AMONG THE GREEKS 55 



embodied this world famous thought is found in 

 passages in Aristotle's Physics, in which he refers 

 to Empedocles as having first shown the possi- 

 bility of the origin of the fittest forms of life 

 through chance rather than through Design. 

 With Empedocles himself, however, it was no 

 more than the potential germ of suggestion, 

 which, in the brilliant mind of Aristotle, was 

 stated precisely in its modern form, as cited on 

 pages 74 and 85. 



Lange mistakenly attributes to Democritus a 

 similar 'Darwinian' interpretation of Empedo- 

 cles' teaching, namely, the "attainment of adap- 

 tations through the infinitely repeated play of 

 production and annihilation, in which finally that 

 alone survives which bears the guarantee of per- 

 sistence through its relatively fortuitous consti- 

 tution." But Zeller takes a sounder and more 

 conservative view of the real meaning of this old 

 philosopher of Agrigentum. He says this could 

 not have been advanced by Empedocles as an 

 explanation of design in Nature, because the 

 idea of design has not yet been formulated in the 

 Greek mind. 



Besides the 'Darwinian' notion cited by Aris- 

 totle from Empedocles there is a famous 'La- 

 marckian' passage in Empedocles which succes- 

 sively attracted the attention of Democritus, of 

 Plato, of Aristotle, and of Herbert Sj)encer ; it is 



