A design philosophy – of a sort.

Alan Geal

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Yet another architectural pontification:

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value.

David Hume. Essays, Moral and Political: The Epicurean, 1742. Essay XV.

Thus it is said that Nature does not multiply things unnecessarily; that she makes use of the easiest and simplest means for producing her effects; that she does nothing in vain, and the like.

Galileo Galilei. Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo tolemaico e copernicano / Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 1632.^*

… if every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty.

Charles Darwin. The Descent of Man, 1871. Chapter XIX.

^* …Nature do's nothing in vain, and more is in vain, when less will serve; for Nature is pleas'd with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

Isaac Newton. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1687.
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1729): Book III: The Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy: Rule 1.