nature

4:2.1Na­ture is in a lim­ited sense the phys­i­cal habit of God. The con­duct, or ac­tion, of God is qual­i­fied and pro­vi­sion­ally mod­i­fied by the ex­per­i­men­tal plans and the evo­lu­tion­ary pat­terns of a lo­cal uni­verse, a con­stel­la­tion, a sys­tem, or a planet. God acts in ac­cor­dance with a well-de­fined, un­chang­ing, im­mutable law through­out the wide-spread­ing mas­ter uni­verse; but he mod­i­fies the pat­terns of his ac­tion so as to con­tribute to the co-or­di­nate and bal­anced con­duct of each uni­verse, con­stel­la­tion, sys­tem, planet, and per­son­al­ity in ac­cor­dance with the lo­cal ob­jects, aims, and plans of the fi­nite projects of evo­lu­tion­ary un­fold­ing.

4:2.2There­fore, na­ture, as mor­tal man un­der­stands it, pre­sents the un­der­ly­ing foun­da­tion and fun­da­men­tal back­ground of a change­less De­ity and his im­mutable laws, mod­i­fied by, fluc­tu­at­ing be­cause of, and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing up­heavals through, the work­ing of the lo­cal plans, pur­poses, pat­terns, and con­di­tions which have been in­au­gu­rated and are be­ing car­ried out by the lo­cal uni­verse, con­stel­la­tion, sys­tem, and plan­e­tary forces and per­son­al­i­ties. For ex­am­ple: As God’s laws have been or­dained in Neb­a­don, they are mod­i­fied by the plans es­tab­lished by the Cre­ator Son and Cre­ative Spirit of this lo­cal uni­verse; and in ad­di­tion to all this the op­er­a­tion of these laws has been fur­ther in­flu­enced by the er­rors, de­faults, and in­sur­rec­tions of cer­tain be­ings res­i­dent upon your planet and be­long­ing to your im­me­di­ate plan­e­tary sys­tem of Sa­ta­nia.

4:2.3Na­ture is a time-space re­sul­tant of two cos­mic fac­tors: first, the im­mutabil­ity, per­fec­tion, and rec­ti­tude of Par­a­dise De­ity, and sec­ond, the ex­per­i­men­tal plans, ex­ec­u­tive blun­ders, in­sur­rec­tionary er­rors, in­com­plete­ness of de­vel­op­ment, and im­per­fec­tion of wis­dom of the ex­tra-Par­a­dise crea­tures, from the high­est to the low­est. Na­ture there­fore car­ries a uni­form, un­chang­ing, ma­jes­tic, and mar­velous thread of per­fec­tion from the cir­cle of eter­nity; but in each uni­verse, on each planet, and in each in­di­vid­ual life, this na­ture is mod­i­fied, qual­i­fied, and per­chance marred by the acts, the mis­takes, and the dis­loy­al­ties of the crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary sys­tems and uni­verses; and there­fore must na­ture ever be of a chang­ing mood, whim­si­cal withal, though sta­ble un­der­neath, and var­ied in ac­cor­dance with the op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures of a lo­cal uni­verse.

4:2.4Na­ture is the per­fec­tion of Par­a­dise di­vided by the in­com­ple­tion, evil, and sin of the un­fin­ished uni­verses. This quo­tient is thus ex­pres­sive of both the per­fect and the par­tial, of both the eter­nal and the tem­po­ral. Con­tin­u­ing evo­lu­tion mod­i­fies na­ture by aug­ment­ing the con­tent of Par­a­dise per­fec­tion and by di­min­ish­ing the con­tent of the evil, er­ror, and dishar­mony of rel­a­tive re­al­ity.

4:2.5God is not per­son­ally pres­ent in na­ture or in any of the forces of na­ture, for the phe­nom­e­non of na­ture is the super­im­po­si­tion of the im­per­fec­tions of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion and, some­times, the con­se­quences of in­sur­rec­tionary re­bel­lion, upon the Par­a­dise foun­da­tions of God’s uni­ver­sal law. As it ap­pears on such a world as Uran­tia, na­ture can never be the ad­e­quate ex­pres­sion, the true rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the faith­ful por­trayal, of an all-wise and in­fi­nite God.

