690 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



the text has been very generally misunderstood and false conclusions 

 have been drawn from it. It is perhaps unnecessary to recount in 

 detail this chapter of curious errors. I have no means of knowing 

 what interpretation Diels now puts on the text; but in the absence 

 of any indication in his notes it seems reasonable to assume that he 

 still adheres to the view briefl.y set forth in the index to his Do.ro- 

 graphi Gracci,s.\. ixtTa^Lovv: "mutarevitam [cf. jueraStatraj']." This 

 may be said to have been the common view of recent interpreters, until 

 Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy-, p. 72 scj., correcting the ^'ersion 

 of his first edition, returned to the correct rendering of Brucker, 

 "ruptoque cortice non multum temporis supervixisse," which Teich- 

 miiller with characteristic ignorance of Greek sharply condemned, 

 Studicn zur Gesch. dcr Bcgriffc, p. 64, n. Tannery, Pour rhistoire de 

 la science hellene, pp. 87 and 117, gives in eifect two renderings, each 

 incorrect. The important point to note is that rfKida can refer to 

 nothing but the age of the individual; and that evr' oXiyov xp^vov can 

 have but one meaning, to wit, "for a short time only." The force 

 of jjLeTaiSicouaL must, therefore, be determined with reference to these 

 known quantities of the problem. This once granted, the decision 

 between the rival claims of ritam mutasse and supervixisse is easy and 

 certain. To be sure, ^uerd in composition far more frec|uently implies 

 change than it denotes 'after'; but jieTabHivvelv is as well attested as 

 jueraStairaj'. However if, as seemed plausible from Dicls's earlier 

 editions, it were possible to conceive that the correct text was ctt' 

 oXiyop /jLeral^Luvai, one might have inclined to take ex' oXiyov in the 

 sense of "to a small extent," as in Arist. Meteor. 350*^ 28 and Mar- 

 cellinus, \ ita Thucyd. 36, and to interpret jxeTa^ioivai as referring to 

 a change in the mode of life. Another possibility, which I have con- 

 sidered, would be to take ex' 6X1701^ and fxera^SLcovaL in the sense just 

 indicated and to read xpoj^w for xpovov, thus obtaining the sense "they 

 changed their mode of life to a small extent in course of time." This 

 suggestion was very tempting to one who was prepared to find an 

 anticipation of Darwinism in Anaximander; but against all these 

 proposals ijXtKta stands with its inexorable veto. The sort of change 

 contemplated would require more than one life-time, and lyXtKia limits 

 the action of fxeTal^Lccvai. to the life-period of the indi^'idual. We must 

 therefore content ourselves with the rendering "As they advanced 

 toward maturity the first animals proceeded from the wet on to the 

 drier ground and as their integument burst (and was sloughed off) 

 they survived but a little while." Perhaps this interpretation may 

 be further supported by a comparison of the view thus obtained with 



