Nature and History

According to Kant, the motor of human history is "Nature", which pushes the species to its goal.  However, just as, as has been previously discussed, his concept of that goal is ambiguous, so, too, correspondingly, is that of Nature.  In both cases, Nature creates "antagonisms", one response to which is a condition of harmony, thereby anticipating the concept of it as Dialectical Materialism.  In contrast, the other response is that humans become proactive in dealing with the situation, i. e. that continued passivity, even on the occasion of happenstance harmonization, is inadequate.  In other words, the second concept of Nature anticipates Darwinian Evolution, and,in particular, Adaptation as the response to an untenable environment.  So, for example, what is 'Natural', in the first sense, about Hobbes' Leviathan is that it replaces War with Peace, but, in the second sense, that humans voluntarily construct the Leviathan, even if they concede their power to it.