Editing Lucretius (section)

==Natural philosophy==

Lucretius was an early thinker in what grew to become the study of [[evolution]]. He believed that nature experiments endlessly across the aeons, and the organisms that adapt best to their environment have the best chance of surviving. Living organisms survived because of the commensurate relationship between their strength, speed, or intellect and the external dynamics of their environment. Prior to [[Charles Darwin]]'s 1859 publication of ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'', the natural philosophy of Lucretius typified one of the foremost non-[[Teleology|teleological]] and mechanistic accounts of the creation and evolution of life.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Campbell|first=Gordon|title=Lucretius on Creation and Evolution: A Commentary on De rerum natura 5.772-1104|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2003|isbn=0199263965|location=Oxford/New York|pages=3–6}}</ref> In contrast to modern thought on the subject, he did not believe that new species evolved from previously existing ones. Lucretius challenged the assumption that humans are necessarily superior to animals, noting that mammalian mothers in the wild recognize and nurture their offspring as do human mothers.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Massaro|first=Alma|date=2014-11-11|title=The Living in Lucretius' De rerum natura. Animals' ataraxia and Humans' Distress|url=https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/672|journal=Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism|language=en|volume=2|issue=2|pages=45–58|doi=10.7358/rela-2014-002-mass|issn=2280-9643|doi-access=free}}</ref>

While [[Epicurus]] left open the possibility for [[free will]] by arguing for the [[Brownian motion|uncertainty of the paths of atoms]], Lucretius viewed the soul or mind as emerging from fortuitous arrangements of distinct particles.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gillispie |first=Charles Coulston |author-link=Charles Coulston Gillispie |title=The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas |orig-year=1960 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=0-691-02350-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/edgeofobjectivit00char/page/98 98] |url=https://archive.org/details/edgeofobjectivit00char/page/98 }}</ref>