HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF EVOLUTION THEORY II 



/much palaeontological discovery had been made, before it was found 

 that the facts from these sources all pointed to one general principle, 

 and only one, that master-principle "organic evolution." 



We shall now trace the development of the evolution idea from 

 its inception among the Greeks to its present status, and shall first 

 give a brief account of Greek evolution. 



EVOLUTION AMONG THE GREEKS 



J Th e early Greek think ers were sea people. "Al ong the shores a nd 



i n the waters of th e blue Aegean, " says Osborn, " tee ming with what 

 w e now kjiow to be the earliest and simplest forms of ani mals and 

 plants , they foun ded their hypotheses as to the origin and success ion 

 of lif^ ^ . . . ./The spirit of the Greeks was vigorous and hopeful. 

 Nfl Lnausing to test their theories by resear ch, they did not suffer the 

 disappointments and delays which come from one's own efforts to 

 wrest truths from Nature." 



The Greeks were anticipators of Nature. The n- speculations o ut- 



stripped the facts; in fact were usually made with "eyes closed to the 



facts." (T heir theories were inextricably b ound up with curre nt 



m ytholo^ , were naive, vague, and, from our modern point of view, 



ridiculous; ye t they contained many grains of truth and were the 



ge rms out of which grew the saner ideas of subsequent think ers. 



■^ Thales (624-548 B.C .) w as the first of the Greeks to theoriz e about 



the origin of life. ' ' ijfi. looked upon the great expanse of mother ocean 



and decl ared water to be the mother from which all things arose, a nd 



out of whic h t hey^ ltT^ Thi s idea anticipates the modern id ea of 



V ' thejLC[uaticor ma rine originof l ife^and also the present idea as to the 



indispensability of water in all vital processes. j 



Anaximander (611-547 B.C.) has been called the prophet of 



Lamarck and of Darwin. While hi s theories were highly my thical |n 



c haracter, he conceived ihe idea of a gra d ual ev o lut i on from H i fornil^p 



o r chaotic condition to one of o rgarjir rnhprp.nr.e. He saw va guelv t4e 



idea of transformation of aquatic si)exies into t.p.rrp.<d.r^inlj even deriving 



man from aquatic fishlike men (mythical mermen) who were able to 



emerge from the water only alter they had undergone the necessary 



changes required for land life. T his idea involves that of a^ aplatJJ ^ . 



one of t he cornerstones of the modern e v"1utioriaTy f^t^''t';^t"J^- 



y An aximene s (588-524 B.C.), a pupil of Anaximander, " f ound in a ir 



/^ tlie _cause of all things. Air, taking the form of soul, imparts Life, 



motion, and thought to animals. " It is questionable whether tli is is a 



