I THALES TO LUCRETIUS 13 



that aught can perish and be utterly destroyed.' 

 Therefore the ' roots ' or elements are eternal and 

 indestructible. They are acted upon by two forces, 

 which are also material, LOVE and STRIFE ; the one 

 a uniting agent, the other a disrupting agent. From 

 the four roots, thus operated upon, arise ' the colours 

 and forms ' of living things ; trees first, both male 

 and female, then fragmentary parts of animals, heads 

 without necks, and ' eyes that strayed up and down 

 in want of a forehead/ which, combined together, 

 produced monstrous forms. These, lacking power 

 to propagate, perished, and were replaced by 'whole- 

 natured ' but sexless ' forms ' which * arose from the 

 earth/ and which, as Strife gained the upper hand, 

 became male and female. Herein, amidst much 

 fantastic speculation, would appear to be the germ of 

 the modern theory that the unadapted become ex- 

 tinct, and that only the adapted survive. Nature 

 kills off her failures to make room for her successes. 

 Anaxagoras, who was a contemporary of Empe- 

 docles, interests us because he was the first philo- 

 sopher to repair to Athens, and the first sufferer 

 for truth's sake of whom we have record in Greek 

 annals. Because he taught that the sun was a red- 

 hot stone, and that the moon had plains and ravines 

 in it, he was put upon his trial, and but for the 

 influence of his friend, the famous Pericles, might 

 have suffered death. Speculations, however bold 

 they be, pass unheeded till they collide with the 

 popular creed, and, in thus attacking the gods, 

 attack a seemingly divinely settled order. Athens 

 then, and long after, while indifferent about natural 

 science, was, under the influence of the revival referred 



