THE EARLY BIOLOGY 



world of plants and animals, and ruled within 

 or over them. These initial and controlling 

 forces might be conceived as utterly mechan- 

 ical, as in the later Atomic theory of Democ- 

 ritus. Yet some of the early Greeks, observ- 

 ing the obvious conformity of means to ends, at 

 least in animals, could not rest in the thought 

 of Nature as merely mechanical and without 

 purpose in its operation. Besides, plants and 

 animals were alive, and life could not really 

 be explained in terms of weight and impetus. 

 Since Nature was the source and fashioner of 

 living beings, Nature itself, or herself, might 

 in the end be thought of as alive. The con- 

 crete, vital, form-and-life-giving character of 

 Greek thinking could hardly keep from vital- 

 izing its concept of the great source and 

 mother of living things. Heraclitus had already 

 said that " Nature loves to hide," or " play at 

 hide-and-seek." When has she not been found 

 the cleverest of players at this game? 



So the early and the later Greeks touched 

 delicately on the living vitality and possibly 

 vague personality of Nature. If divine, Nature 

 was pantheistically so, and never to be moulded 

 to the sharp personality of an Homeric Zeus 

 or Apollo or Athena. 



[9] 



