12 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



"Homer was wrong in saying: 'Would that 

 strife might perish from among gods and men ! ' He 

 did not see that he was praying for the destruction 

 of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all 

 things would pass away." 



Flux or movement, says Heraclitus, is the all- 

 pervading law of things, and in the opposition of 

 forces, by which things are kept going, there is un- 

 derlying harmony. Still on the quest after the pri- 

 mary substance whose manifestations are so various, 

 he found it in Fire, since " the quantity of it in a 

 flame burning steadily appears to Remain the same; 

 the flames seems to be what we call a ' thing.' And 

 yet the substance of it is continually changing. It 

 is always passing away in smoke, and its place is 

 always being taken by fresh matter from the fuel 

 that feeds it. This is just what we want. If we re- 

 gard the world as an ' ever-living fire ' — ' this order, 

 which is the same in all things, and which no one 

 of gods or men has made ' — we can understand how 

 fire is always becoming all things, while all things 

 are always returning to it." And as is the world, so 

 is man, made up, Hke it, both soul and body, of the 

 fire, the water, and the earth. We are and are not 

 the same for two consecutive moments; " the fire in 

 us is perpetually becoming water, and the water 

 earth, but as the opposite process goes on simul- . 

 taneously we appear to remain the same." 



As speculation advanced, it became more and; 

 more applied to details, theories of the beginnings 



