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2 ideas
| 6217 | Natural law is supplied to the human mind by reality and human nature [Cumberland] |
| Full Idea: Some truths of natural law, concerning guides to moral good and evil, and duties not laid down by civil law and government, are necessarily supplied ot the human mind by the nature of things and of men. | |
| From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I) | |
| A reaction: I agree that some moral truths have the power of self-evidence. If you say they are built into the mind, we now ask what did the building, and evolution is the only answer, and hence we distance ourselves from the truths, seeing them as strategies. |
| 5730 | Our bodies weren't created to be used; on the contrary, their creation makes a use possible [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in our bodies was born in order that we might be able to use it, but the thing born creates the use. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], IV.834) | |
| A reaction: This remark (strongly opposed to Aristotle's view of human function and nature) raises the obvious question of why the body is so very useful for staying alive. Most of its uses are not random. Lucretius would abandon this view if he read Darwin. |