7Q2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ceptions. There are many observers, but few who can strike out into 

 the absolutely virgin soil of novel suggestion.'* 



Early christian theology reveals very clearly the impress of Greek 

 philosophy, and natural science may be said to have been dominated 

 by it. In so far as the theory of evolution is concerned, history shows 

 beyond all doubt that it took its rise among Ionian philosophers, de- 

 clined with the decay of Greek science, was kept alive by Greek in- 

 fluence in theology, and, after gathering increased momentum, became 

 revealed in fuller grandeur to Lamarck and Darwin. Yet scholars are 

 by no means agreed concerning the extent to which either the central 

 theory, or its subordinate propositions, such as the law of the survival 

 of the fittest, were developed amongst the Greeks. Many important 

 scientific discoveries were actually anticipated by this ingenious people, 

 though they seem to have felt their way rather by intuition than by 

 inductive reasoning combined with the observational method. It is 

 the belief of conservative writers that the Greeks anticipated the evo- 

 lution idea by suggestion, or by a series of happy conjectures, though 

 indeed they carried it well into the suggestive stage; nor does it seem 

 possible to maintain a more superlative estimate than this. 



The question as to who was the first evolutionist has been answered 

 in various ways.f Professor Osborn, in the work above quoted, holds 

 to the belief that it is not Anaximander, but Empedocles of Agri- 

 gentum, who ' may justly be called the father of the evolution idea.' 

 Huxley pays a general tribute to the sages of Miletus by calling them 

 ' pronounced evolutionists ' ; but it is Heraclitus, the corypheus of the 

 Physicists, of whom he avers that ' 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 metaphors.' Haeckel, on the other 

 hand, apostrophizes Anaximander as ' the prophet of Kant and Laplace 

 in cosmogony, and of Lamarck and Darwin in biology.' Another dis- 

 tinguished German critic, Schleiermacher, venerates Anaximander as 

 ' the father of speculative natural science ' ; and a not unlike sentiment 

 has been voiced by Lyell. 



The causes of this singular lack of unanimity are not difficult to 

 trace; they have one and all to do with the original sources. In the 

 first place we must note the different interpretations of the meager 

 yet priceless materials that have come down to us, all derived in the 

 last resort from the ' Opinions ' of Theophrastus, a work long since 

 obliterated by the hand of time. Secondly, we must pay due heed to 



* Osborn, H. F., 'From the Greeks to Darwin,' p. 10 (New York, 1894). 



J Out of a mythical and legendary past far antedating the Homeric poems, 

 if we would believe certain French writers, it is possible to reconstruct the 

 earliest archetype of Darwin. Those who, as the author of ' Modern Mythology ' 

 would say, ' care to go in for these things a little,' will do well to consult the 

 following: Houssey, F., ' Nouvelles recherches sur la faune et la flore des vases 

 peints de l'gpoque mycenienne.' Revue ArcMol., Vol. XXX. (1897), p. 81 ff. — 

 Coupin, H., ' Le poulpe ea la croix gammee.' La Nature, May 20, 1905, p. 396. 



