refreshes its duration.

Fundamental Blade Shift

  • Previous: Moving through enemies while blade shift is active refreshes its duration. After moving through 3 enemies your next blade shift will daze enemies for 2 seconds.
  • Now: Casting a skill that isn't Blade Shift empowers your next Blade Shift to deal 100%[x] more damage.

Disciplined Shadow Step

  • Previous: Damaging an enemy with Shadow Step stuns them for 2 seconds and reduces its cooldown by 3 seconds.
  • Now: Shadow Step deals 200%[x] more damage. Casting Shadow Step reduces its cooldown by 3 seconds.

Concealment

  • Now also grants Unhindered.

Subverting Concealment

  • Previous: The Skill that breaks Concealment always makes enemies Vulnerable for 6 seconds.
  • Now: The Skill that breaks Concealment is always a Critical Strike and makes enemies Vulnerable for 6 seconds.

Countering Concealment

  • Previous: The Skill that breaks Concealment will always be a guaranteed Critical Strike.
  • Now: Casting Concealment grants 10% Dodge Chance and increases the Movement Speed bonus to 60%[+] for 5 seconds.

Prime Shadow Clone

  • Previous: You are Unstoppable for 5 seconds after Casting Shadow Clone.
  • Now: You gain Stealth and Unstoppable for 5 seconds after casting Shadow Clone.
  • Baseline: If Death Trap kills an enemy, its cooldown is reduced by 10 seconds.

Supreme Death Trap

  • Previous: If Death Trap kills an enemy, its cooldown is reduced by 12 seconds.
  • Now: Enemies that resist Death Trap's pull in are hit again for 120% of Death Trap's damage.

Rain of Arrows

  • Baseline first wave knocks down enemies for 3 seconds.

Supreme Rain of Arrows

  • Previous: Rain of Arrows' first wave knocks down enemies for 3 seconds.
  • Now: Rain of Arrows deals 40%[x] increased damage to Crowd Controlled enemies.

Weapon Mastery

  • Tooltip now states: Gain a bonus based on the weapons used in your attack.

Close Quarters Combat

  • Now scales from 15% of Damage to Close rather than 10% of Damage vs Crowd Controlled.

Adrenaline Rush

  • Energy regen while moving increased from 5/10/15% to 7/14/21%.
  • Now gains damage to Basic skills along with Agility/Subterfuge while the buff is active.
  • Previous: Lucky Hit: Dealing direct damage to a Vulnerable enemy has up to a 50% chance to cause an explosion, dealing 62% of the damage to them and surrounding enemies. Victimize's damage is increased by 120%[x] of your Vulnerable Damage Bonus.
  • Now: Lucky Hit: Dealing direct damage to a Vulnerable enemy has up to a 50% chance to cause an explosion, dealing [80% weapon damage] damage to them and surrounding enemies. Victimize's damage is increased by 120%[x] of your Vulnerable Damage Bonus.
  • Now counts for Channeled Cutthroat Skills.
  • Now only removes stacks when casting Marksman skills.

Aspect of True Sight

  • Previous: You deal 70-100% Critical Strike Damage to enemies marked by Inner Sight.
  • Now: You deal 70-100% Critical Strike Damage to enemies marked by Inner Sight. While Inner Sight is full, you gain 21-30%[x] increased damage.

Resistant Assailant's

  • Now gives resistance on casting Concealment cast rather than when breaking stealth.

Uncanny Treachery

  • Previous: Dealing damage to a Dazed enemy with an Agility skill grants Stealth for 4 seconds. When Stealth breaks you gain 5-15% dodge chance for 2 seconds.
  • Now: Dealing direct damage with a non-Agility Skill after casting an Agility skill grants Stealth for 2 seconds. When Stealth breaks you gain 10-18% dodge chance for 2 seconds.

Opportunists

  • Grenades now drop on your target if exiting Stealth with Shadow Step.

Trap Augments

  • +X% Chance for Caltrops to Consume No Charges
  • +X% Chance for Death Trap to Deal Double Damage
  • +X% Poison Trap Duration

Basic Augments - Rogue

  • +X% Chance for Puncture Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Heartseeker Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Forceful Arrow Projectiles to Cast Twice

Core Augments - Rogue

  • +X% Chance for Barrage Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Rapid Fire Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Penetrating Shot Projectiles to Cast Twice

Agile Augments

Assassin Augments

  • +X% Chance for Rain of Arrows Waves to Cast Twice

Other Tempering Changes:

  • Smoke Grenade Damage removed from Subterfuge Expertise Recipe.

