EVOLUTION, 

 SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



h 



THALES TO LINNAEUS. 



"Early ideas/' says Herbert Spencer, "are 

 usually vague adumbrations of the truth/' and 

 however numerous may be the exceptions, this 

 was undoubtedly the case with the evolu- 

 tionary speculations of the ancient Greeks. 

 The greatness of that remarkable republic finds 

 one of its most striking manifestations in the 

 fact that so many great modern ideas trace 

 their ancestry back to Greece. Sir Henry 

 Maine, the historical jurist, said that, "except 

 the blind forces of nature, nothing moves that 

 is not Greek in its origin." Compared with her 

 dreamy oriental neighbors, Greece shone like a 

 meteor in a moonless night. As Professor 

 Burnet says, "They left off telling tales. They 

 gave up the hopeless task of describing what 

 was, when as yet there was nothing, and asked 

 instead what all things really are now,'' while 

 the Oriental shrunk from the search after 

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