As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares - the propensity and vocation to free thinking - this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.

...[N]ature generally in the distribution of her capacities has adapted the means to the end... [so nature's] true destination must be to produce a will, not merely good as a means to something else, but good in itself, for which reason was... imparted to us as a practical... absolutely necessary... faculty.

Everything in nature acts in conformity with law.

Nature even in chaos cannot proceed otherwise than regularly and according to order.

Nature, when left to universal laws, tends to produce regularity out of chaos.