natural science

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Science \Sci"ence\, n. [F., fr. L. scientia, fr. sciens, -entis,
   p. pr. of scire to know. Cf. {Conscience}, {Conscious},
   {Nice}.]
   1. Knowledge; knowledge of principles and causes; ascertained
      truth of facts.
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            If we conceive God's sight or science, before the
            creation, to be extended to all and every part of
            the world, seeing everything as it is, . . . his
            science or sight from all eternity lays no necessity
            on anything to come to pass.          --Hammond.
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            Shakespeare's deep and accurate science in mental
            philosophy.                           --Coleridge.
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   2. Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been
      systematized and formulated with reference to the
      discovery of general truths or the operation of general
      laws; knowledge classified and made available in work,
      life, or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound, or
      philosophical knowledge.
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            All this new science that men lere [teach].
                                                  --Chaucer.
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            Science is . . . a complement of cognitions, having,
            in point of form, the character of logical
            perfection, and in point of matter, the character of
            real truth.                           --Sir W.
                                                  Hamilton.
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   3. Especially, such knowledge when it relates to the physical
      world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and
      forces of matter, the qualities and functions of living
      tissues, etc.; -- called also {natural science}, and
      {physical science}.
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            Voltaire hardly left a single corner of the field
            entirely unexplored in science, poetry, history,
            philosophy.                           --J. Morley.
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   4. Any branch or department of systematized knowledge
      considered as a distinct field of investigation or object
      of study; as, the science of astronomy, of chemistry, or
      of mind.
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   Note: The ancients reckoned seven sciences, namely, grammar,
         rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and
         astronomy; -- the first three being included in the
         Trivium, the remaining four in the Quadrivium.
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               Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
               And though no science, fairly worth the seven.
                                                  --Pope.
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   5. Art, skill, or expertness, regarded as the result of
      knowledge of laws and principles.
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            His science, coolness, and great strength. --G. A.
                                                  Lawrence.
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   Note: Science is applied or pure. Applied science is a
         knowledge of facts, events, or phenomena, as explained,
         accounted for, or produced, by means of powers, causes,
         or laws. Pure science is the knowledge of these powers,
         causes, or laws, considered apart, or as pure from all
         applications. Both these terms have a similar and
         special signification when applied to the science of
         quantity; as, the applied and pure mathematics. Exact
         science is knowledge so systematized that prediction
         and verification, by measurement, experiment,
         observation, etc., are possible. The mathematical and
         physical sciences are called the exact sciences.
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   {Comparative sciences}, {Inductive sciences}. See under
      {Comparative}, and {Inductive}.
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   Syn: Literature; art; knowledge.

   Usage: {Science}, {Literature}, {Art}. Science is literally
          knowledge, but more usually denotes a systematic and
          orderly arrangement of knowledge. In a more
          distinctive sense, science embraces those branches of
          knowledge of which the subject-matter is either
          ultimate principles, or facts as explained by
          principles or laws thus arranged in natural order. The
          term literature sometimes denotes all compositions not
          embraced under science, but usually confined to the
          belles-lettres. [See {Literature}.] Art is that which
          depends on practice and skill in performance. "In
          science, scimus ut sciamus; in art, scimus ut
          producamus. And, therefore, science and art may be
          said to be investigations of truth; but one, science,
          inquires for the sake of knowledge; the other, art,
          for the sake of production; and hence science is more
          concerned with the higher truths, art with the lower;
          and science never is engaged, as art is, in productive
          application. And the most perfect state of science,
          therefore, will be the most high and accurate inquiry;
          the perfection of art will be the most apt and
          efficient system of rules; art always throwing itself
          into the form of rules." --Karslake.
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from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Natural \Nat"u*ral\ (?; 135), a. [OE. naturel, F. naturel, fr.
   L. naturalis, fr. natura. See {Nature}.]
   1. Fixed or determined by nature; pertaining to the
      constitution of a thing; belonging to native character;
      according to nature; essential; characteristic; innate;
      not artificial, foreign, assumed, put on, or acquired; as,
      the natural growth of animals or plants; the natural
      motion of a gravitating body; natural strength or
      disposition; the natural heat of the body; natural color.
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            With strong natural sense, and rare force of will.
                                                  --Macaulay.
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   2. Conformed to the order, laws, or actual facts, of nature;
      consonant to the methods of nature; according to the
      stated course of things, or in accordance with the laws
      which govern events, feelings, etc.; not exceptional or
      violent; legitimate; normal; regular; as, the natural
      consequence of crime; a natural death; anger is a natural
      response to insult.
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            What can be more natural than the circumstances in
            the behavior of those women who had lost their
            husbands on this fatal day?           --Addison.
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   3. Having to do with existing system to things; dealing with,
      or derived from, the creation, or the world of matter and
      mind, as known by man; within the scope of human reason or
      experience; not supernatural; as, a natural law; natural
      science; history, theology.
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            I call that natural religion which men might know .
            . . by the mere principles of reason, improved by
            consideration and experience, without the help of
            revelation.                           --Bp. Wilkins.
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   4. Conformed to truth or reality; as:
      (a) Springing from true sentiment; not artificial or
          exaggerated; -- said of action, delivery, etc.; as, a
          natural gesture, tone, etc.
      (b) Resembling the object imitated; true to nature;
          according to the life; -- said of anything copied or
          imitated; as, a portrait is natural.
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   5. Having the character or sentiments properly belonging to
      one's position; not unnatural in feelings.
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            To leave his wife, to leave his babes, . . .
            He wants the natural touch.           --Shak.
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   6. Connected by the ties of consanguinity. especially,
      Related by birth rather than by adoption; as, one's
      natural mother. "Natural friends." --J. H. Newman.
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   7. Hence: Begotten without the sanction of law; born out of
      wedlock; illegitimate; bastard; as, a natural child.
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   8. Of or pertaining to the lower or animal nature, as
      contrasted with the higher or moral powers, or that which
      is spiritual; being in a state of nature; unregenerate.
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            The natural man receiveth not the things of the
            Spirit of God.                        --1 Cor. ii.
                                                  14.
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   9. (Math.) Belonging to, to be taken in, or referred to, some
      system, in which the base is 1; -- said of certain
      functions or numbers; as, natural numbers, those
      commencing at 1; natural sines, cosines, etc., those taken
      in arcs whose radii are 1.
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   10. (Mus.)
       (a) Produced by natural organs, as those of the human
           throat, in distinction from instrumental music.
       (b) Of or pertaining to a key which has neither a flat
           nor a sharp for its signature, as the key of C major.
       (c) Applied to an air or modulation of harmony which
           moves by easy and smooth transitions, digressing but
           little from the original key.
       (d) Neither flat nor sharp; -- of a tone.
       (e) Changed to the pitch which is neither flat nor sharp,
           by appending the sign [natural]; as, A natural.
           --Moore (Encyc. of Music).
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   11. Existing in nature or created by the forces of nature, in
       contrast to production by man; not made, manufactured, or
       processed by humans; as, a natural ruby; a natural
       bridge; natural fibers; a deposit of natural calcium
       sulfate. Opposed to {artificial}, {man-made},
       {manufactured}, {processed} and {synthetic}. [WordNet
       sense 2]
       [PJC]