4:2.6Na­ture, on your world, is a qual­i­fi­ca­tion of the laws of per­fec­tion by the evo­lu­tion­ary plans of the lo­cal uni­verse. What a trav­esty to wor­ship na­ture be­cause it is in a lim­ited, qual­i­fied sense per­vaded by God; be­cause it is a phase of the uni­ver­sal and, there­fore, di­vine power! Na­ture also is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of the un­fin­ished, the in­com­plete, the im­per­fect out­work­ings of the de­vel­op­ment, growth, and prog­ress of a uni­verse ex­per­i­ment in cos­mic evo­lu­tion.

4:2.7The ap­par­ent de­fects of the nat­u­ral world are not in­dica­tive of any such cor­re­spond­ing de­fects in the char­ac­ter of God. Rather are such ob­served im­per­fec­tions merely the in­ev­i­ta­ble stop-mo­ments in the ex­hi­bi­tion of the ever-mov­ing reel of in­fin­ity pic­tur­iza­tion. It is these very de­fect-in­ter­rup­tions of per­fec­tion-con­ti­nu­ity which make it pos­si­ble for the fi­nite mind of ma­te­rial man to catch a fleet­ing glimpse of di­vine re­al­ity in time and space. The ma­te­rial man­i­fes­ta­tions of di­vin­ity ap­pear de­fec­tive to the evo­lu­tion­ary mind of man only be­cause mor­tal man per­sists in view­ing the phe­nom­ena of na­ture through nat­u­ral eyes, hu­man vi­sion un­aided by mor­ontia mota or by rev­e­la­tion, its com­pen­satory sub­sti­tute on the worlds of time.

4:2.8And na­ture is marred, her beau­ti­ful face is scarred, her fea­tures are seared, by the re­bel­lion, the mis­con­duct, the mis­think­ing of the myr­i­ads of crea­tures who are a part of na­ture, but who have con­tributed to her dis­fig­ure­ment in time. No, na­ture is not God. Na­ture is not an ob­ject of wor­ship.

166:4.7“2. You may chance to fall vic­tim to one of the ac­ci­dents of na­ture, one of the mis­chances of men, know­ing full well that such oc­cur­rences are in no way pre­ar­ranged or oth­er­wise pro­duced by the spir­i­tual forces of the realm.

70:9.1Na­ture con­fers no rights on man, only life and a world in which to live it. Na­ture does not even con­fer the right to live, as might be de­duced by con­sid­er­ing what would likely hap­pen if an un­armed man met a hun­gry tiger face to face in the prim­i­tive for­est. So­ci­ety’s prime gift to man is se­cu­rity.

70:10.1Nat­u­ral jus­tice is a man-made the­ory; it is not a re­al­ity. In na­ture, jus­tice is purely the­o­retic, wholly a fic­tion. Na­ture pro­vides but one kind of jus­tice—in­ev­i­ta­ble con­for­mity of re­sults to causes.

• imperfect, but perfection is in

7:0.5The Son is not, how­ever, per­son­ally re­spon­si­ble for the con­duct of all spirit per­son­al­i­ties. The will of the per­sonal crea­ture is rel­a­tively free and hence de­ter­mines the ac­tions of such vo­li­tional be­ings. There­fore the free­will spirit world is not al­ways truly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the char­ac­ter of the Eter­nal Son, even as na­ture on Uran­tia is not truly rev­e­la­tory of the per­fec­tion and im­mutabil­ity of Par­a­dise and De­ity. But no mat­ter what may char­ac­ter­ize the free­will ac­tion of man or an­gel, the Son’s eter­nal grasp of the uni­ver­sal grav­ity con­trol of all spirit re­al­i­ties con­tin­ues as ab­so­lute.

• imperfect, but perfection is in

9:5.5Be­cause the Third Per­son is the source of mind, do not pre­sume to reckon that all phe­nom­ena of mind are di­vine. Hu­man in­tel­lect is rooted in the ma­te­rial ori­gin of the an­i­mal races. Uni­verse in­tel­li­gence is no more a true rev­e­la­tion of God who is mind than is phys­i­cal na­ture a true rev­e­la­tion of the beauty and har­mony of Par­a­dise. Per­fec­tion is in na­ture, but na­ture is not per­fect. The Con­joint Cre­ator is the source of mind, but mind is not the Con­joint Cre­ator.

