AMONG THE GREEKS 



Conditions of Greek Thought — The Greek Periods — The 

 lonians and Eleatics: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, 

 Xenophanes — The Physicists : Heraclitus, Empedocles, De- 

 mocritus, Anaxagoras — Biological Tendencies of Early 

 Greek Thought: ^schylus — Aristotle — The Post-Aristo- 

 telians: Epicurus, Lucretius, Pliny — The Legacy of the 

 Greeks to Later Evolution. 



NEVER has the influence of Nature upon 

 thought been more evident than in the phi- 

 losophy and natural history of the Greeks. 

 Whatever they may have drawn from the vague, 

 abstract notions of development and transfor- 

 mation of Asiatic philosophers they certainly re- 

 east into comparatively modern evolutionism. 

 No landlocked people could have put forth the 

 rich suggestions of natural law which came from 

 the long line of natural philosophers from Thales 

 to Aristotle. 



Their earliest known philosophy was a philoso- 

 phy of Nature, of the origin and causes of the 

 universe. As Zeller observes, they aimed directly 

 at a theory before considering the severe condi- 

 tions required for the attainment of scientific 

 knowledge. How, then, can we explain the near- 

 ness of their easy guesses at the secrets of Na- 

 ture to the results of modern labor? Only 



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