Darwinian theory in the B.C.

In my reading for Ancient Greek Philosophy I came across an philosopher by the name of Empedocles that had a theory similar to Darwin's over a thousand years before!

Empodocles stated that:

[quotation not direct] "originally there must have been the strangest creatures - men with the heads of cattle, animals with branches like trees instead of limbs. But in the struggle for existence those less fitted for survival perished, and only those whose members happened to have come together in practical ways have survived."

That sounds a lot like Survival of the Fittest and Natural Selection to me. I just thought that it was interesting that a theory of natural selection came out as early as the ancient Greeks.

For comparison here is a general statement made by Darwin:

"...it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner, profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form."