Empedocles and evolution!

"Parmenides had an enormous influence on the further development of philosophy. Most of the philosophers of the following two generations tried to find a way to reconcile his thesis that nothing comes into being nor passes away with the evidence presented to men by their senses. Empedocles of Acragas (mid-5th century) declared that  there are four material elements (he called them roots of everything) and two forces, love and hate, that did not come into being and would never pass away or increase or diminish. But the elements are constantly mixed with one another by love and again separated by hate. Thus, through mixture and decomposition composite things come into being and pass away. Because he conceived of love and hate as blind forces, Empedocles had to explain how through random motion living beings could emerge. This he achieved by means of  a somewhat crude anticipation of the theory of the survival of the fittest. In the process of mixture and decomposition the limbs and parts of various animals would be formed by chance. But they could not survive. Only when by chance they had come together in such a way that they were able to support and reproduce themselves would they survive. It was  in this way that the various species were produced and continued to exist."