EPICURUS. 



59 



pared both with Hippocrates (B.C. 460-377) and 

 with Aristotle, whose method of observation he 

 followed and applied to human anatomy. This 

 was the waning of the scientific movement under 

 Grecian influence. 



Let us now return to the successors of Democri 

 tus. The only writer of the Third or Post-Aris- 

 totelian Period of Greek Philosophy who concerns 

 us here is Epicurus. 



EPICURUS' (341-270) chief interest in philosophy 

 was to establish the principle of natural versus that 

 of supernatural causation. He originated nothing 

 in Evolution, but gathered from Empedocles and 

 Democritus arguments in support of the principle 

 of natural law. Zeller observes as his characteristic 

 that he was totally lacking in the scientific spirit 

 which could qualify him as an investigator. His 

 main animus was to combat the supernatural from 

 every side, yet he was unable to direct his followers 

 to any naturalistic explanation of value, giving them 

 rather free rein in the choice of the most ground- 

 less hypotheses. As for the general conception 

 that the purposeful could arise by selection or sur- 

 vival from the unpurposeful, which is credited to 

 Epicureanism by some modern writers, this con- 

 ception belongs primarily to Aristotle, who, as we 

 have seen, formulated the crude myth of Empedo- 

 cles into the language of modern science, with the 

 motive of clearly stating a possible explanation of 

 the origin of the purposeful in order to clearly 



