134 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



These were original departures toward mod- 

 ern biology, in which these writers were thor- 

 oughly logical and sound and where they were 

 laying foundations for those observations which 

 finally led to the establishment of the evolution 

 theory. Yet it must not be inferred that the evo- 

 lution of life was a very prominent element in 

 their philosophy ; it was rather a by-product and 

 a matter of secondary interest. 



In the larger aspect of their teaching, namely, 

 in the broad question of Evolution itself as the 

 law of the universe, they found abundant inspi- 

 ration in Greek literature. Bacon did not put 

 forth a general evolution system of the universe ; 

 Descartes and Leibnitz, who were the first to do 

 so, drew from Greek poetry and philosophy, and 

 this is true also of all the later philosophers. Kant 

 and the later German philosophers drew not only 

 from these sources, but from suggestions found 

 in contemporary science, from Linnaeus and es- 

 pecially from Buffon. It is very probable also 

 that careful search among the earlier naturalists 

 would reveal an anticipation of some of the prob- 

 lems which are set forth in Bacon and Leibnitz. 



Their first great gift, as we have said, was in 

 establishing the right trend to observation ; their 

 second gift was the outcome of their battle for 

 the principle of natural causation versus super- 

 naturahsm. From Bacon to Kant, who, it is true, 



