GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



of living things: pondering upon the first in- 

 choate material of them, and the moving 

 influences of warmth and moisture; then con- 

 sidering the reasons and manner of their growth 

 and sustenance, noting the features of their 

 structure. In the Homeric Epics, the fortunes 

 and fatalities of men and beasts were fre- 

 quently determined by the arbitrary will and 

 action of the gods. Such a pantheon could 

 have no place in the minds of men searching 

 for a plastic source and for operative causes 

 which should be constant and regular, depend- 

 able and even predictable, in their action. 

 With these men " the conception of Nature 

 replaced that of the gods as a basis of explana- 

 tion, (pvcTis was conceived as the source of the 

 manifold activities of the world." ^ 



These early philosophers, Pre-Socratics, as 

 they are called, had not analyzed causation 

 or distinguished one manner of cause from 

 another. That was left for Aristotle. They 

 had no distinct conception of final causes or 

 the purposeful adaptation of means to ends. 

 "Lucky for them!" many of us moderns 

 might remark. Nevertheless, to them. Nature, 

 the source of things if one will, seemed to con- 

 tain the moving principles which issued in the 



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