Natural

Natural is a term so protean, its field of meanings so large, that it almost defies disciplining as a keyword. In the original Keywords, Raymond Williams makes much the same point about nature, calling it “perhaps the most complex word in the language.” Williams identifies three areas of meaning: an essential quality of something; a force that inheres and directs people and/or the world; and the material world, including the people within it. Natural has a similarly broad range of meanings, and as with nature, many of these meanings still resonate today. Within the health humanities, at least four senses are discernible: natural as signifying an essential quality, relating to the material world, identifiable with human reason, and unsullied by human intervention.