“The nature of things is nothing but their coming into being at certain times and in certain fashions. Whenever the time and fashion is thus and so, such and not otherwise are the things that come into being. The inseparable properties of things must be due to the mode or fashion in which they are born. By these properties we may therefore tell that the nature or birth was thus and not otherwise.”
(Giambattista Vico, The New Science, 147-148)