xii PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1929 



D'Arcy Thompson, Charles Singer and other 

 commentators and translators for as full a reve- 

 lation of Greek biologic thought as is afforded by 

 the few fragments of classical literature still left 

 to us. 



In fact, this new edition of 1929 has involved 

 a profound restudy of the entire twenty-four- 

 century period of evolutionary thought. Many 

 entirely new lines have been traced in the long 

 lineage of Ideas; previously undiscovered antici- 

 pations of Darwinism, especially of the descent 

 of man, have been unearthed; the work of cer- 

 tain outstanding authors has been more fully and 

 critically examined. Goethe, for example, in the 

 hght that Bielschowsky's splendid memoir, "The 

 Life of Goethe," throws upon him, rises to very 

 high rank among the precursors of Darwin. Thus 

 in the thirty-five years intervening since the orig- 

 inal volume was published, I have myself dis- 

 covered many additional proofs that the evolu- 

 tion idea is in itself a product of twenty-four 

 centuries of evolution, a process of ascent, of am- 

 plification, and of clarification of great ideas and 

 principles at first only dimly perceived. In this 

 continuous ascent or development, men of gen- 

 ius, culminating with Darwin, now and then 

 struck an entirely new creative note. 



As an avocation and as a relief from my own 

 intensive and very difficult studies in seeking out 



