HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF EVOLUTION THEORY II 



much palaeontological discovery had been made, before it was found 

 that the facts from these sources all pointed to one general principle, 

 and only one, that master-principle "organic evolution." 



We shall now trace the development of the evolution idea from 

 its inception among the Greeks to its present status, and shall first 

 give a brief account of Greek evolution. 



EVOLUTION AMONG THE GREEKS 



The early Greek thinkers were sea people. "Along the shores and 

 in the waters of the blue Aegean," says Osborn, "teeming with what 

 we now know to be the earliest and simplest forms of animals and 

 plants, they founded their hypotheses as to the origin and succession 



of life The spirit of the Greeks was vigorous and hopeful. 



Not pausing to test their theories by research, they did not suffer the 

 disappointments and delays which come from one's own efforts to 

 wrest truths from Nature. " 



The Greeks were anticipators of Nature. Their speculations out- 

 stripped the facts; in fact were usually made with "eyes closed to the 

 facts." Their theories were inextricably bound up with current 

 mythology, were naive, vague, and, from our modern point of view, 

 ridiculous; yet they contained many grains of truth and were the 

 germs out of which grew the saner ideas of subsequent thinkers. 



Tholes (624-548 B.C.) was the first of the Greeks to theorize about 

 the origin of life. "He looked upon the great expanse of mother ocean 

 and declared water to be the mother from which all things arose, and 

 out of which they exist." This idea anticipates the modern idea of 

 the aquatic or marine origin of life, and also the present idea as to the 

 indispensability of water in all vital processes. 



Anaximander (611-547 B.C.) has been called the prophet of 

 Lamarck and of Darwin. While his theories were highly mythical in 

 character, he conceived the idea of a gradual evolution from a formless 

 or chaotic condition to one of organic coherence. He saw vaguely the 

 idea of transformation of aquatic species into terrestrial, even deriving 

 man from aquatic fishlike men (mythical mermen) who were able to 

 emerge from the water only after they had undergone the necessary 

 changes required for land life. This idea involves that of adaptation, 

 one of the cornerstones of the modern evolutionary structure. 



Anaximenes (588-524 B.C.), a pupil of Anaximander, "found in air 

 the cause of all things. Air, taking the form of soul, imparts life, 

 motion, and thought to animals. " It is questionable whether this is a 