Devious Glyph

  • Now applies its damage bonus against Bosses.
  • Previous: +200 Armor / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Outlaw) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Dexterity

Eldritch Bounty Board

  • Previous: +15% Imbued Damage / +10% Non-physical Damage
  • Now: +3% Resistance to All Elements / +20 Armor
  • Previous: +4% Potion Healing / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Concoction) +10% Non-physical Damage / +10 Dexterity

Tricks of the Trade Board

  • Previous: +100 Armor / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Surgical) +10% Damage / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Haven) +20 Armor / 4% Maximum Life

Cheap Shot Board

  • Previous: 6% Damage Reduction from Slowed Enemies / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Artificer) +10% Vulnerable Damage / +10 Dexterity
  • Previous: +15% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies / +15% Critical Strike Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
  • Now: (Deviant) +3% Resistance to All Elements / 4% Maximum Life

Deadly Ambush Board

  • Previous: 4% Damage Reduction from Enemies Affected by Trap Skills / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Ensnarement) +15% Critical Strike Damage / +10 Dexterity
  • Previous: +100 Armor / +4% Potion Healing
  • Now: (Cunning) 4% Damage Reduction from Enemies Affected by Trap Skills / +3% Resistance to All Elements

Leyrana’s Instinct Board

  • Previous: +12.5% Damage for 4 Seconds After Dodging an Attack / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Essential) +14% Core Damage / +10 Dexterity
  • Previous: +3% Resistance to All Elements / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Punishment) +10% Physical Damage / +10 Dexterity
  • Previous: +12.5% Damage for 4 Seconds After Dodging an Attack / +16% Damage to Elites
  • Now: (Targeted) +14% Core Damage / +16% Damage to Elites

No Witnesses Board

  • Previous: 4% Maximum Life / +10 Dexterity
  • Now: (Deliverance) +35% Ultimate Damage / +10 Dexterity
  • Previous: +35% Ultimate Damage / +15% Critical Strike Damage
  • Now: (Training) 4% Maximum Life / +10% Poison Resistance

Exploit Weakness Board

  • Now: (Misery) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Dexterity
  • Previous: +16% Damage to Elites / +14% Movement Speed for 4 Seconds After Killing an Elite
  • Now: (Revitalize) +4% Healing Received / +20 Armor

Cunning Stratagem Board

  • Now: (Fundamentals) +10% Damage / +10 Dexterity
  • Previous: +35% Basic Damage / +10% Damage
  • Now: (Lawless) +20 Armor / 4% Maximum Life

Enhanced Charged Bolts

  • Lightning surge now also hits the original target as well as surrounding enemies.

Enhanced Fireball

  • Old: Casting Fireball increases its radius by 50%.
  • New: Casting Fireball increases its radius by 50% and Burns enemies for 10% damage over 6 seconds.

Chain Lightning Enchantment's

  • Cooldown reduced from 4 seconds to 1 second.

Hydra Enchantment

  • Duration increased from 5 to 10 seconds.

Arc Lash Enchantment

  • Stun duration increased from 0.5 to 1 second.

Incinerate Enchantment

  • Cooldown reduced from 14 to 8 seconds.

Endless Pyre

  • Previous: You deal increased Burning damage to enemies for each second they remain Burning, up to 5%[x] after 5 seconds.
  • Now: You deal 6/12/18%[x] increased Burning damage. This bonus is increased to 25/50/75%[x] to enemies while they are affected by more Damage Over Time than their total Life.

Conjuration Mastery

  • Now caps its bonuses at 30 active Conjurations. Tooltip updated for clarity.

Storm Swell Aspect

  • Previous: You deal 15-30% more damage to Vulnerable enemies while you have a barrier.
  • Now: You deal 15-35% increased damage while Ice Armor is active. This amount is increased by another 15% against Frozen enemies.

Aspect of Engulfing Flames

  • Previous: You deal 30-45%[x] increased Burning damage to enemies below 50% Life. Additionally, you deal 70-100%[x] increased Burning damage to enemies while they are affected by more Damage Over Time than their total Life.
  • Now: You deal 6%[x] increased Burning damage to enemies for each second they remain Burning, up to 30%[x] after 5 seconds. Additionally, you deal 10-30%[x] increased Burning damage to enemies below 50% Life.

Aspect of Armageddon

  • Now drops more Meteorites.

