 One of the romantics’ central aims was to (re)enchant nature in the face of what they regarded as a threat from modern science. The threat was embodied primarily in the worry that modern science alienated (rational and free) human beings from nature, which, through the lens of this new science, had been viewed as a domain of brute, determined, mechanical causality  (§5.1).  Aesthetics is capable of (re)enchanting nature insofar as it brings out a different conception of nature as organic rather than mechanic. On this organic conception, nature is (a) an organic whole, which is reciprocally interdependent on its parts; (b) a domain of teleological rather than merely mechanical causality; and (c) a dynamic and living force, which is self-organizing and self-generating  (§5.2).  “Science should become poetic” insofar as it should approach nature in the same way that criticism approaches romantic poetry. Like romantic poetry, nature should be viewed as an organic and spontaneous whole. Under this conception of nature, rational, autonomous human beings are not alienated from, but are rather part and parcel of, nature  (§5.3).