   12. Hence: Not processed or refined; in the same statre as
       that existing in nature; as, natural wood; natural foods.
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   {Natural day}, the space of twenty-four hours. --Chaucer.
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   {Natural fats}, {Natural gas}, etc. See under {Fat}, {Gas}.
      etc.

   {Natural Harmony} (Mus.), the harmony of the triad or common
      chord.

   {Natural history}, in its broadest sense, a history or
      description of nature as a whole, including the sciences
      of {botany}, {Zoology}, {geology}, {mineralogy},
      {paleontology}, {chemistry}, and {physics}. In recent
      usage the term is often restricted to the sciences of
      botany and Zoology collectively, and sometimes to the
      science of zoology alone.

   {Natural law}, that instinctive sense of justice and of right
      and wrong, which is native in mankind, as distinguished
      from specifically revealed divine law, and formulated
      human law.

   {Natural modulation} (Mus.), transition from one key to its
      relative keys.

   {Natural order}. (Nat. Hist.) See under {order}.

   {Natural person}. (Law) See under {person}, n.

   {Natural philosophy}, originally, the study of nature in
      general; the natural sciences; in modern usage, that
      branch of physical science, commonly called {physics},
      which treats of the phenomena and laws of matter and
      considers those effects only which are unaccompanied by
      any change of a chemical nature; -- contrasted with
      {mental philosophy} and {moral philosophy}.

   {Natural scale} (Mus.), a scale which is written without
      flats or sharps.

   Note: Model would be a preferable term, as less likely to
         mislead, the so-called artificial scales (scales
         represented by the use of flats and sharps) being
         equally natural with the so-called natural scale.

   {Natural science}, the study of objects and phenomena
      existing in nature, especially biology, chemistry, physics
      and their interdisciplinary related sciences; {natural
      history}, in its broadest sense; -- used especially in
      contradistinction to {social science}, {mathematics},
      {philosophy}, {mental science} or {moral science}.

   {Natural selection} (Biol.), the operation of natural laws
      analogous, in their operation and results, to designed
      selection in breeding plants and animals, and resulting in
      the survival of the fittest; the elimination over time of
      species unable to compete in specific environments with
      other species more adapted to survival; -- the essential
      mechanism of evolution. The principle of natural selection
      is neutral with respect to the mechanism by which
      inheritable changes occur in organisms (most commonly
      thought to be due to mutation of genes and reorganization
      of genomes), but proposes that those forms which have
      become so modified as to be better adapted to the existing
      environment have tended to survive and leave similarly
      adapted descendants, while those less perfectly adapted
      have tended to die out through lack of fitness for the
      environment, thus resulting in the survival of the
      fittest. See {Darwinism}.

   {Natural system} (Bot. & Zool.), a classification based upon
      real affinities, as shown in the structure of all parts of
      the organisms, and by their embryology.

            It should be borne in mind that the natural system
            of botany is natural only in the constitution of its
            genera, tribes, orders, etc., and in its grand
            divisions.                            --Gray.
      

   {Natural theology}, or {Natural religion}, that part of
      theological science which treats of those evidences of the
      existence and attributes of the Supreme Being which are
      exhibited in nature; -- distinguished from {revealed
      religion}. See Quotation under {Natural}, a., 3.

   {Natural vowel}, the vowel sound heard in urn, furl, sir,
      her, etc.; -- so called as being uttered in the easiest
      open position of the mouth organs. See {Neutral vowel},
      under {Neutral} and Guide to Pronunciation, [sect] 17.
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   Syn: See {Native}.
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