CONTENTS 



CHAPTEB ^^^^ 



I. The Anticipation and Interpretation 



OF Nature 1 



Preliminary Survey— Outlines of the Whole Development from 

 the Greeks to Darwin— Evolution as a Law of Nature— The 

 Scientific Method of Interpretation— The Advance of Natu- 

 ral Philosophy— Advance of Geology, Zoology, Comparative 

 Anatomy and Palaeontology. 



II. Among the Greeks 39 



Conditions of Greek Thought— The Greek Perbds— lonians 

 and Eleatics: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes — 

 The Physicists: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, Anaxagoras 

 —Biological Tendencies of Early Greek Thought: Aeschylus- 

 Aristotle— The Post- Aristotelians: Epicurus. Lucretius, Pliny— 

 The Legacy of the Greeks to Later Evolution. 



III. The Evolution Idea among the Theo- 

 logians AND Natural Philosophers . . 103 



Prolonged Influence of Greek Philosophy on Theology— The 

 Fathers and Schoolmen: Gregory, Augustine, Erigena, Aquinas, 

 Roger Bacon— Arabic Science and Philosophy: Avicenna, 

 Avempace, Abubacer — Transition to the Literal Interpretation 

 of Genesis: Leonardo da Vinci, Bruno, Suarez— The Awakening 

 of Science— Influence of the Natural Philosophers: Francis 

 Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Lessing, Herder, Schelling. 



IV. The Evolutionists of the Eighteenth 

 Century ^^^ 



The Speculative Evolutionists: Duret, Kircher, de Maillet, de 

 Maupertuis, Diderot, Bonnet, Robinet, Oken— The Great Natu- 

 raUsts: Linnaeus, Buff on, Erasmus Darwin. 



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