Bhikhu Parekh

Human beings, then, do seem to have a nature in the sense defined earlier - that is, capacities, emotions and dispositions which are universal, relatively permanent, acquired as part of their species-heritage or by nature, and which tend to generate certain kinds of actions. Since human beings have a certain physical and mental structure with in-built tendencies and limits, and since they go through common life experiences and life-cycles, it would be odd if they did not have a nature. If we encountered a 'human being' who was six inches or six meters tall, immortal, had unusual sense organs, never felt an emotion or fluctuations of moods, spoke a refined language at birth, never made a mistake or faced a temptation throughout his or her life, or possessed no sense of selfhood or subjectivity, we would feel profoundly disorientated in their presence and would consider that person either an aberrant member of our species or, more likely, that of another. To have a nature is to have a nature is to have a potency for action, a tendency to behave in a certain way, and to be subject to certain constitutional limitations. All these are true of human beings.