CHAPTER II. 



EARLY EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS. 

 First Studies of Nature. 



EVOLUTION, as we now know it, is a product 

 of the latter half of the present century. It 

 would; however, be a mistake to imagine that Min- 

 erva-like it came forth from the brain of Darwin or 

 Spencer, or that of anyone else, as the fully-developed 

 theory which has caused so great a stir in the intel- 

 lectual world. No ; Evolution, as a theory, is not the 

 work of one man, nor the result of the work of any 

 body of men that could be designated by name. 

 Neither is it the product of any one generation or 

 epoch. On the contrary, it has been the joint achieve- 

 ment, if such .it can be called, of countless think- 

 ers and observers and experimenters of many climes 

 and of many centuries. It is the focus towards which 

 many and divers lines of thought have converged 

 from the earliest periods of speculation and scientific 

 research down to our own. The sages of India and 

 Babylonia; the priests of Egypt and Assyria; the 

 philosophers of Greece and Rome ; the Fathers of 

 the early Church and the Schoolmen of the Middle 

 Ages, as well as the scholars and discoverers of sub- 

 sequent ages, contributed toward the establishment 

 of the theory on the basis on which it now reposes. 



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