AMONG THE GREEKS 89 



In the cosmology of tlic Stoics we have tlie germ of 

 a monistic and pantheistic conception of evolution. 

 All things are said to be developed out of an original 

 being, which is at once material (fire) and spiritual 

 (the Deity), and in turn they will dissolve back into 

 this primordial source. . . . 



The Epicureans differed from the Stoics by 

 adopting a purely mechanical view of the world- 

 process. Their fundamental conception is that of 

 Democritus ; they seek to account for the formation 

 of the cosmos, with its order and regularity, by set- 

 ting out with the idea of an original (vertical) mo- 

 tion of the atoms, which somehow or other results in 

 movements towards and from one another. . . .^ 



Aristotle's teachings in zoology and botany 

 were continued by his pupils among the Peri- 

 patetics, Theophrastus and Preaxagoras, and by 

 their successors, Herophilus and Erasistratus. 

 Strato of Lampsacus developed a system of nat- 

 uralism but he rejected Aristotle's concept of an 

 original source of movement and life outside the 

 world of matter in favor of an internal principle. 

 Unfortunately, the greater part of the works 

 of Theophrastus, who was both botanist and 

 mineralogist, is lost; his History of Plants was 

 an attempt to supplement the History of Ani- 

 mals of his master. The last two members of this 

 school were physicians, who continued their stud- 

 ies in Alexandria and became the most distin- 



IP. Chalmers Mitchell: Evolution. Enc. Brit., vol. 10, p. 24. 



