14 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



ponent of Darwinism, who, in the 19th century, 

 declared the sponge to be a vegetable. 



Aristotle insisted on observation and experi- 

 ence as the foundation of knowledge. "We 

 must not accept a general principle from logic 

 only, but must prove its application to each 

 fact. For it is in facts we must seek general 

 principles, and these must always accord with 

 facts." He repudiated the idea of purpose in 

 nature, saying, "Jupiter rains not that corn may 

 be increased, but from necessity." He came 

 very near Von Mohl's protoplasm when he 

 said, "Germs should have been first produced, 

 and not immediately animals; and that soft 

 mass which first subsisted was the germ." 



Passing over the much misrepresented Epi- 

 curus we come two centuries later to the 

 illustrious Roman poet philosopher, Lucretius. 

 In this last century preceeding the Christian 

 era, Greece had fallen from her high estate and 

 become a Roman province. But while Rome 

 had annexed Greece, Greek learning had con- 

 quered the Roman mind. 



Lucretius in his poem, "The System of Na- 

 ture," expounds, with great force, the atomic 

 theory of his Greek forerunners. The first 

 anthropologist, he comes so near to Spencer 

 and Tylor that his ideas, and sometimes even 

 his sentences smack of the 19th century. "The 



