"The weapons of the beasts of prey are natural, but the armed fist of man with its artificially made, thought-out, and selected weapon is not. Here begins 'Art' as a counter-concept to 'Nature.' [...] The privelige of creation has been wrested from Nature. 'Free will' itself is an act of rebellion and nothing less. Creative man has stepped outside the bound of Nature, and with every creation he departs further and further from her, becomes more and more her enemy. That is his 'world-history,' the history of a steadily increasing, fateful rift between man's world and the universe - the history of a rebel that grows up to raise his hand against his mother.
This is the beginning of man's tragedy - for Nature is the stronger of the two. [...] All the great cultures are defeats. Whole races remain, inwardly destroyed and broken, fallen into barrenness and spiritual decay, as corpse on the field. The fight against nature is hopeless and yet - it will be fought out to the bitter end."

- Oswald Spengler, Man and Technics.