J.2 KVOLUTIOX AND ETHICS 



progress of another philosophy, apparently inde- 

 pendent, but no less pervaded by the conception of 

 evolution. (") 



The sages of Miletus were pronounced evolutionists ; 

 and, however dark may be some of the sayings of 

 Heracleitus of Ephesus, who was probably a con- 

 temporary of Gautama, no better expressions of the 

 essence of the modern doctrine of evolution can be 

 found than are presented by some of his pithy 

 aphorisms and striking metaphors. ( 12 ) Indeed, many 

 of my present auditors must have observed that, 

 more than once, I have borrowed from him in the 

 brief exposition of the theory of evolution with which 

 this discourse commenced. 



But when the focus of Greek intellectual activity 

 shifted to Athens, the leading minds concentrated 

 their attention upon ethical problems. Forsaking 

 the study of the macrocosm for that of the microcosm, 

 they lost the key to the thought of the great 

 Ephesian, which, I imagine, is more intelligible to 

 us than it was to Socrates, or to Plato. Socrates, 

 more especially, set the fashion of a kind of inverse 

 agnosticism, by teaching that the problems of physics 

 lie beyond the reach of the human intellect ; that 

 the attempt to solve them is essentially vain ; that 

 the one worthy object of investigation is the problem 

 of ethical life ; and his example was followed by the 

 Cynics and the later Stoics. Even the comprehensive 

 knowledge and the penetrating intellect of Aristotle 

 failed to suggest to him that in holding the eternity 

 of the world, within its present range of mutation 