Meteorites from Aspect of Armageddon and Aspect of Shattered Stars now more consistently land around or on the enemies near the cast target.

Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop

  • Previous: For each type of Elemental damage you deal, gain 10-15% increased damage for 4 seconds, up to 40-60%. Dealing Elemental damage refreshes all bonuses.
  • Now: Casting a Pyromancy, Shock, or Frost Skill increases your damage by 10-25% for 5 seconds, stacking once per element. Casting again refreshes all bonuses if the previous skill was a different Element.

Axial Conduit

  • +X% Chance for Chain Lightning Projectiles to Cast Twice affix changed to +X% Chance for Chain Lightning to Hit Twice.
  • Gloves of the Illuminator
  • Effect reworded, but functionality unchanged.
  • Previous: Fireball now bounces as it travels, exploding each time it hits the ground, but its explosion deals 30-0% less damage.
  • Now: Fireball now bounces as it travels, exploding each time it hits the ground, but its explosion deals 70-100% of normal damage.

Pyromancy Augments

  • +X% Chance for Fire Bolt Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Fireball Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Meteor to do Double Damage

Pyromancy Augments - Fiery

  • +X% Chance for Incinerate to do Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Firewall to do Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Meteorites to do Double Damage

Frozen Augments - Frozen

  • +X% Chance for Blizzard to do Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Ice Spike to do Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Deep Freeze to do Double Damage

Frost Augments

  • +X% Chance for Frost Bolt Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Frozen Orb Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Ice Shards Projectiles to Cast Twice

Conjuration Augments

  • Casted Hydras have +X Heads
  • +X% Chance for a Second Ice Blades when Cast

Shock Augments - Discharge

  • +X% Chance for Teleport to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Arc Lash to Swipe Twice
  • +X% Chance for Charged Bolts Projectiles to Cast Twice

Shock Augments - Surge

  • +X% Chance for Spark Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Chain Lightning to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Ball Lightning Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • Incinerate Size, Meteor Size, and Firewall Size removed from the Pyromancer Augments Recipe
  • Blizzard Damage and Ice Spike Damage removed from the Frost Finesse Recipe
  • Teleport Damage removed from the Shock Finesse Recipe
  • Chance for Chain Lightning Projectiles to Cast Twice affix changed to Chance for Chain Lightning to Hit Twice
  • Teleport Nova Size moved from Shock Augments - Discharge recipe to the new Sorcerer Innovation Utility recipe
  • Frost Nova Size moved from Sorcerer Control recipe to the new Sorcerer Innovation Utility recipe
  • Blizzard Size moved from Frost Augments recipe to the new Sorcerer Innovation Utility recipe
  • Conjuration Damage replaced with Familiar Damage on the Conjuration Finesse Offensive recipe
  • Fire Damage Over Time removed from the Pyromancy Finesse recipe
  • Familiar Lucky Hit Chance added to the Conjuration Fortune Utility recipe

Starting Board

  • Now: (Studied) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Intelligence

Searing Heat Board

  • Previous: +10% Fire Resistance / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Explosive) 15% Critical Strike Damage / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: +4% Potion Healing / +25 Life per 5 Seconds
  • Previous: +10% Fire Damage / +10% Fire Damage Over Time
  • Now: (Ashes) +10% Fire Resistance / +25 Life per 5 Seconds

Burning Instinct Board

  • Previous: +6.5% Damage Reduction from Elites / +100 Armor
  • Now: +6.5% Damage Reduction from Elites / +20 Armor
  • Now: (Smoldering Embers) 5% Damage Reduction from Burning Enemies / +4% Healing Received
  • Previous: 5% Damage Reduction from Enemies / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Explosive) +15% Critical Strike Damage / +10 Intelligence

Frigid Fate Board

  • Previous: +10% Cold Resistance / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Elemental Favor) +10% Non-physical Damage / +10 Intelligence

Icefall Board

  • Previous: +10% Cold Damage / 4% Chill Application
  • Now: (Frigid) 6% Damage Reduction from Chilled / 4% Maximum Life
  • Previous: 6% Damage Reduction from Chilled / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: (Cryomancy) +10% Cold Damage / +10 Intelligence

Static Surge Board

  • Previous: +15% Damage to Stunned Enemies / +16% Damage to Elites
  • Now: +10% Lightning Resistance / +20 Armor
  • Previous: +10% Lightning Resistance / +10 Intelligence
  • Now: +10% Vulnerable Damage / +10 Intelligence

