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27 configurations and shapes we can also look into its distinctive history. In this regard, departing from the Darwinian insights about the relational quality of the struggle for existence, a new branch of modern science, that of ecology, was estab- lished at the end of the nineteenth century. The term is attributed to German anato- mist Haeckel (1866) and designates the attempt to find scientific regularities in a view of nature characterized by complexity and dynamism. It turns out that nature may possess a design even though we have ruled out the notion of a conscious designer. Haeckel defined ecology as the body of knowledge that concerns the economy of nature, understood as the complex interrelations referred by Darwin as the con- ditions of the struggle for existence. As Hughes (2009: 7) writes, this was less the definition of an already existing science than a new, ambitious research agenda. In the following years, a number of researchers took on the task of advancing it. Karl Möbious in 1877 coined the word biocoenosis, meaning something close to biocommunity, whereas Victor Shelford in 1929 described ecology as "a sci- ence of communities", Arthur G. Tansley coined the term ecosystem in 1935, and plant ecologist Arthur Tansley preferred to talk about a "biotic community" that includes all living organisms in a given territory. Interestingly, ecologists argued over how to describe best the kind of relations that are set in a biotic community: are they to be featured as forming an organism, using the images of sociology and economics, or through the metaphor of the machine? (see Worster 1977). At the end of that century, Capra (1997) talked about a "web of life", an apt image in that it underlines the interdependence of its elements. Yet the debate is not settled, since Lovelock's Gaia, together with the insights of world-system science, seems to fit even better with the metaphor of a giant organism—one that, now, happens to incorporate society. But Darwinism was also revolutionary in that it completely changed human's place in nature. After Darwin, the kind of human exceptionality championed by Western tradition became untenable. Natural evolution demonstrated the genea- logical kinship of all living creatures, hence demanding a thorough revision of the human-nature dividing line. Humans could not be seen anymore as autonomous beings which are separated from nature, but rather as creatures embedded in the latter in ways neither foreseen nor expected. In sum: "We are not just rather like animals; we are animals" (Midgley 1995: xxxiii). Such is the underlying assump- tion of any critique of dualism, a critique that often involves the attempt to attrib- ute moral responsibilities to humans towards non-humans. But the Darwinist revolution works both ways: it does not only entail a demystification of mankind in relation to nature, but also, correspondingly, a demystification of nature in rela- tion to mankind (Janich 2010: 12). In other words, neither humans nor the natu- ral world may be said to possess a transcendental meaning anymore. In short, a moralization of the human-nature relationship cannot be so easily derived from a Darwinian worldview. On the other hand, Darwinism laid the foundations for a naturalistic explana- tion of human beings, that is, an explanation based on a biological interpretation of human behaviour and culture. Whereas dualism sees a gap between mankind 2.4 Nature After Darwin