“The portion of the materia prima which is… is endowed with the intellectual faculty, possesses a special property by which each individual, according to the degree of his perfection, is enabled to manage, to calculate, and to discover what is conducive both to the temporary existence of the individual and to the preservation of the species. All other movements… by the individual members of the species are due to accident; they are not, according to Aristotle, the result of rule and management… Aristotle sees no difference between the falling of a leaf or a stone and the death of the good and noble people in the ship; nor does he distinguish between the destruction of a multitude of ants by an ox depositing on them his excrement and the death of worshippers killed by the fall of the house when its foundations give way.”

— Maimónides , book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.17

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Maimónides 180

rabbi, physician, philosopher 1138–1204

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“Whatever is formed of matter receives the most perfect form possible in that species of matter; in each individual case the defects are in accordance with that individual matter.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Compare Gottfried Leibniz argument for the "best of all possible worlds" in his Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
Ch.12
Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III
Context: Galen, in the third section of his book, "The Use of the Limbs," says correctly that it would be in vain to expect to see living beings formed of the blood of menstruous women and the semen virile, who will not die, will never feel pain, or will move perpetually, or shine like the sun. This dictum of Galen is part of the following more general proposition:—Whatever is formed of matter receives the most perfect form possible in that species of matter; in each individual case the defects are in accordance with that individual matter.

“It is of primary importance to keep out of view man as he exists in an insulated, separate, or in an individual state, and to regard him only as a fraction of the species. In thus setting aside his individual nature, we get quit of all which is accidental, and the individual peculiarities, which exercise scarcely any influence over the mass, become effaced of their own accord, allowing the observer to seize the general results.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

“The tendency of life is not the preservation of the species, but solely the preservation of each individual organism, as long as it is in existence at all, and is able to carry on its life processes.”

Boris Sidis (1867–1923) American psychiatrist

Source: Nervous Ills their Cause and Cure (1922), p. 20

“In short, the opinion of Aristotle is this: Everything is the result of management which is constant, which does not come to an end and does not change any of its properties, as e. g., the heavenly beings, and everything which continues according to a certain rule… But that which is not constant, and does not follow a certain rule… is due to chance and not to management; it is in no relation to Divine Providence. Aristotle holds that it is even impossible to ascribe to Providence that management of these things. …It is the belief of those who turned away from our Law and said: "God hath forsaken the earth."”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Ezek. ix. 9
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.17

“It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.”

Mary Wollstonecraft book Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

Letter 22
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)

“Since the management of industry by individuals necessarily implies private property, and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.”

Friedrich Engels book Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)

“To be sure, the human individual can, even must, feel and know himself to be limited—and this is what distinguishes him from the animal—but he can become conscious of his limits, his finite-ness, only because he can make the perfection and infinity of his species the object either of his feeling, conscience, or thought. But if his limitations appear to him as emanating from the species, this can only be due to his delusion that he is identical with the species, a delusion intimately linked with the individual’s love of ease, lethargy, vanity, and selfishness; for a limit which I know to be mine alone, humiliates, shames, and disquiets me. Hence, in order to free myself of this feeling of shame, this uneasiness, I make the limits of my individuality the limits of man’s being itself. What is incomprehensible to me is incomprehensible to others; why should this worry me at all? It is not due to any fault of mine or of my understanding: the cause lies in the understanding of the species itself. But it is a folly, a ludicrous and frivolous folly to designate that which constitutes the nature of man and the absolute nature of the individual, the essence of the species, as finite and limited.”

Ludwig Feuerbach book The Essence of Christianity

Introduction, Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), pp. 103-104
The Essence of Christianity (1841)

“This shows the kindness of God to His creatures, even to us weak beings. His righteousness and justice as regards all animals are well known; for in the transient world there is among the various kinds of animals no individual being distinguished from the rest of the same species… all physical, psychical, and vital forces and organs that are possessed by one individual are found also in the other individuals. If any one is somehow different it is by accident, in consequence of some exception, and not by a natural property; it is also a rare occurrence.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12

“Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

Source: Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View (1974), p. 188
Context: Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others. But when he merges his person into an organizational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of humane inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority.

“Each individual is a species unto him/herself.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos (1904)

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