350 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



Now that we are in a position to bring together 

 all the evidences of the continuity of evolution 

 thought, our difficulty lies in choosing the via 

 media between an overestimate and an underesti- 

 mate of the anticipation by the Greeks of modern 

 thought. First, we must not put the wine of mod- 

 ern discovery into the old bottles of the Greek 

 concepts. As we ascend from the 'formless 

 masses' of the thought of Empedocles to the full 

 concept of Evolution by Lamarck and into its 

 fuller expression by Charles Darwin, we must 

 ourselves look forward to the future time when 

 new and more intensive knowledge may render 

 the conceptions of Lamarck and Darwin as 

 youthful and immature as those of Empedocles 

 and Aristotle appear to us today. 



The idea of Evolution in the sense of progress 

 or advance of less perfect to more perfect living 

 organisms may have been rooted in the cosmic 

 'movement' of Heraclitus but it seems more 

 probable that it arose from the direct observation 

 and comparison of living organisms, including 

 man, since all the illustrations of the rudimen- 

 tary concept advanced by such authors as Em- 

 pedocles, Thales, Anaximander, and their fol- 

 lowers are drawn from life; they are, as far as 

 they go, scientific rather than philosophical or 

 metaphysical. They reveal the curious and in- 

 quiring scientific mind that is always seeking a 



