98 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



Pliny (23-79) 



Pliny, the next naturalist of note, was rather 

 a collector of anecdotes than an original ob- 

 server. He was the author of the Naturalis his- 

 toria, a voluminous work of one hundred and 

 sixty volumes, chiefly of compilation. He added 

 nothing to the evolution idea; as remarked by 

 John Edwin Sandys,^ "he had neither the tem- 

 perament for original investigation, nor the lei- 

 sure necessary for the purpose. It is obvious 

 that one who spent all his time in reading and in 

 writing, and in making excerpts from his prede- 

 cessors, had none left for mature and indepen- 

 dent thought, or for patient experimental obser- 

 vation of the phenomena of nature." 



The Legacy of the Greeks^ 



The first element in the legacy of the Greeks 

 was their scientific curiosity, their desire to find 

 a natural explanation for the origin and ex- 

 istence of all things, especially living things, and, 

 above all, man. This is by no means a universal 

 characteristic of the human mind, for we know 

 that many Oriental races are wholly devoid of it 

 and have made no scientific progress. The ground 

 motive in science is a high order of curiosity, led 



lEnc. Brit., vol. 21, p. 843. 



2Compare The Legacy of the Greeks, edited by R. W. Living- 

 stone, 1924, also Osborn: Man Rises to Parnassus. 



