ANAXIMANDER. 



35 



ever, the dim notion here of survival or persistence 

 throughout decidedly trying circumstances, which 

 was greatly developed later by Empedocles. In 

 the fragments of Anaximander's teachings we find 

 he does not speculate upon the origin of other land 

 animals, or intimate that he has any notion of the 

 development of higher from lower organisms, ex- 

 cept in the case of man. As to the origin of life 

 in the beginning, he was the first teacher of the 

 doctrine of Abiogenesis, believing that eels and 

 other aquatic forms are directly produced from life- 

 less matter. 



Grotesque as these ideas of Anaximander are, 

 they indicate a marked advance over the autochtho- 

 nous myths of earlier times, according to which 

 man grew, like a plant, directly out of the earth ; 

 for we find here an attempt to explain human 

 origin upon the basis of natural analogies. Unfor- 

 tunately, so little knowledge of Anaximander's work 

 is left us, that we can only obtain these vague 

 glimpses of his opinions. Axaximenes, his pupil 

 (588-524), found in air the cause of all things. Air, 

 taking the form of the soul, imparts life, motion,! 

 and thought to animals. He introduced the idea^ 

 of primordial terrestrial slime, a mixture of earth 

 and water, from which, under the influence of the 

 sun's heat, plants, animals, and human beings were 

 directly produced — in the abiogenetic fashion. 

 Diogenes of Apollonia (440- ), a late adherent 

 of the Ionian school, also derived both plants and 



