AMONG THE GREEKS 93 



Would haunt with varying offspring tilth and waste ; 

 Nor would the same fruits keep their olden trees, 

 But each might grow from any stock or limb 

 By chance and change. Indeed, and were there not 

 For each its procreant atoms, could things have 

 Each its unalterable mother old? 

 But, since produced from fixed seeds are all. 

 Each birth goes forth upon the shores of light 

 From its own stuff, from its own primal bodies. 

 And all from all cannot become, because 

 In each resides a secret power its own. 



Lucretius followed ^schylus as the second 

 poet of Evolution. His De Rerum Natura resus- 

 citated the doctrines of Epicurus, and set them 

 in a far more favorable light, building up anew 

 the mechanical conception of Nature. Lucretius 

 was also familiar with Empedocles, and, as we 

 have seen, put his teachings into verse. Here, 

 again, is a difference of opinion between Lange 

 and Zeller. Lange refers to the end of the first 

 book, in which he claims that Lucretius briefly 

 announces the magnificent doctrine first pro- 

 posed by Empedocles, that all the adaptations to 

 be found in the universe and especially in organic 

 life are merely special cases of the infinite possi- 

 bilities of mechanical events. Thus Lucretius 

 says: 



Verily not by design do the first beginnings of 

 things station themselves each in his right place, oc- 



