Henry Smith Williams - A History of Science (volume 1)

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A HISTORY OF SCIENCE

BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, M.D., LL.D.

ASSISTED BY EDWARD H. WILLIAMS, M.D.

IN FIVE VOLUMES

VOLUME I.

THE BEGINNINGS OF SCIENCE

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A History of Science

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BOOK I.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. PREHISTORIC SCIENCE

CHAPTER II. EGYPTIAN SCIENCE

CHAPTER III. SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

CHAPTER IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALPHABET

CHAPTER V. THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK SCIENCE

CHAPTER VI. THE EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS IN ITALY

CHAPTER VII. GREEK SCIENCE IN THE EARLY ATTIC PERIOD

CHAPTER VIII. POST-SOCRATIC SCIENCE AT ATHENS

CHAPTER IX. GREEK SCIENCE OF THE ALEXANDRIAN OR HELLENISTIC

PERIOD

CHAPTER X. SCIENCE OF THE ROMAN PERIOD

CHAPTER XI. A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE AT CLASSICAL SCIENCE

APPENDIX

A History of Science

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A HISTORY OF SCIENCE

BOOK I

Should the story that is about to be unfolded be found to lack

interest, the writers must stand convicted of unpardonable lack

of art. Nothing but dulness in the telling could mar the story,

for in itself it is the record of the growth of those ideas that

have made our race and its civilization what they are; of ideas

instinct with human interest, vital with meaning for our race;

fundamental in their influence on human development; part and

parcel of the mechanism of human thought on the one hand, and of

practical civilization on the other. Such a phrase as

"fundamental principles" may seem at first thought a hard saying,

but the idea it implies is less repellent than the phrase itself,

for the fundamental principles in question are so closely linked

with the present interests of every one of us that they lie

within the grasp of every average man and woman--nay, of every

well-developed boy and girl. These principles are not merely the

stepping-stones to culture, the prerequisites of knowledge--they

are, in themselves, an essential part of the knowledge of every

cultivated person.

It is our task, not merely to show what these principles are, but

to point out how they have been discovered by our predecessors.

We shall trace the growth of these ideas from their first vague

beginnings. We shall see how vagueness of thought gave way to

precision; how a general truth, once grasped and formulated, was

found to be a stepping-stone to other truths. We shall see that

A History of Science

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there are no isolated facts, no isolated principles, in nature;

that each part of our story is linked by indissoluble bands with

that which goes before, and with that which comes after. For the

most part the discovery of this principle or that in a given

sequence is no accident. Galileo and Keppler must precede Newton.

Cuvier and Lyall must come before Darwin;--Which, after all, is

no more than saying that in our Temple of Science, as in any

other piece of architecture, the foundation must precede the

superstructure.

We shall best understand our story of the growth of science if we

think of each new principle as a stepping-stone which must fit

into its own particular niche; and if we reflect that the entire

structure of modern civilization would be different from what it

is, and less perfect than it is, had not that particular

stepping-stone been found and shaped and placed in position.

Taken as a whole, our stepping-stones lead us up and up towards

the alluring heights of an acropolis of knowledge, on which

stands the Temple of Modern Science. The story of the building of

this wonderful structure is in itself fascinating and beautiful.

I. PREHISTORIC SCIENCE

To speak of a prehistoric science may seem like a contradiction

of terms. The word prehistoric seems to imply barbarism, while

science, clearly enough, seems the outgrowth of civilization; but

A History of Science

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rightly considered, there is no contradiction. For, on the one

hand, man had ceased to be a barbarian long before the beginning

of what we call the historical period; and, on the other hand,

science, of a kind, is no less a precursor and a cause of

civilization than it is a consequent. To get this clearly in

mind, we must ask ourselves: What, then, is science? The word

runs glibly enough upon the tongue of our every-day speech, but

it is not often, perhaps, that they who use it habitually ask

themselves just what it means. Yet the answer is not difficult. A

little attention will show that science, as the word is commonly

used, implies these things: first, the gathering of knowledge

through observation; second, the classification of such

knowledge, and through this classification, the elaboration of

general ideas or principles. In the familiar definition of

Herbert Spencer, science is organized knowledge.

Now it is patent enough, at first glance, that the veriest savage

must have been an observer of the phenomena of nature. But it may

not be so obvious that he must also have been a classifier of his

observations--an organizer of knowledge. Yet the more we consider

the case, the more clear it will become that the two methods are

too closely linked together to be dissevered. To observe outside

phenomena is not more inherent in the nature of the mind than to

draw inferences from these phenomena. A deer passing through the

forest scents the ground and detects a certain odor. A sequence

of ideas is generated in the mind of the deer. Nothing in the

deer's experience can produce that odor but a wolf; therefore the

scientific inference is drawn that wolves have passed that way.

But it is a part of the deer's scientific knowledge, based on

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AHISTORYOFSCIENCEBYHENRYSMITHWILLIAMS,M.D.,LL.D.ASSISTEDBYEDWARDH.WILLIAMS,M.D.INFIVEVOLUMESVOLUMEI.THEBEGINNINGSOFSCIENCEGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.comAHistoryofScienceGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.com2BOOKI.CONTENTSCHAPTERI.PREHISTORICSCIENCECHAPTERII.EGYPTIANSCIENCECHAPTERIII.SCIENCEOFBABYLONI...

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Henry Smith Williams - A History of Science (volume 1)

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