70 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS n 



their attention upon ethical problems. Forsaking 

 the study of the macrocosm for that of the micro 

 cosm, they lost the key to the thought of the 

 great Ephesian, which, I imagine, is more intelli 

 gible to us than it was to Socrates, or to Plato. 

 Socrates, more especially, set the fashion of a kind 

 of inverse agnosticism, by teaching that the prob 

 lems of physics lie beyond the reach of the 

 human intellect ; that the attempt to solve them 

 is essentially vain ; that the one worthy object of 

 investigation is the problem of ethical life ; and 

 his example was followed by the Cynics and the 

 later Stoics. Even the comprehensive knowledge 

 and the penetrating intellect of Aristotle failed to 

 suggest to him that in holding the eternity of the 

 world, within its present range of mutation, he was 

 making a retrogressive step. The scientific herit 

 age of Heracleitus passed into the hands neither 

 of Plato nor of Aristotle, but into those of Demo- 

 critus. But the world was not yet ready to 

 receive the great conceptions of the philosopher of 

 Abdera. It was reserved for the Stoics to return 

 to the track marked out by the earlier philo 

 sophers ; and, professing themselves disciples of 

 Heracleitus, to develop the idea of evolution 

 systematically. In doing this, they not only 

 omitted some characteristic features of their 

 master s teaching, but they made additions al 

 together foreign to it. One of the most influ 

 ential of these importations was the transcen- 



