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History of evolutionary thoughtFurther information: History of evolutionary thought
The proposal that one type of animal could descend from an animal of another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander and Empedocles.[11][12] Such proposals survived into Roman times. The poet and philosopher Lucretius followed Empedocles in his masterwork De Rerum Natura.[13][14] In contrast to these materialistic views, Aristotle understood all natural things, not only living things, as being imperfect actualisations of different fixed natural possibilities, known as "forms", "ideas", or (in Latin translations) "species".[15][16] This was part of his teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in a divine cosmic order. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages, and were integrated into Christian learning, but Aristotle did not demand that real types of animals always corresponded one-for-one with exact metaphysical forms, and specifically gave examples of how new types of living things could come to be.[17]
In the 17th century the new method of modern science rejected Aristotle's approach, and sought explanations of natural phenomena in terms of physical laws which were the same for all visible things, and did not need to assume any fixed natural categories, nor any divine cosmic order. But this new approach was slow to take root in the biological sciences, which became the last bastion of the concept of fixed natural types. John Ray used one of the previously more general terms for fixed natural types, "species", to apply to animal and plant types, but he strictly identified each type of living thing as a species, and proposed that each species can be defined by the features that perpetuate themselves each generation.[18] These species were designed by God, but showing differences caused by local conditions. The biological classification introduced by
The proposal that one type of animal could descend from an animal of another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander and Empedocles.[11][12] Such proposals survived into Roman times. The poet and philosopher Lucretius followed Empedocles in his masterwork De Rerum Natura.[13][14] In contrast to these materialistic views, Aristotle understood all natural things, not only living things, as being imperfect actualisations of different fixed natural possibilities, known as "forms", "ideas", or (in Latin translations) "species".[15][16] This was part of his teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in a divine cosmic order. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages, and were integrated into Christian learning, but Aristotle did not demand that real types of animals always corresponded one-for-one with exact metaphysical forms, and specifically gave examples of how new types of living things could come to be.[17]
In the 17th century the new method of modern science rejected Aristotle's approach, and sought explanations of natural phenomena in terms of physical laws which were the same for all visible things, and did not need to assume any fixed natural categories, nor any divine cosmic order. But this new approach was slow to take root in the biological sciences, which became the last bastion of the concept of fixed natural types. John Ray used one of the previously more general terms for fixed natural types, "species", to apply to animal and plant types, but he strictly identified each type of living thing as a species, and proposed that each species can be defined by the features that perpetuate themselves each generation.[18] These species were designed by God, but showing differences caused by local conditions. The biological classification introduced by