Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/488

 424 Four-footed Man :

reference to the myth is in Plato {Prot., 320 d) and Philemon (iv. 32 Mein.).

From this brief survey it will appear that the Greeks had no single "orthodox" belief as to the origin of the human species. But all that concerns us here is to note that in none of these popular or poetic conceptions is there any reference to man's past form or carriage as different from the present. We are therefore thrown back on the philosophers.

The nearest approach to modern ideas of evolution is the view of Anaximander that man was produced from a fish-like ancestor (see authorities in Ritter and Preller, 8th ed. 22). Prof. Myres (pp. 129 et seq.) does full justice to the '* almost Darwinian outlook " of Anaxi- mander, who realised that other animals soon get their own food, whereas man " needs long nursing," and could not have survived if he had been such as he now is (Ps.-Plut., Strom., 2). According to another account, " men were first produced inside fishes, were nourished like sharks (or ' mud-fish,' according as yaXeol or TrrjXaioi is read for the corrupt TraXaiol), and, when they could fend for themselves, were cast up and took to the land " (Plut., Syvip. Qtiaest., viii. 8. 4). We must observe, how- ever, that there is not a word to suggest any intermediate stage between the fish-man and man as we know him. When Prof. Myres remarks that "there was a stage in the evolution of man when he ceased to conform to the type even of the highest of marine animals," he seems to import more Darwinism into Anaximander than we have any right to assume. There is no evidence that Anaximander contemplated a gradual development ; he appears to have conceived of a single transition per saltuni from fish to man. In any case. Prof. Myres himself nowhere suggests that Anaximander thought of an ape-like man ; on the contrary, he adds, — " Only unacquaintance with the great apes of the tropical world,