160 THE SCIENCE OF BIOLOGY 



But his general conclusion was "that water was the element 

 from which the earth was engendered." Empedocles, to 

 whom has been ascribed the formulation of a theory of the 

 Survival of the Fittest, "was an evolutionist only in so far 

 as he taught the gradual substitution of the less by the more 

 perfect forms of life." Perfect and imperfect forms, he be- 

 lieved, arose by spontaneous generation. 5 Persistent belief 

 that living beings were generated spontaneously from non- 

 living matter was perhaps responsible for this failure of the 

 Greeks to pursue their speculations regarding cosmic evolu- 

 tion to the field of animal and plant origins. 



Among the Romans, Lucretius shows comprehension of 

 the evolutionary process in limited cases. His extended 

 account of the human race, as originating from a condition 

 essentially like that of the brute and advancing by gradual 

 stages, bears a remarkable resemblance to the general con- 

 clusions of modern anthropology. Man is pictured as first 

 a hardy animal-like race living in a wild state without agri- 

 culture and without family life. His food consisted of the 

 natural products of the earth and of the trophies of the chase. 

 He was without weapons save chance sticks and stones. 

 His earliest habitations were in the form of caves and shel- 

 tered places. The association of mates gave rise to family 

 life. Weapons and implements, huts, clothing of skins, and 

 fire were gradually acquired. Language developed from 

 natural cries and sounds, such as we now find animals making 

 to one another. Music later arose. Metal succeeded stone, 

 woven garments those of skins. Agriculture came to be 

 practiced. Animals were domesticated. Tribal and govern- 

 mental organization was slowly developed and also belief in 

 the gods, until civilized existence had thus come into being. 

 The whole account is a remarkable approach to the modern 

 scientific formulation of the history of human evolution from 

 an animal ancestry. It rested upon knowledge concerning 

 animals and savage races of mankind which was then extant, 



8 Osborn, H. F., "From the Greeks to Darwin," pp. 36-40, 



