46 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



The Ionians and Eleatics (640-480 b. c.) 



Thales (640-546) and Anaximander, the 

 earliest Ionians, were students of astronomy and 

 of the origin of the universe. So far as we know, 

 they were the first who endeavored to substi- 

 tute a natural explanation of things for the old 

 myths. Thales was also the first of the long line 

 of natural philosophers who looked upon the 

 great expanse of mother ocean and declared 

 water to be the matter from which all things 

 arose, and out of which they exist. This idea of 

 the aquatic or marine origin of life, which is now 

 a very widely accepted theory, is therefore an 

 extremely ancient one. As has been said, it could 

 only have arisen in a country surrounded by 

 warm marine currents prodigal with shore and 

 deep sea life. 



Anaooimander (611-547 B.C.) 



Anaximander, the Milesian, is termed by 

 Haeckel the prophet of Kant and Laplace in 

 cosmogony, and of Lamarck and Darwin in biol- 

 ogy! His theories were still largely imbued with 

 mythology and the more closely we examine them 

 the less they seem to resemble modern ideas; if 

 we remove this superlative prophetic mantle, we 

 still find Anaximander imbued with a wealth of 



