22 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



created. This idea, besides its being unsupported 

 by any analogy we are acquainted with, ascribes a 

 greater continuity to organized matter than we can 

 readily admit. These embryons . . . must possess 

 a greater degree of minuteness than that which was 

 ascribed to the devils who tempted St. Anthony, of 

 whom twenty thousand were said to have been able 

 to dance a saraband on the point of a needle without 

 the least incommoding each other." 



Although no theistic element could be extracted 

 by the theologians of the early Christian Church 

 from the systems of Empedocles and Democritus, 

 thereby securing them a share in the influence exer- 

 cised by the great Stagirite, they were formative 

 powers in Greek philosophy, and, moreover, have 

 " come by their own " in these latter days. Their 

 chief representative in what is known as the Post- 

 Aristotelian period is Epicurus, who was bom at 

 Samos, 342 B. c. As with Zeno, the founder of the 

 Stoic school, his teaching has been perverted, so 

 that his name has become loosely identified with 

 indulgence in gross and sensual living. He saw 

 in pleasure the highest happiness, and therefore ad- 

 vocated the pursuit of pleasure to attain happiness, 

 but he did not thereby mean the pursuit of the un- 

 worthy. Rather did he counsel the following after 

 pure, high, and noble aims, whereby alone a man 

 could have peace of mind. It is not hard to see that 

 in the minds of men of low ideals the tendency to- 

 wards passivity which lurked in such teaching would 



