Sunday, February 03, 2008
Darwinian Designs
Nothing at first can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts should have been perfected, not by means superior to, though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor. Nevertheless, this difficulty, though appearing to our imagination insuperably great, cannot be considered real if we admit the following propositions, namely, -- that gradations in the perfection of any organ or instinct, which we may consider, either do now exist or could have existed, each good of its kind, -- that all organs and instincts are, in ever so slight a degree, variable, -- and, lastly, that there is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation of each profitable deviation of structure or instinct. The truth of these propositions cannot, I think, be disputed..
- Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1st edition, p. 454
Labels: Almost Random Thoughts
Friday, February 01, 2008
Proud of Our Humility
[W]e may observe, that whatever we call heroic virtue, and admire under the character of greatness and elevation of mind, is either nothing but a steady and well established pride and self-esteem, or partakes largely of that passion. Courage, intrepidity, ambition, love of glory, magnanimity, and all the other shining virtues of that kind, have plainly a strong mixture of self-esteem in them, and derive a great part of their merit from that origin. Accordingly we find, that many religious declaimers decry those virtues as purely pagan and natural, and represent to us the excellency of the Christian religion, which places humility in the rank of virtues, and corrects the judgment of the world, and even of philosophers, who so generally admire all the efforts of pride and ambition. Whether this virtue of humility has been rightly understood, I shall not pretend to determine. I am content with the concession, that the world naturally esteems a well-regulated pride, which secretly animates our conduct, without breaking out into such indecent expressions of vanity, as [may] offend the vanity of others.
- David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, Part III, Section II
Labels: Almost Random Thoughts
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Biological Premonition
A thought:Natural science must be exact; it must rigidly avoid everything which oversteps the limit of the finite and the intelligible, and which is transcendental; it must proceed in a strictly materialistic manner, because its sole object is finite, force-endowed matter; and it must not forget that this true materialism is an empirical and not a philosophical one, and that it is bounded by the same limits as those of the domain upon which it moves.
I do not wish to say by this that the naturalist is not allowed to philosophise, that he is forbidden to move in ideal and transcendental domains. But he ceases to be a naturalist, and the only thing, which from his vocation is perhaps of advantage to him, is that he keeps both domains strictly apart; that he knows how to treat the one as the pure domain of investigation and knowledge, and the other, while he frees it from everything finite, as the hidden domain of the presentiment.
Karl von Nägeli, "The Limits of Natural Knowledge," Nature, October 25, 1877
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Labels: Almost Random Thoughts
