Nature, Man,& Woman

by Alan Watts

"In this book, the author ... makes an important contribution to our understanding of man's place in the natural world. No man, he shows, is fit to control nature unless he feels himself to be a part of it, fully aware that seemingly individual things, including himself, are in fact inseparably related to events. Hostility to nature is characteristic of our culture, and is the root of our personal anxiety and loneliness, our fear of feeling, and our reluctance to love. Mr. Watts discusses the origins of this alienation from nature in Christianity and Western thought, contrasted with the Chinese philosophy of the Tao and its vision of nature as an organic whole in which man is fully included and feels at home. The love of man and woman is seen as a sacramental means of overcoming our estrangement from life, and Mr. Watts writes both as a poet and philosopher to give a deeply moving description of the sense of man's identity with nature in everyday life as well as in the act of love."--P