Poteat, W. L. Lucretius and the Evolution Idea (1901)

Poteat, W. L. Lucretius and the Evolution Idea / W. L. Poteat // The South Atlantic Quarterly. — 1901. — Vol. 1, no. 1. — P. 63–74.

Abstract:

In this article, William Louis Poteat explores the evolutionary anticipations found in the philosophical poem De Rerum Natura by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius. The author argues that Lucretius’s materialist perspective, which describes the development of life and the world through the movement and collision of atoms, contains concepts strikingly similar to modern evolutionary theory. Poteat highlights how Lucretius anticipated the idea of natural selection, even if in a primitive form, by suggesting that nature preserves only those organisms capable of sustaining their existence. The article aims to contextualize Lucretius not merely as a poet, but as a significant intellectual precursor to the biological theories of the 19th century.

Keywords: 

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, history of biology, evolutionary thought, materialism, atomism, William Louis Poteat, history of science.