THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
two kinds of elements — the finer or active, and the coarser or passive. Formation or development goes on continuously, under the impulse of the formative principle, by whatever name it is known, until all is once more dissolved by the ekpyrosis into the fundamental principle, and the whole process begins over again. Their conception of the process as analogous to the development of the seed finds special expression in their term of logos spermatikos. In one point the Stoics differ essentially from Heraclitus. With them the whole process is accomplished according to certain ends indwelling in the Godhead, which is a provident, careful intelligence, while no providence is assumed in Heraclitus.
Empedocles asserts definitely that the sphairos,
as the full reconciliation of opposites, is opposed,
as the superior, to the individual beings brought
into existence by hatred, which are
, pecT" then once more united by love to ocles and ,, . , ,, . , ■
Do the primal essence, the interchange
ritus. °f world-periods thus continuing indefinitely. Development is to be found also in the atomistic philosopher Democritus ; in a purely mechanical manner without any purpose, bodies come into existence out of atoms, and ultimately entire worlds appear and disappear from and to eternity. Like his predecessors, Democritus, deduces organic beings from what is inorganic — moist earth or slime.
Development, as well as the process of becoming in general, was denied by the Eleatic philosophers.
„ _ Their doctrine, diametrically opposed
4. Plato .1 u .i ii
, to the older thoroughgoing evolu-
Aristotle tionism, had its influence in determining the acceptance of unchangeable ideas, or forms, by Plato and Aristotle. Though Plato reproduces the doctrine of Heraclitus as to the flux of all things in the phenomenal world, he denies any continuous change in the world of ideas. Change is permanent only in so far as the eternal forms stamp themselves upon individual objects. Though this, as a rule, takes place but imperfectly, the stubborn mass is so far affected that all works out as far as possible for the best. The demiurge willed that all should become as far as possible like himself; and so the world finally becomes beautiful and perfect. Here we have a development, though the principle which has the most real existence does not change; the forms, or archetypal ideas, remain eternally what they are.
In Aristotle also the forms are the real existences, working in matter but eternally remaining the same, at once the motive cause and the effectual end of all things. Here the idea of evolution is clearer than in Plato, especially for the physical world, which is wholly dominated by purpose. The transition from lifeless to living matter is a gradual one, so that the dividing-line between them is scarcely perceptible. Next to lifeless matter comes the vegetable kingdom, which seems, compared with the inorganic, to have life, but appears lifeless compared with the organic. The transition from plants to animals is again a gradual one. The lowest organisms originate from the primeval slime, or from animal differentiation; there is a continual
progression from simple, undeveloped types to the higher and more perfect. As the highest stage, the end and aim of the whole process, man appears' all lower forms are merely unsuccessful attempts to produce him. The ape is a transitional stage between man and other viviparous animals. If development has so important a work in Aristotle's physics, it is not less important in his metaphysics. The whole transition from potentiality to actuality (from dynamis to entelecheia) is nothing but a transition from the lower to the higher everything striving to assimilate itself to the absolutely perfect, to the Divine. Thus Aristotle, like Plato, regards the entire order of the universe as a sort of deification. But the part played in the development by the Godhead, the absolutelyimmaterial form, is less than that of the forms which operate in matter, since, being already everything, it is incapable of becoming anything else. Thus Aristotle, despite his evolutionistic notions, does not take the view of a thoroughgoing evolutionist as regards the universe; nor do the Neoplatonists, whose highest principle remains wholly unchanged, though all things emanate from it.
III. Medieval Views: No more absolutely than with Plato and Aristotle was the idea of evolution accepted by patristic and scholastic Augris- tneoi0gy anci philosophy, both on ac- Eriee ' a count °f the dualism which runs and Cusa. through them as an echo of the two great Greek masters, and on account of the generally accepted Christian theory of creation. However, evolution is not generally denied; and with Augustine (De civitate dei, xv. 1) it is taken as the basis for a philosophy of history. Erigena and some of his followers seem to teach a sort of evolution. The issue of finite beings from God is called analysis or resolutio, in contrast to the reversio, or deificatio, the return to God, who once more assimilates all things. God himself, although denominated — the beginning, middle, and end, all in all — remains unmixed in his own essence, transcendent though immanent in the world. The teaching of Nicholas of Cusa is similar to Erigena 's, though a certain amount of Pythagoreanism comes in here. The world exhibits explicitly what the Godhead implicitly contains; the world is an animated, ordered whole, in which God is everywhere present. Since God embraces all things in himself, he unites all opposites: he is the complicate omnium, contradictoriorum. The idea of evolution thus appears in Nicholas in a rather pantheistic form, but it is not logically carried out.
In spite of some obscurities in his conception of the world Giordano Bruno is a little clearer. According to him God is the immanent first eause in the universe; there is no difference be-
2" Bran*"10 tween matter and form; matter> which runo. inciucieg jn itself forms and ends, is
the source of all becoming and of all actuality. The infinite ether which fills infinite space conceals within itself the nucleus of all things, and they proceed from it according to determinate laws, yet in a teleological manner. Thus the worlds originate not by an arbitrary act, but by an inner necessity of the divine nature. They are