“Nature Loves to Hide”

Heraclitus’s marvelous fragment, “Nature loves to hide,” should not be dismissed as mystical or esoteric. While it may be admitted that Heraclitus cloaks its meaning in rather whimsical and abstruse language, his words bear a stamp of inner truth that cannot be ignored. I argue that Heraclitus’ objective is rather straightforward, and his anthropomorphizing of “Nature” is a creative way of articulating his thoughts and capturing his audience’s attention. Apart from its style, the fragment has a twofold interpretation: (i) Heraclitus sought to convey nature as a unified whole that “hides” behind its seemingly infinite manifestations. (ii) Heraclitus wanted to expose the naïve attitude that we approach Nature with and how we fail to appreciate the fact that many of Nature’s fundamental features are never actually perceived in-themselves, but instead “hide” behind something other than what they are.

It is very likely that Plato and Aristotle would have had divergent opinions about Heraclitus’ “Nature loves to hide” remark. Plato would have likely agreed with Heraclitus and would have said that what we experience is not “Nature” proper but merely sensible copies or images of Nature’s contents as they are in themselves. Thus, Nature hides behind its fleeting, imperfect, and transitory manifestations. Aristotle would have disagreed strongly with Heraclitus and would have retaliated by saying that if Nature “loves to hide,” that would entail that Nature is in some degree unintelligible and thus render philosophical inquiry into Nature futile.

There are many examples in Nature which support Heraclitus’ argument that “Nature loves to hide.” Gravity, for instance, is not observable in-and-of-itself. It can only be “observed” as a relation between certain mediums, such as extended, material bodies. No one has ever “seen” gravity because it is invisible. Furthermore, we can come to understand gravity’s effects by observing the pushing and pulling occurring between at least two material bodies. I’ll illustrate this with a concrete example. If I drop a book on the floor, I do not “see” gravity reach out and pull the book towards the floor, rather I see the book fall from my hand and make contact with the floor below. This echoes Heraclitus’ famous fragment, “Nature loves to hide.”

The same applies to all “activity” as well. For example, I do not see the abstract concept of “running” jogging across a road, rather I see a person—a corporeal entity—running. Nobody has ever perceived “activity” without a material or sensible correlative. Activity is nothing in-itself, it is entirely abstract. In fact, one cannot even conceive of pure activity without it being in relation to a sensible medium. With that said, one could say that “activity,” like Nature, loves to hide.

Heraclitus’ words also apply to even more fundamental aspects of Nature, such as space and time. Time is never “seen,” nor can it be touched, smelled, tasted, or heard. Space is, apart from its objects, an empty void that cannot be conceived of as having any boundaries because all boundaries are in space. We perceive the passage of time through the qualitative and quantitative changes of objects. From this, we come to recognize the phenomena of time as “eroding” all sensible objects in nature. Time is the possibility of change, and it is through change that we come to know time. Without time, there can be no succession because all succession is in time. Time can neither have a beginning nor an end because all beginnings and ends are in time. Time having a “beginning” is inconceivable. Space is the possibility of co-extension, and through the relation between extended bodies that we come to understand space. Without space, there can be no position because all positions are in space. Space, like time, can neither have a beginning nor an end, because all beginnings and ends are in space. Space and time can be taken as independent from each other conceptually; however, space and time are intertwined in our experience of them. When taken by themselves, space and time wouldn’t really fall under the ontological class of “objects” proper, because they are not objects in-themselves. In fact, we cannot coherently speak of space and time using the terms that we ascribe to objects. For example, space and time (as they “appear” to us in experience) are infinitely divisible and infinitely extended; thus, we neither do justice to space nor time if we treat them as “wholes.” All “wholes” imply a boundary of sorts which rounds them off, just as a “whole” circle is confined to its area. That which is infinite in extension cannot be taken as a “whole” because all “wholes” are finite. Based on these examples, it is not at all absurd to suggest that space, time, gravity, and activity (in-itself) all “love” to hide.