[6] Grote's "Plato," i, 10. I follow Mr. Grote in describing the hypothesis of the Pythagoreans. [7] Ibid. [8] Grote, iii, 290. [9] Ibid., 287, 288. [10] Grote, iii, 289. [11] It should be stated that the passage from Macaulay's writings here commented on was written and first published in 1840, before the speculations of the scientists who maintain the doctrines of evolution had attracted much attention, or been promulgated in their present shape. CHAPTER II. The Platonic Kosmos compared with the Darwinian theory of evolution. It is my purpose in this chapter to draw a parallel between the theory of the origin of different animals propounded in the "Timæus" of Plato and that of Mr. Darwin. The analogy between them has been briefly hinted by Mr. Grote, but he has not followed it out in detail, as it was no part of his object to make minute comparisons between any of the speculations of Plato and those of modern philosophers. The great English scholar and critic seems to regard it as somewhat uncertain how far Plato meant in the "Timæus" to have his description of the Kosmos stand as an expression of his own belief, or as a mere work of his imagination and fancy. Plato, we are told, and this is quite obvious, dealt but little with facts, while he dealt largely with theories. But, even as a pure work of the imagination, or as a philosophical epic, the daring conception of the Kosmos is wonderfully complete; and it will repay any one, who follows Mr. Grote in his analysis of it, to observe how Plato employs a process of degeneration to account for the formation of different species of animals, from the higher to the lower, by agencies that bear a strong resemblance to those which are assumed by Darwin to have worked in the opposite process of variation and natural selection, resulting in the evolution of a higher from a lower animal. But, in order to render this comparison intelligible, it is necessary to make an abstract of Plato's system of the Kosmos before adverting to the analogies between that system and the Darwinian theory. I follow, although I have greatly condensed, Mr. Grote's description of the Platonic Kosmos.