SPIRIT OF THE GREEKS. 3 1 



endeavoured to replace mythological by natural 

 phenomena. 



These pioneers contributed the spirit of the 

 second phase, seen in the naturalism of the pre- 

 Socratic period, suggesting Evolution, but neither 

 conceiving of Evolution by slow stages of develop- 

 ment nor seeking to explain Adaptation or Design 

 in their systems of natural causation. They could 

 not, in fact, speculate upon Design, as Zeller very 

 acutely observes in reply to Lange, until the idea 

 of Design as the result of a controlling Intelligence 

 had arisen, and this idea was first developed by 

 Anaxagoras, the last of the Physicists. He was 

 followed by Socrates, who enlarged the theistic 

 principle, which in the natural philosophy of Plato 

 and in the natural history of Aristotle, inspired 

 the third or teleological phase of thought. Then 

 came the fourth phase, which was a naturalistic 

 reaction to the novel and widely opposed mechani- 

 cal or materialistic conceptions of the Universe 

 developed by the Epicureans. 



