88 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



had accepted and refined Empedocles' crude 

 hypothesis of the survival of the fittest he would 

 have been a literal prophet of Darwinism. 



The Post- Aristotelians 



Thus we reach in this great natural philoso- 

 pher the highest biological level attained by the 

 Greeks, and we now pass to a rapid decline in 

 Greek scientific thought and productiveness until 

 its apparent extinction and subsequent revival 

 some centuries later. 



We notice a marked chasm between Aristotle's 

 theistic and dualistic teaching and the sceptical, 

 or rather agnostic and monistic, teaching of Epi- 

 curus. The Epicureans developed a mechanical 

 and anti-teleological conception of the universe, 

 but they did not advance the inquiry into natural 

 causation. The gap widened. The materialistic 

 and agnostic tendency of Empedocles, Democri- 

 tus, and Epicurus was revived by Lucretius, and 

 culminated in him for the time. The theistic ten- 

 dency of Aristotle led to his adoption by, and 

 great influence with, the philosophers of the early 

 Christian Church. In general, the movement of 

 free physical inquiry among the Greeks was 

 checked by the conquest of Alexander and the 

 loss of national independence. The interest in in- 

 vestigation into Nature, and speculation upon 

 the causes of things, subsided. Ethics rose among 

 the Stoics. 



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