• background of immutable laws modified by local conditions

12:7.2In all his deal­ings with all his be­ings it is true that the laws of God are not in­her­ently ar­bi­trary. To you, with your lim­ited vi­sion and fi­nite view­point, the acts of God must of­ten ap­pear to be dic­ta­to­rial and ar­bi­trary. The laws of God are merely the habits of God, his way of re­peat­edly do­ing things; and he ever does all things well. You ob­serve that God does the same thing in the same way, re­peat­edly, sim­ply be­cause that is the best way to do that par­tic­u­lar thing in a given cir­cum­stance; and the best way is the right way, and there­fore does in­fi­nite wis­dom al­ways or­der it done in that pre­cise and per­fect man­ner. You should also re­mem­ber that na­ture is not the ex­clu­sive act of De­ity; other in­flu­ences are pres­ent in those phe­nom­ena which man calls na­ture.

• exhibiting only matter, motion, and life

101:2.9The con­tem­pla­tion of na­ture can only re­veal a God of na­ture, a God of mo­tion. Na­ture ex­hibits only mat­ter, mo­tion, and an­i­ma­tion—life. Mat­ter plus en­ergy, un­der cer­tain con­di­tions, is man­i­fested in liv­ing forms, but while nat­u­ral life is thus rel­a­tively con­tin­u­ous as a phe­nom­e­non, it is wholly tran­sient as to in­di­vid­u­al­i­ties. Na­ture does not af­ford ground for log­i­cal be­lief in hu­man-per­son­al­ity sur­vival. The re­li­gious man who finds God in na­ture has al­ready and first found this same per­sonal God in his own soul.

• unreal shadow of spirit realities

151:3.31. Je­sus ad­vised against the use of ei­ther fa­bles or al­le­gories in teach­ing the truths of the gospel. He did rec­om­mend the free use of para­bles, es­pe­cially na­ture para­bles. He em­pha­sized the value of uti­liz­ing the anal­ogy ex­ist­ing be­tween the nat­u­ral and the spir­i­tual worlds as a means of teach­ing truth. He fre­quently al­luded to the nat­u­ral as “the un­real and fleet­ing shadow of spirit re­al­i­ties.”

68:2.9The func­tion of mar­riage in evo­lu­tion is the in­sur­ance of race sur­vival, not merely the re­al­iza­tion of per­sonal hap­pi­ness; self-main­te­nance and self-per­pet­u­a­tion are the real ob­jects of the home. Self-grat­i­fi­ca­tion is in­ci­den­tal and not es­sen­tial ex­cept as an in­cen­tive in­sur­ing sex as­so­ci­a­tion. Na­ture de­mands sur­vival, but the arts of civ­i­liza­tion con­tinue to in­crease the plea­sures of mar­riage and the sat­is­fac­tions of fam­ily life.

101:2.11The con­tem­pla­tion of na­ture does log­i­cally point in the di­rec­tion of in­tel­li­gent guid­ance, even liv­ing super­vi­sion, but it does not in any sat­is­fac­tory man­ner re­veal a per­sonal God. On the other hand, na­ture dis­closes noth­ing which would pre­clude the uni­verse from be­ing looked upon as the hand­i­work of the God of re­li­gion. God can­not be found through na­ture alone, but man hav­ing oth­er­wise found him, the study of na­ture be­comes wholly con­sis­tent with a higher and more spir­i­tual in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the uni­verse.

131:1.5“God pours rain upon the earth, he causes the sun to shine upon the sprout­ing grain, and he gives us the abun­dant har­vest of the good things of this life and eter­nal sal­va­tion in the world to come. Our God en­joys great au­thor­ity; his name is Ex­cel­lent and his na­ture is un­fath­omable. When you are sick, it is the Most High who heals you. God is full of good­ness to­ward all men; we have no friend like the Most High. His mercy fills all places and his good­ness en­com­passes all souls. The Most High is change­less; and he is our helper in ev­ery time of need. Wher­ever you turn to pray, there is the face of the Most High and the open ear of our God. You may hide your­self from men, but not from God. God is not a great dis­tance from us; he is om­ni­pres­ent. God fills all places and lives in the heart of the man who fears his holy name. Cre­ation is in the Cre­ator and the Cre­ator in his cre­ation. We search for the Most High and then find him in our hearts. You go in quest of a dear friend, and then you dis­cover him within your soul.

