IN THE EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY. Q. 



tion and degree of organisation proper to their 

 race. Could survival of the fittest lead to 

 more than an imorovement of the breed, and 



J. ' 



eventually, perhaps, to a variation of the species ? 

 But are not variations prone to disappear, and a 

 recurrence to the original type ensue ? And what, 

 it may be asked, constitute favourable and what 

 injurious variations ? The acquisition, to answer the 

 question broadly, by one kind of animal of a struc- 

 ture or organ proper to another kind, though of 

 more perfect development, would not be a favourable 

 variation. For, as Lucretius himself admitted, 

 ; thence would rise vast monsters.' 



The idea of ' Natural Selection by Survival of 

 the Fittest ' is thus — as well as the first principles 

 of Evolution — clearly implied in the Epicurean 

 Philosophy. ' Of the multifarious beings formed by 

 the fortuitous concourse of atoms,' said Lucretius, 

 ' the fittest alone survived! ' Many races of regularly 

 organised creatures ' — to quote again from Monro's 

 excellent translation of Lucretius — ' must have died 

 off because they wanted some natural power by 

 which to protect themselves.' * * * ' These fell 

 a prey to others, and disappeared unable to endure 

 the struggle for existence! 



The ' Natural Selection ' theory, though thus 

 foreshadowed about 2000 years ago by Epicurus 

 and Lucretius, is now so associated with the name of 

 Mr. Charles Darwin — as is even the doctrine of 

 Evolution in general— that Evolutionists look up to 



