CHAPTER TWO 

 The Greek Attitude Towards Science 



IT is so customary for us to consider all phenomena, 

 of both the organic and inorganic world, as a con- 

 tinuous and gradual development during long peri- 

 ods of time, and we have come to use the word, evolu- 

 tion^ so loosely, as synonymous with mere change, that 

 we should, at the outset of our historical survey, 

 make it as clear as possible what is meant by evolu- 

 tion as a scientific term. This is especially necessary 

 as it has grown to be the habit for historians of biolo- 

 gy to trace the doctrine of evolution as itself a growth, 

 the germ of which existed in the minds of the Greek 

 philosophers. In dealing with times so distant and so 

 different from our own, it is not safe to connect ideas 

 by words whose sound has remained the same but 

 whose meaning has been altered by long use. We per- 

 sist in retaining words when they have once been ac- 

 quired and prefer to change their significance to meet 

 new conditions. 



Evolution, as a scientific term to express a law of 

 continuous development of species from previous and 

 different species, must be used in a far more restricted 

 sense than in its general definition of unfolding or 

 variation. Also, before evolution can be classed as a 

 scientific law, some natural cause or method, by which 



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