Believing, as we think rightly, that Anaximander should be regarded as the earliest precursor of Darwin, it will be profitable for us at this point to examine the small collection of fragments which have survived, and which constitute the authentic sources of information in respect to his ideas of organic evolution. Notwithstanding these fragments are but five in number, they have not hitherto been searched out and brought together under one head in English form. Those desirous of consulting the original texts will find them collated in the indispensable works of Hermann Diels,[1] Bitter and Preller,[2] Fairbanks,[3] Mullach and others.
Original Sources Relating to the Evolutionary Doctrines of Anaximander.
Hippolyt. Philosoph., I., 6 (Dox. 660).—Primitive animals were derived from moisture evaporated by the sun. In the beginning man was of very different form than at present, and resembled a fish.
Ætius Plac, V., 19, 4 (Dox. 430).—Anaximander taught that the first animals were begotten in the water, and were covered with prickly integuments; on attaining sufficient age, they emerged upon the land, and, their coverings having burst, they soon changed their manner of life.
Plut. Symp., VIII., 8, 4 (Diels, Fragm. d. Vor-Sokrat., p. 20).—Wherefore they (the Syrians) reverence the fish as of the same origin and the same family as man, holding a more reasonable philosophy than that of Anaximander. For he declares, not that fishes and men were generated at the same time, but that at first men were engendered in the form of fishes; and that growing up as sharks[5] do till they were able to nourish themselves, they then came forth on dry ground.
Censorin. Dies Natal., 4, 7.—Anaximander of Miletus believed that either fish, or animals very like fish, sprang from heated earth and water, and that
- ↑ 'Doxographi Græci' (Berlin, 1879). Idem, 'Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Griechisch und Deutsch' (Berlin, 1903).
- ↑ 'Historia Philosophiæ Græcæ,' 8th ed. (Gotha, 1898).
- ↑ 'The First Philosophers of Greece' (London, 1898).
- ↑ An interesting commentary on the argument here presented, which is recognized as extremely important for the general theory of evolution, is to be found in N. M. Butler's essay: 'Anaximander on the Prolongation of Infancy in Man' ('Class. Stud, in honour of Henry Drisler,' New York, 1894).
- ↑ The reading of γαλεοἰ in place of παλαιοί is conjectural, but approved, nevertheless, by the best editors.
in following wise: "Der Verfasser geht in seinen Kombinationen oft zu weit: er sucht aus dem dürftigen Material zu viel herauszupressen und lässt in der Ausfüllung der Lücken der Ueberlieferung seiner Phantasie allzusehr die Zügel schiessen" (Jahresbe. Class. Altertumsw., Vol. CXVL, p. 33, 1903).
Moreover, as Dr. Alfred Gudeman has warned us in his interesting essay on 'Literary Frauds among the Greeks' ('Class. Stud, in honour of Henry Drisler,' 1894), much that appertains to the early doxographers is tainted with the suspicion of ungenuineness, or of later interpolation.
