nally, we are led to infer, a harmonious aggregation of parts,
producing ultimately the perfected organisms that we see. Unfortunately
the preserved portions of the writings of Empedocles do not enlighten
us as to the precise way in which final evolution was supposed to be
effected; although the idea of endless experimentation until natural
selection resulted in survival of the fittest seems not far afield from
certain of the poetical assertions. Thus: "As divinity was mingled
yet more with divinity, these things (the various members) kept coming
together in whatever way each might chance." Again: "At one time all the
limbs which form the body united into one by love grew vigorously in the
prime of life; but yet at another time, separated by evil Strife, they
wander each in different directions along the breakers of the sea of
life. Just so is it with plants, and with fishes dwelling in watery
halls, and beasts whose lair is in the mountains, and birds borne on
wings."(17)

All this is poetry rather than science, yet such imaginings could come
only to one who was groping towards what we moderns should term an
evolutionary conception of the origins of organic life; and however
grotesque some of these expressions may appear, it must be admitted
that the morphological ideas of Empedocles, as above quoted, give the
Sicilian philosopher a secure place among the anticipators of the modern
evolutionist.

VII. GREEK SCIENCE IN THE EARLY ATTIC PERIOD

We have travelled rather far in our study of Greek science, and yet we
have not until now come to Greece itself. And even now, the men whose
names we are to consider were, for the most part, born in out-lying
portions of the empire; they differed from the others we have considered
only in the fact that they were drawn presently to the capital. The
change is due to a most interesting sequence of historical events. In
the day when Thales and his immediate successors taught in Miletus, when
the great men of the Italic school were in their prime, there was
no single undisputed Centre of Greek influence. The Greeks were a
disorganized company of petty nations, welded together chiefly by unity
of speech; but now, early in the fifth century B.C., occurred that
famous attack upon the Western world by the Persians under Darius and
his son and successor Xerxes. A few months of battling determined the
fate of the Western world. The Orientals were hurled back; the glorious
memories of