Ceaseless Conduit Board

  • Now: (Shock Resistant) +10% Lightning Resistance / 4% Maximum Life
  • Now: (Shelter) 4% Maximum Life / +20 Armor
  • Now: (Devastate) +17% Critical Strike Damage / +10 Intelligence

Elemental Summoner Board

  • Now: (Keeper of Elements) +10% Non-physical Damage / +10 Intelligence
  • Previous: +10% Non-physical Damage / +3% Resistance to All Elements
  • Now: (Resistant) +3% Resistance to All Elements / +20 Armor

Enchantment Master Board

  • Now: (Tactical) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Intelligence
  • Previous: +10% Non-physical Damage / 4% Maximum Life
  • Now: (Toughened) +20 Armor / 4% Maximum Life
  • Now: (Blessing) +3% Resistance to All Elements / +4% Healing Received

Shrine Updates

The following Shrines now scale off of Weapon Damage, similar to Skills.

  • Artillery Shrine
  • Blast Wave Shrine
  • Conduit Shrine

Loot Updates

All Unique items now have a single boss for target farming.

  • Ramaladni's Magnum Opus
  • Ancients' Oath
  • Mjölnic Ring
  • Blood Artisan's Cuirass
  • Rage of Harrogath
  • Gohr's Devastating Grips
  • Mad Wolf's Glee
  • Vasily's Prayer
  • Greatstaff of the Crone
  • Deathless Visage
  • Greaves of the Empty Tomb
  • Eyes in the Dark
  • Grasp of Shadow
  • Iceheart Brais
  • Staff of Endless Rage
  • Raiment of the Infinite
  • Penitent Greaves
  • The Butcher's Cleaver
  • 100,000 Steps
  • Battle Trance
  • Fields of Crimson
  • Insatiable Fury
  • Hunter's Zenith
  • Waxing Gibbous
  • Howl from Below
  • Deathspeaker's Pendant
  • Bloodless Scream
  • Condemnation
  • Word of Hakan
  • Esu's Heirloom
  • Staff of Lam Esen
  • Mother's Embrace
  • The Butcher's Cleaver now drops for Necromancers from Grigoire.
  • Mjölnic Ring moved from Grigoire to Lord Zir.

User Interface and User Experience

  • The icon denoting that there are additional Skill/Paragon points to spend now also displays how many points are available to spend.
  • The tooltips for Dungeons viewed in the Map have been improved to have more information at a glance.
  • New settings have been added in the gameplay options menu to hide certain warning messages and announcements, such as "You need more mana".
  • The sound that plays when arriving at a pinned destination has been made more prominent.

