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Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. Some day, I doubt not, we shall arrive at an understanding of the evolution of the aesthetic faculty; but all the understanding in the world will neither increase nor diminish the force of the intuition that this is beautiful and that is ugly.
Thomas Huxley
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects on the limits of scientific understanding in defining moral and aesthetic values.

In this quote, Thomas Huxley discusses the idea that while cosmic evolution may shed light on the origins of human tendencies toward good and evil, it does not provide a more profound justification for why society values good over evil. He emphasizes that no amount of intellectual understanding can change the innate human intuition of beauty and ugliness, suggesting that these values may reside outside the realm of empirical science and are instead deeply ingrained in human experience.

Themes

EvolutionGoodEvilAestheticsIntuition

In practice

Example use cases

In a philosophy class discussing the nature of morality and ethics.

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