> as lemmas

1801 E. Palmer Princ. Nature xi. 118 The remedy consists in a return to nature, and in elevating our views and conceptions above those theological absurdities which have degraded man to a level with the beast.

1829 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Oct. 594/2 How far soever the taste may have strayed from the primary affections of humanity, still the return to nature is always comparatively easy.

1864 Atlantic Monthly Feb. 183/1 Rousseau prescribed a return to Nature as the panacea for all defect, in Art as elsewhere.

1902 G. K. Chesterton Twelve Types 142 Some think that the return to nature consists in drinking no wine; some think that it consists in drinking a great deal more than is good for them.

1978 Times 3 Oct. 14/3 This is not a plea for the simple life, a return to nature, or a general rising against the machines.

2008 E. Hague & E. H. Sebesta in E. Hague et al. Neo-confederacy i. iv. 116 The natural state of affairs was, therefore, proposed to be the way things were before their corruption by the modern industrial nation-state, and opponents to such development could thus argue for a return to nature.

1775 tr. S. Gessner in Crit. Rev. Oct. 297 Thus passing from various imitations to continual reflections, and then returning to nature, I found at last that my efforts became less laborious. The principal masses and forms lay'd themselves open to my sight.

1830 J. Romney Mem. Life & Wks. G. Romney iii. 195 Though it was the fashion..for ladies to wear high head dresses, and stiff long-waisted stays.., whenever he had an opportunity, and the style and disposition of the drapery were left to his own taste, he rid himself of those ungraceful incumbrances, and returned to nature and truth.

1851 Photographic Art Jrnl. Apr. 242/2 He [sc. John J. Audubon] sought for patronage in Philadelphia, and failing there went to New York..; but weary and depressed,..he returned to nature for refreshing, and..to seek the wildest solitudes of the pathless and gloomy forest.

1896 Contemp. Rev. Jan. 463/1 The poet of antiquity who most consciously ‘returned to Nature’ to comfort his sad heart with her healing sights was..the Rome-born Tibullus.

1902 G. K. Chesterton Twelve Types 141 This attempt to re-establish communication with the elemental, or, as it is sometimes more roughly and fallaciously expressed, to return to nature.

1994 S. Butala Perfection of Morning i. 10 By the time I was twenty I had developed contempt for those who wanted to return to Nature, believing they were all romantic dreamers, nitwits from the city, people raised in the lap of luxury who..had never done a real day's work in their lives.

2005 H. Eaton Introducing Ecofeminist Theol. ii. 46 People who live simply or choose it voluntarily are said to have ‘returned to nature’ or live ‘close to nature’.