The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5), by
Henry Smith Williams

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Title: A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5)

Author: Henry Smith Williams

Release Date: April, 1999 [Etext #1705]
Posting Date: November 17, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF SCIENCE, V1 ***

Produced by Charles Keller

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

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

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,