Monday, August 28, 2006
On Epicurus
There is no divine interference in the natural order of things, according to Epicurus. Far from having been created by the gods, he said, this world has endured for an infinite time. ( "We can see that nature, free from divine tyranny, can accomplish all by itself."6) He insisted that the soul is a corporeal entity that does not survive the death of the body. Following certain of the earlier Greek naturalists, he also spelled out the crude beginnings of a theory of natural selection in evolution -- anticipating the discoveries of Charles Darwin by over two thousand years. For example: "And many races of living things must have died out and been unable to beget and continue their breed. For, in the case of all things, either craft or courage or speed has from the beginning of its existence prohibited and preserved each particular race.7
http://www.humanists.net/pdhutcheon/humanist20articles/lucritus.htm
There is no divine interference in the natural order of things, according to Epicurus. Far from having been created by the gods, he said, this world has endured for an infinite time. ( "We can see that nature, free from divine tyranny, can accomplish all by itself."6) He insisted that the soul is a corporeal entity that does not survive the death of the body. Following certain of the earlier Greek naturalists, he also spelled out the crude beginnings of a theory of natural selection in evolution -- anticipating the discoveries of Charles Darwin by over two thousand years. For example: "And many races of living things must have died out and been unable to beget and continue their breed. For, in the case of all things, either craft or courage or speed has from the beginning of its existence prohibited and preserved each particular race.7
http://www.humanists.net/pdhutcheon/humanist20articles/lucritus.htm
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