EMPEDOCLES. 37 



Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475) g^^^ve the 

 impetus to this advance. He was so profoundly 

 impressed with the ceaseless revolutions in the 

 Universe that he saw in movement the universal 

 law. Everything was perpetually transposed into 

 new shapes. It must not be supposed for a 

 moment that Heraclitus had even a remote notion 

 of the transformation process of life. He was 

 rather a metaphysician than a natural philosopher ; 

 and his principal contribution to the Evolution idea 

 was manifestly in his broad view of Nature, as 

 involved in perpetual changes, yet always consti- 

 tuting a uniform whole. > 



Empedocles of Agrigentum (495-435) took a 

 great stride beyond his predecessors, and .may 

 justly be called the father of the Evolution idea. 

 He was not only a poet and musician, but made 

 the first observations in Embryology which are 

 recorded. Among his first physical principles we 

 find the four elements — fire, air, water, an d eartji 

 — played upon by two ultimate forces, a combining 

 force, or love, and a separating force, or hate. He 

 believed in Abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation, 

 as the explanation of the origin of life, but that 

 Nature does not produce the lower and higher 

 forms simultaneously or without an effort. Plant 

 life came first, and animal life developed only after 

 a lono; series of trials. After the first formation of 

 the earth, and before it was surrounded by the sun, 

 plants arose, and from their budding forth came 