123:5.14When they did not climb the heights to view the dis­tant land­scape, they strolled through the coun­try­side and stud­ied na­ture in her var­i­ous moods in ac­cor­dance with the sea­sons. Je­sus’ ear­li­est train­ing, aside from that of the home hearth, had to do with a rev­er­ent and sym­pa­thetic con­tact with na­ture.

167:6.5It was also at Jeri­cho, in con­nec­tion with the dis­cus­sion of the early re­li­gious train­ing of chil­dren in habits of di­vine wor­ship, that Je­sus im­pressed upon his apos­tles the great value of beauty as an in­flu­ence lead­ing to the urge to wor­ship, es­pe­cially with chil­dren. The Mas­ter by pre­cept and ex­am­ple taught the value of wor­ship­ing the Cre­ator in the midst of the nat­u­ral sur­round­ings of cre­ation. He pre­ferred to com­mune with the heav­enly Fa­ther amidst the trees and among the lowly crea­tures of the nat­u­ral world. He re­joiced to con­tem­plate the Fa­ther through the in­spir­ing spec­ta­cle of the starry realms of the Cre­ator Sons.

167:6.6When it is not pos­si­ble to wor­ship God in the taber­na­cles of na­ture, men should do their best to pro­vide houses of beauty, sanc­tu­ar­ies of ap­peal­ing sim­plic­ity and artis­tic em­bel­lish­ment, so that the high­est of hu­man emo­tions may be aroused in as­so­ci­a­tion with the in­tel­lec­tual ap­proach to spir­i­tual com­mu­nion with God. Truth, beauty, and ho­li­ness are pow­er­ful and ef­fec­tive aids to true wor­ship. But spirit com­mu­nion is not pro­moted by mere mas­sive or­nate­ness and over­much em­bel­lish­ment with man’s elab­o­rate and os­ten­ta­tious art. Beauty is most re­li­gious when it is most sim­ple and na­ture­like. How un­for­tu­nate that lit­tle chil­dren should have their first in­tro­duc­tion to con­cepts of pub­lic wor­ship in cold and bar­ren rooms so de­void of the beauty ap­peal and so empty of all sug­ges­tion of good cheer and in­spir­ing ho­li­ness! The child should be in­tro­duced to wor­ship in na­ture’s out­doors and later ac­com­pany his par­ents to pub­lic houses of re­li­gious as­sem­bly which are at least as ma­te­ri­ally at­trac­tive and ar­tis­ti­cally beau­ti­ful as the home in which he is daily domi­ciled.

101:10.1In­tel­li­gent man knows that he is a child of na­ture, a part of the ma­te­rial uni­verse; he like­wise dis­cerns no sur­vival of in­di­vid­ual per­son­al­ity in the mo­tions and ten­sions of the math­e­mat­i­cal level of the en­ergy uni­verse. Nor can man ever dis­cern spir­i­tual re­al­ity through the ex­am­i­na­tion of phys­i­cal causes and ef­fects.

85:4.2Many things and nu­mer­ous events have func­tioned as re­li­gious stim­uli to dif­fer­ent peo­ples in dif­fer­ent ages. A rain­bow is yet wor­shiped by many of the hill tribes of In­dia. In both In­dia and Africa the rain­bow is thought to be a gi­gan­tic ce­les­tial snake; He­brews and Chris­tians re­gard it as “the bow of prom­ise.” Like­wise, in­flu­ences re­garded as benef­i­cent in one part of the world may be looked upon as ma­lig­nant in other re­gions. The east wind is a god in South Amer­ica, for it brings rain; in In­dia it is a devil be­cause it brings dust and causes drought. The an­cient Bed­ou­ins be­lieved that a na­ture spirit pro­duced the sand whirls, and even in the times of Moses be­lief in na­ture spir­its was strong enough to in­sure their per­pet­u­a­tion in He­brew the­ol­ogy as an­gels of fire, wa­ter, and air.

