THE ANTICIPATION AND INTER- 

 PRETATION OF NATURE 



Preliminary Survey — Outlines of the Whole Develop- 

 ment from the Greeks to Darwin — Evolution as a Law of 

 Nature — The Scientific Method of Interpretation — The 

 Advance of Natural Philosophy — Advance of Geology, 

 Zoology, Comparative Anatomy and Palaeontology. 



FRANCIS BACON in 1620 sagaciously dis- 

 tinguished between the anticipation and the 

 interpretation of Nature. Even the rash and 

 premature anticipations of Nature by the 

 Greeks, as well as by their successors, the *nat- 

 ural philosophers' of western Europe, have been 

 helpful in leading toward discovery and sounder 

 methods of thought. In the growth of the nu- 

 merous lesser ideas which have converged into 

 the central idea of the history of life by Evolu- 

 tion, we find ancient pedigrees for all that we 

 are likely to consider modern. Evolution has 

 reached its present fulness by slow additions in 

 twenty- four centuries. When the truths and ab- 

 surdities of Greek, mediaeval, and sixteenth to 

 nineteenth century speculation and observation 

 are brought together, it becomes clear that they 

 form a continuous whole, that the influences of 

 early upon later thought are greater than has 



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