Abstract
IT is interesting, as Mr. Jevons says, to observe such traces as are to be found in history of theories more or less anticipating the principle of natural selection. But if the instance he cites from Maupertuis fairly represents the last century in this matter, it is chiefly of interest as showing what a little way it is possible to travel on certain roads in twenty-two centuries: for Aristotle discusses the same theory in his “Physics” (ii. 8), and appears to attribute it to Empedocles. “It may be a question,” he says, “whether physiological effects which seem to be due to final causes are not really accidental. An organism survived, we may suppose, if it happened to be as a whole constituted in a suitable manner; that is, in a manner in which it would have been constituted by design; organisms otherwise constituted perished and perish still, like the of Empedocles.” Now, except that his monsters are certainly not quite so monstrous, I do not see that the “Flattener of the Earth” gets beyond that. At any rate he lags behind Lucretius, who adopts the same theory of “discriminative destruction” (v. 837–877), but applies it, as Mr. Munro points out (on line 855), not merely to monsters but to “regularly organised creatures,” either nut so gifted as to protect themselves or not so valuable as to be protected by man.
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MONRO, C. Anticipations of Natural Philosophy: Aristotle. Nature 7, 402 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007402c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007402c0
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