172 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



thought, reflection, conscience, emotions, signs, ges- 

 tures, articulation, language, laws, and finally the 

 sciences and arts ; that millions of years have elapsed 

 during each of these phases of development, and that 

 there are still new developments to be taken which 

 are as yet unkno\\Ti to us. 



The hypothesis of Diderot does not imply his 

 advocacy of an 'internal perfecting tendency,' 

 for his particles do not arrange themselves in any 

 predetermined order. It is rather a form of the 

 survival of the fittest theory, applied not to entire 

 organisms but to the particles of which they are 

 composed. Blind and ceaseless trials, such as those 

 imagined by Empedocles, Democritus, and Lu- 

 cretius, are made by these particles, impelled by 

 their rude sensibility. As a sequel of many fail- 

 ures, finally a favorable combination is formed, 

 which persists until a recombination is rendered 

 necessary. 



I have met another passage by Diderot, which 

 Morley,^ not know^ing of Empedocles' hypothe- 

 sis of the survival of the fittest, speaks of as an 

 anticipation of a famous modern theory, refer- 

 ring of course to Darwin's 'natural selection.' 

 This is especially valuable because it affords an- 

 other conclusive proof that the idea of the 'sur- 

 vival of the fittest' must actually be traced back 

 to Empedocles, six centuries before Christ, as 



iMorley: Diderdt and the Encyclopcedists, 1878, vol. 1. 



