lO PIOI^EERS OF EVOLUTION. 



Ionian cities of Asia Minor, deserves, however, a 

 passing reference. He, with Parmenides and Zeno, 

 are the chief representatives of the Eleatic school, 

 so named from the city in southwestern Italy where 

 a Greek colony had settled. Then tendency of that 

 school was toward metaphysical theories. He was 

 the first known observer to detect the value of fos- 

 sils as evidences of the action of water, but his chief 

 claim to notice rests on the fact that, passing beyond 

 the purely physical speculations of the Ionian school, 

 he denied the idea of a primary substance, and theo- 

 rized about the nature and actions of superhuman 

 beings. Living at a time when there was a revival 

 of old and gross superstitions to which the vulgar 

 had recourse when fears of invasions arose', he dared 

 to attack the old and persistent ideas about the gods, 

 as in the following sentences from the fragments of 

 his writings: 



" Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods 

 all things that are a shame and a disgrace among 

 men, theft and adulteries and deception of one an- 

 other." 



" There never was nor will be a man who has 

 clear certainty as to what I say about the gods and 

 about all things; for even if he does chance to say 

 what is right, yet he himself does not know that it 

 is so. But all are free to guess." 



" Mortals think that the gods were born as they 

 are, and have senses and a voice and body like their 

 own. So the Ethiopians make their gods black and 



