^; 



II. 



AMONG THE GREEKS. 



Die Griinder der griechischen Naturphilosophie im siebenten und sechsten 

 Jahrhundert vor Christus waren es, die zuerst diesen wahren Grundstein der 

 Erkennlniss legten und einen natiirlichen gemeinsamen Urgrund aller Dinge zu 

 erkennen suchten. — Haeckel. 



Never has the influence of Nature upon thought > 

 been more evident than in the philosophy and natu- 

 ral history of the Greeks. Whatever they may have 

 drawn from the vague, abstract notions of develop- 

 ment and transformation of Asiatic philosophers, 

 they certainly recast into comparatively modern 

 Evolutionism. No landlocked people could have 

 put forth the rich suggestions of natural law 

 which came from the long line of natural philoso- 

 phers from Thales to Aristotle. 



Their earliest known philosophy was a philosophy 

 of Nature, of the origin and causes of the Universe. 

 As Zeller observes, the y aim ed directl y a t a theory 

 befpre^considexLng the severe conditions required for 

 the attainment of scientific knowledge. How, then, 

 can we explain the nearness of their easy guesses 

 at the secrets of Nature to the results of modern 

 labor ? Only through this influence of the ' milieuX 

 of their physical surrounding upon their thought. ) 

 It is in the environment of the sea we find the 

 inspiration of Greek biological prophecy. Along 



29 



