IN THE EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY. 9 



tion and degree of organisation proper to their 

 race. Could survival of the fittest lead to 

 more than an improvement of the breed, and 

 eventually, perhaps, to a variation of the species ? 

 But are not variations prone to disappear, and a 

 recurrence to the original type ensue ? And what, 

 it may be asked, constitute favourable and what 

 injurious variations ? The acquisition, to answer the 

 question broadly, by one kind of animal of a struc- 

 ture or organ proper to another kind, though of 

 more perfect development, would not be a favourable 

 variation. For, as Lucretius himself admitted, 

 4 thence would rise vast monsters.' 



The idea of ' Natural Selection by Survival of 

 the Fittest ' is thus as well as the first principles 

 of Evolution clearly implied in the Epicurean 

 Philosophy. ' Of the multifarious beings formed by 

 the fortuitous concourse of atoms/ said Lucretius, 

 ' the fittest alone survived' ( Many races of regularly 

 organised creatures ' to quote again from Monro's 

 excellent translation of Lucretius 'must have died 

 off because they wanted some natural power by 

 which to protect themselves.' * * * ' These fell 

 a prey to others, and disappeared unable to endure 

 the struggle for existence! 



oo J 



The ' Natural Selection ' theory, though thus 

 foreshadowed about 2000 years ago by Epicurus 

 and Lucretius, is now so associated with the name of 

 Mr. Charles Darwin as is even the doctrine of 

 Evolution in general that Evolutionists look up to 



