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Transcriber's note:
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(_italics_).
[Illustration: C. Darwin]
PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION FROM THALES TO HUXLEY
With an Intermediate Chapter on the Causes of Arrest of the Movement
by
EDWARD CLODD
President of the Folk-Lore Society
Author of the Childhood of the World,
The Story of Creation,
The Story of Primitive Man, etc.
With Portraits
New York
D. Appleton and Company
1897
Copyright, 1897,
by D. Appleton and Company.
To MY BELOVED
A. A. L.
WHOSE FELLOWSHIP AND HELP
HAVE SWEETENED LIFE.
PREFACE.
This book needs only brief introduction. It attempts to tell the story
of the origin of the Evolution idea in Ionia, and, after long arrest,
of the revival of that idea in modern times, when its profound and
permanent influence on thought in all directions, and, therefore, on
human relations and conduct, is apparent.
Between birth and revival there were the centuries of suspended
animation, when the nepenthe of dogma drugged the reason; the Church
teaching, and the laity mechanically accepting, the sufficiency of the
Scriptures and of the General Councils to decide on matters which lie
outside the domain of both. Hence the necessity for particularizing the
causes which actively arrested advance in knowledge for sixteen hundred
years.
In indicating the parts severally played in the Renascence of Evolution
by a small group of illustrious men, the writer, through the courtesy of
Mr. Herbert Spencer, has been permitted to see the original documents
which show that the theory of Evolution as a whole; i. e., as dealing
with the non-living, as well as with the living, contents of the
Universe, was formulated by Mr. Spencer in the year preceding the
publication of the Origin of Species.
ROSEMONT, TUFNELL PARK, LONDON, N.,
_14th December, 1896_.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
PAGE
PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION FROM THALES TO LUCRETIUS--B. C.
600-A. D. 50 1