86:2.6The sav­age looked upon all na­ture as alive, as pos­sessed by some­thing. Civ­i­lized man still kicks and curses those inan­i­mate ob­jects which get in his way and bump him. Prim­i­tive man never re­garded any­thing as ac­ci­den­tal; al­ways was ev­ery­thing in­ten­tional. To prim­i­tive man the do­main of fate, the func­tion of luck, the spirit world, was just as un­or­ga­nized and hap­haz­ard as was prim­i­tive so­ci­ety. Luck was looked upon as the whim­si­cal and tem­per­a­men­tal re­ac­tion of the spirit world; later on, as the hu­mor of the gods.

151:3.14Je­sus also re­sorted to the use of para­bles as the best pos­si­ble refu­ta­tion of the stud­ied ef­fort of the re­li­gious lead­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem to teach that all of his work was done by the as­sis­tance of demons and the prince of dev­ils. The ap­peal to na­ture was in con­tra­ven­tion of such teach­ing since the peo­ple of that day looked upon all nat­u­ral phe­nom­ena as the prod­uct of the di­rect act of spir­i­tual be­ings and super­nat­u­ral forces. He also de­ter­mined upon this method of teach­ing be­cause it en­abled him to pro­claim vi­tal truths to those who de­sired to know the bet­ter way while at the same time af­ford­ing his en­e­mies less op­por­tu­nity to find cause for of­fense and for ac­cu­sa­tions against him.

151:5.5As Je­sus came out in the rain, he looked first at Pe­ter, and then peer­ing into the dark­ness at the strug­gling oars­men, he turned his glance back upon Si­mon Pe­ter, who, in his ag­i­ta­tion, had not yet re­turned to his oar, and said: “Why are all of you so filled with fear? Where is your faith? Peace, be quiet.” Je­sus had hardly ut­tered this re­buke to Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, he had hardly bid­den Pe­ter seek peace where­with to quiet his trou­bled soul, when the dis­turbed at­mo­sphere, hav­ing es­tab­lished its equi­lib­rium, set­tled down into a great calm. The an­gry waves al­most im­me­di­ately sub­sided, while the dark clouds, hav­ing spent them­selves in a short shower, van­ished, and the stars of heaven shone over­head. All this was purely co­in­ci­den­tal as far as we can judge; but the apos­tles, par­tic­u­larly Si­mon Pe­ter, never ceased to re­gard the episode as a na­ture mir­a­cle. It was es­pe­cially easy for the men of that day to be­lieve in na­ture mir­a­cles inas­much as they firmly be­lieved that all na­ture was a phe­nom­e­non di­rectly un­der the con­trol of spirit forces and super­nat­u­ral be­ings.

85:6.4The ghost gods, who are of sup­posed hu­man ori­gin, should be dis­tin­guished from the na­ture gods, for na­ture wor­ship did evolve a pan­theon—na­ture spir­its el­e­vated to the po­si­tion of gods. The na­ture cults con­tin­ued to de­velop along with the later ap­pear­ing ghost cults, and each ex­erted an in­flu­ence upon the other. Many re­li­gious sys­tems em­braced a dual con­cept of de­ity, na­ture gods and ghost gods; in some the­olo­gies these con­cepts are con­fus­ingly in­ter­twined, as is il­lus­trated by Thor, a ghost hero who was also mas­ter of the light­ning.

82:2.1The story of the evo­lu­tion of mar­riage is sim­ply the his­tory of sex con­trol through the pres­sure of so­cial, re­li­gious, and civil re­stric­tions. Na­ture hardly rec­og­nizes in­di­vid­u­als; it takes no cog­nizance of so-called morals; it is only and ex­clu­sively in­ter­ested in the re­pro­duc­tion of the species. Na­ture com­pellingly in­sists on re­pro­duc­tion but in­dif­fer­ently leaves the con­se­quen­tial prob­lems to be solved by so­ci­ety, thus cre­at­ing an ever-pres­ent and ma­jor prob­lem for evo­lu­tion­ary man­kind. This so­cial con­flict con­sists in the un­end­ing war be­tween ba­sic in­stincts and evolv­ing ethics.

