90 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



guished human anatomists of the time before 

 Galen. 



Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) 



The only writer of the third or post-Aris- 

 totelian period of Greek philosophy who con- 

 cerns us here is Epicurus, founder of the Epi- 

 curean materialistic school, of which Lucretius 

 was a follower. 



Epicurus' chief interest in philosophy w^as to 

 establish the principle of natural versus that of 

 supernatural causation, to combat the argument 

 of teleology or Design. He originated nothing in 

 Evolution, but gathered from Empedocles and 

 Democritus arguments in support of the princi- 

 ple of natural law. Zeller observes as his char- 

 acteristic that he was totally lacking in the 

 scientific spirit which could qualify him as an 

 investigator. His main animus was to combat the 

 supernatural from every side, yet he was unable 

 to direct his followers to any naturalistic expla- 

 nation of value, giving them rather free rein in 

 the choice of the most groundless hypotheses. 



As for the general conception that the pur- 

 poseful may arise by selection or survival from 

 the unpurposeful, which is credited to Epicu- 

 reanism by some modern writers, this conception 

 belongs primarily to Aristotle, who, as we have 

 seen, formulated the crude myth of Empedocles 