Miscellaneous

  • The number of available character slots has been increased from 12 to 13.
  • Dodge chance can no longer reach 100% through any means. The Dodge Chance bonuses from the handful of related aspects have been swapped from additive to inverse multiplicative, matching typical Dodge Chance modifiers.
  • The Gauntlet will be disabled for Season 6 while the meta settles with the introduction of the Spiritborn and all other system updates.
  • Fixed an issue where excessive skill ranks of Martial Vigor and Guttural Yell could result in 100% Damage reduction.
Developer’s Note: This was only possible on the eternal realm since the tempering recipe for additional ranks of these skills was removed in the Season of Infernal Hordes. The Damage Reduction from these passives is now capped at 80%, which requires 20 ranks of the skill.
  • Fixed an issue where Leap had to fully complete its animation before being able to cast Leap again.
  • Fixed an issue where the Dust Devil's Aspect could activate more frequently if Whirlwind was cancelled.
  • Fixed an issue where the tooltip for Call of the Ancients showed a higher damage value than it was actually dealing.
Developer’s Note: Call of the Ancients has been slightly rebalanced to compensate for this issue, dealing slightly less damage for low level Barbarians, and dealing slightly more damage for Barbarians with stronger late game gear.
  • Fixed an issue where assigning a skill point to Tactical Rallying Cry did not upgrade the tooltip for Rallying Cry.
  • Fixed an issue where the buffs from Clarity and Vigilance could be unexpectedly lost.
  • Fixed an issue where the cooldown reduction from the Virulent aspect was inconsistent between Bosses and Elites.
  • Fixed an issue where the Iron Fur buff would persist after swapping between Insatiable Fury and Mad Wolf's Glee.
  • Fixed an issue where bonuses to Poison Creeper Duration did not properly update all related tooltips for duration.
  • Fixed an issue where bonuses to Lightning Bolt Damage didn't properly update all related tooltips for damage.
  • Fixed an issue where the Aspect of Vocalized Empowerment didn't grant resource generation when using Blood Howl.
  • Fixed an issue where the Aspect of the Blurred Beast did not gain damage against targets poisoned by Poison Creeper.
  • Fixed an issue where Blood Orbs would remain after dying during an Encounter.
  • Fixed an issue where killing a vulnerable enemy with a Bone Skill could not generate essence when using the Aspect of Exposed Flesh.
  • Fixed an issue where the bonus from the Deadly Ambush legendary node could affect non-critical strike damage.
  • Fixed an issue where Rapid Fire used with Scoundrel's Kiss couldn't fire through Chilling Winds.
  • Fixed an issue where the damage modifier for Destructive Fireball was additive instead of multiplicative.
  • Fixed an issue where the Ball Lightning Enchantment did not properly benefit from the Gravitational Aspect.
  • Fixed an issue where Crackling Energy motes would remain after dying during an Encounter.
  • Fixed an issue where Blizzards from the Blizzard Enchantment did not benefit from the duration increase granted by Mage's Blizzard.
  • Fixed an issue where Flickerstep triggered inconsistently with Teleport Enchant evades.
  • Fixed an issue where Crackling Energy triggers chained to additional enemies in the opposite way as intended. I.e. 70% chance was a better chance for it to happen than 90%. 100% chance was actually 0% chance. (Joke? 100% of the time, it works none of the time)
  • Fixed an issue where active Chain Lightnings would not dissipate after the player died when Axial Conduit was equipped.
  • Fixed an issue where Mythic Unique Items could not drop for lower-level players.
  • Fixed an issue where the damage over time from Andariel's Visage didn't trigger if an affected monster was far away from the player.
  • Fixed an issue where the Aspect of Voracious Rage did not refund resource in all expected contexts.
  • Fixed an issue where Yen's Blessing could be triggered by collecting volatile blood dropped by the Blood Boiling aspect.
  • Fixed an issue where players would not gain the elemental resistance of Tassets of the Dawning Sky when taking damage from damage over time effects.
  • Fixed an issue where the objective to slay the infernal tormentor in Túr Dúlra wouldn't complete properly if Baelgemoth was killed too quickly.
  • Fixed an issue where quest progression for the Depths of Despair could be blocked if Demotath was killed too quickly.
  • Fixed an issue where Incense could be dispelled by talking to a side quest NPC.
  • Fixed an issue where enemies with post-death effects, such as Bloated Corpsefiends exploding, could delay wave completion for the Sole Survivor Event.
  • Fixed an issue where the Vampire Boss affix in the Pit did not appear in Pit Tiers 31 and above.
  • Prudent Heart
  • Assimilation
  • Concussive Strikes
  • Fixed an issue where an error could occur that would prevent progression in the Onyx Watchtower Stronghold.
  • Fixed an issue where Item names in the Transmutation tab were inconsistent.
  • Fixed an issue where the tooltip for Ground Stomp didn't display the modifiers for the Enhanced and Tactical upgrades.
  • Fixed an issue where the Blast-Trapper's and Infiltrator's Aspects weren't associated with the Trap keyword when searching the Codex of Power.
  • Fixed an issue where the Aspect of Bursting Venoms and the Toxic Alchemist Aspect weren't associated with the Poison keyword when searching the Codex of Power.
  • Fixed an issue where the tooltips for Boss summoning items were inconsistent between the inventory and the summoning menu.
  • Fixed an issue where the highlighting of Necromancer Minions was inconsistent throughout various tooltips.
  • Fixed an issue where the Aspect of Vocalized Empowerment was still labeled as Aspect of Echoing Fury in the Delver Challenge aspect list.
  • Fixed an issue where Frostburn's Lucky Hit to Freeze was not displayed in Character Stats.
  • Fixed an issue where several aspects would not properly show up when using the keyword search filter in the Codex of Power.
  • Fixed an issue where there wasn't a quest marker over the Medical notes dropped by the witch in Alcarnus.
  • Fixed an issue where Life total could display as slightly above or slight below max health when affixes with bonus maximum life were present.
  • Fixed an issue where the quest pin would disappear after running away from the Frightened Pilgrims during the To Walk a Dark Path quest.
  • Fixed an issue where items could become un-droppable after interacting with the stash while sitting on a chair.
  • Various performance, stability, and visual improvements.

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