approach to
a materialistic doctrine of evolution." What little knowledge I have
of the matter--chiefly derived from that very instructive book,
"Die Religion des Buddha," by C. F. Koeppen, supplemented by Hardy's
interesting works--leads me to think that Mr. Sully might have
spoken much more strongly as to the evolutionary character of Indian
philosophy, and especially of that of the Buddhists. But the question is
too large to be dealt with incidentally.

And, with respect to early Greek philosophy, [3] the seeker after
additional enlightenment need go no further than the same excellent
storehouse of information:--

The early Ionian physicists, including Thales,
Anaximander, and Anaximenes, seek to explain the world as
generated out of a primordial matter which is at the same time
the universal support of things. This substance is endowed with
a generative or transmutative force by virtue of which it passes
into a succession of forms. They thus resemble modern
evolutionists since they regard the world, with its infinite
variety of forms, as issuing from a simple mode of matter.

Further on, Mr. Sully remarks that "Heraclitus deserves a prominent
place in the history of the idea of evolution," and he states, with
perfect justice, that Heraclitus has foreshadowed some of the special
peculiarities of Mr. Darwin's views. It is indeed a very strange
circumstance that the philosophy of the great Ephesian more than
adumbrates the two doctrines which have played leading parts, the one
in the development of Christian dogma, the other in that of natural
science. The former is the conception of the Word {Greek text}[logos]
which took its Jewish shape in Alexandria, and its Christian form [4] in
that Gospel which is usually referred to an Ephesian source of some
five centuries later date; and the latter is that of the struggle for
existence. The saying that "strife is father and king of all" {Greek
text}[...], ascribed to Heraclitus, would be a not inappropriate motto
for the "Origin of Species."

I have referred only to Mr. Sully's article, because his authority is
quite sufficient for my purpose. But the consultation of any of the
more elaborate histories of Greek philosophy, such as the great work of
Zeller, for example, will only bring out the same fact into still more
striking prominence. I have professed no "minute acquaintance" with
either Indian or Greek philosophy, but I have taken a great de