THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



ceed afterwards to state the causes of those phenom- 

 ena, and to deal with their evolution. . . . Em- 

 pedocles, then, was in error when he said that many 

 of the characters presented by animals were merely 

 the results of incidental occurrences during their de- 

 velopment; for instance, that the backbone was di- 

 vided as it is into vertebrae, because it happened to 

 be broken owing to the contorted position of the 

 foetus in the womb. In so saying he overlooked the 

 fact that propagation implies a creative seed endowed 

 with certain formative properties. Secondly, he neg- 

 lected another fact, namely that the parent animal 

 pre-exists, not only in idea but actually in time. For 

 man is generated from man; and thus it is the pos- 

 session of certain characters by the parent that de- 

 termines the development of like characters in the 

 child."" From our knowledge of Aristotle's fixed be- 

 lief in a Creator who designs all created things for a 

 purpose and who uses a perfecting principle in each 

 kind of created things which will continually strive 

 to make each class of objects as perfect as its kind 

 will permit, we can at once understand that Aris- 

 totle's idea of evolution is change within the species 

 corresponding to his knowledge that breeders could 

 vary and improve domesticated animals within their 

 species. 



Passing on to the next point, that Aristotle held 



19 Book I, 640 a. 



162-2 



