14 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



to above, actively hostile to free thinking. The opinions 

 of Anaxagoras struck at the existence of the gods 

 and emptied Olympus. ., If the sky was but an air- 

 filled space, what became of Zeus ? if the sun was 

 only a fiery ball, what became of Apollo ? Mr. 

 Grote says (History of Greece, i. 466) that, ' in 

 the view of the early Greek, the description of the 

 sun, as given in a modern astronomical treatise, 

 would have appeared not merely absurd, but repul- 

 sive and impious ; even in later times, Anaxagoras 

 and other astronomers incurred the charge of blas- 

 phemy for dispersonifying Helios.' Of Socrates, 

 who was himself condemned to death for im- 

 piety in denying old gods and introducing new 

 ones, the same authority writes : ' Physics and 

 astronomy, in his opinion, belonged to the divine 

 class of phenomena, in which human research was 

 insane, fruitless, and impious.' So Demos and his 

 'betters' clung, as the majority still cling, to the 

 myths of their forefathers. They repaired to the 

 oracles; and watched for the will of the gods in 

 signs and omens. 



. In his philosophy Anaxagoras held that there 

 was a portion of everything in everything, and that 

 things are variously mixed in infinite numbers of 

 seeds, each after its kind. From these, through the 

 action of an external cause, called Nous, which also 

 is material, although the ' thinnest of all things and 

 the purest,' and ' has power over all things,' there 

 arose plants and animals. It is probable, as Pro- 

 fessor Burnet remarks, ' that Anaxagoras substituted 

 NOUS, still conceived as a body, for the LOVE and 

 STRIFE of Empedocles, simply because he wished 