84:5.2As so­ci­ety evolved, the sex stan­dards rose higher among women be­cause they suf­fered more from the con­se­quences of the trans­gres­sion of the sex mores. Man’s sex stan­dards are only tardily im­prov­ing as a re­sult of the sheer sense of that fair­ness which civ­i­liza­tion de­mands. Na­ture knows noth­ing of fair­ness—makes woman alone suf­fer the pangs of child­birth.

101:3.106. Main­tains a di­vine trust in ul­ti­mate vic­tory in spite of the cru­el­ties of seem­ingly blind fate and the ap­par­ent ut­ter in­dif­fer­ence of nat­u­ral forces to hu­man wel­fare.

70:1.1War is the nat­u­ral state and her­itage of evolv­ing man; peace is the so­cial yard­stick mea­sur­ing civ­i­liza­tion’s ad­vance­ment. Be­fore the par­tial so­cial­iza­tion of the ad­vanc­ing races man was ex­ceed­ingly in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic, ex­tremely sus­pi­cious, and un­be­liev­ably quar­rel­some. Vi­o­lence is the law of na­ture, hos­til­ity the au­to­matic re­ac­tion of the chil­dren of na­ture, while war is but these same ac­tiv­i­ties car­ried on col­lec­tively. And wher­ever and when­ever the fab­ric of civ­i­liza­tion be­comes stressed by the com­pli­ca­tions of so­ci­ety’s ad­vance­ment, there is al­ways an im­me­di­ate and ru­inous re­ver­sion to these early meth­ods of vi­o­lent ad­just­ment of the ir­ri­ta­tions of hu­man in­teras­so­ci­a­tions.

• improper

5:5.4Moral con­duct is al­ways an an­te­ced­ent of evolved re­li­gion and a part of even re­vealed re­li­gion, but never the whole of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. So­cial ser­vice is the re­sult of moral think­ing and re­li­gious liv­ing. Moral­ity does not bi­o­log­i­cally lead to the higher spir­i­tual lev­els of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. The ado­ra­tion of the ab­stract beau­ti­ful is not the wor­ship of God; nei­ther is ex­al­ta­tion of na­ture nor the rev­er­ence of unity the wor­ship of God.

• envisioned division of labor in supermortal world

85:0.3When re­li­gion once evolved be­yond na­ture wor­ship, it ac­quired roots of spirit ori­gin but was nev­er­the­less al­ways con­di­tioned by the so­cial en­vi­ron­ment. As na­ture wor­ship de­vel­oped, man’s con­cepts en­vi­sioned a di­vi­sion of la­bor in the super­mor­tal world; there were na­ture spir­its for lakes, trees, wa­ter­falls, rain, and hun­dreds of other or­di­nary ter­res­trial phe­nom­ena.

• led to belief in charms indwelt by some spirit

88:1.3Tree fe­tishes were a later de­vel­op­ment, but among some tribes the per­sis­tence of na­ture wor­ship led to be­lief in charms in­dwelt by some sort of na­ture spirit. When plants and fruits be­came fe­tishes, they were taboo as food. The ap­ple was among the first to fall into this cat­e­gory; it was never eaten by the Lev­an­tine peo­ples.

• improper

139:8.7The other apos­tles held Je­sus in rev­er­ence be­cause of some spe­cial and out­stand­ing trait of his re­plete per­son­al­ity, but Thomas revered his Mas­ter be­cause of his su­perbly bal­anced char­ac­ter. In­creas­ingly Thomas ad­mired and hon­ored one who was so lov­ingly mer­ci­ful yet so in­flex­i­bly just and fair; so firm but never ob­sti­nate; so calm but never in­dif­fer­ent; so help­ful and so sym­pa­thetic but never med­dle­some or dic­ta­to­rial; so strong but at the same time so gen­tle; so pos­i­tive but never rough or rude; so ten­der but never vac­il­lat­ing; so pure and in­no­cent but at the same time so vir­ile, ag­gres­sive, and force­ful; so truly coura­geous but never rash or fool­hardy; such a lover of na­ture but so free from all ten­dency to re­vere na­ture; so hu­mor­ous and so play­ful, but so free from lev­ity and frivolity. It was this match­less sym­me­try of per­son­al­ity that so charmed Thomas. He prob­a­bly en­joyed the high­est in­tel­lec­tual un­der­stand­ing and per­son­al­ity ap­pre­ci­a­tion of Je­sus of any of the twelve.