The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5), by
Henry Smith Williams
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Title: A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5)
Author: Henry Smith Williams
Release Date: April, 1999 [Etext #1706]
Posting Date: November 17, 2009
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF SCIENCE, V2 ***
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 II.
CONTENTS
BOOK II
CHAPTER I. SCIENCE IN THE DARK AGE
CHAPTER II. MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE AMONG THE ARABIANS
CHAPTER III. MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE IN THE WEST
CHAPTER IV. THE NEW COSMOLOGY--COPERNICUS TO KEPLER AND GALILEO
CHAPTER V. GALILEO AND THE NEW PHYSICS
CHAPTER VI. TWO PSEUDO-SCIENCES--ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY
CHAPTER VII. FROM PARACELSUS TO HARVEY
CHAPTER VIII. MEDICINE IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
CHAPTER IX. PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTISTS AND NEW INSTITUTIONS OF
LEARNING
CHAPTER X. THE SUCCESSORS OF GALILEO IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE
CHAPTER XI. NEWTON AND THE COMPOSITION OF LIGHT
CHAPTER XII. NEWTON AND THE LAW OF GRAVITATION
CHAPTER XIII. INSTRUMENTS OF PRECISION IN THE AGE OF NEWTON
CHAPTER XIV. PROGRESS IN ELECTRICITY FROM GILBERT AND VON
GUERICKE TO FRANKLIN
CHAPTER XV. NATURAL HISTORY TO THE TIME OF LINNAEUS
APPENDIX
A HISTORY OF SCIENCE
BOOK II. THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SCIENCE
The studies of the present book cover the progress of science from the
close of the Roman period in the fifth century A.D. to about the middle
of the eighteenth century. In tracing the course of events through so
long a period, a difficulty becomes prominent which everywhere besets
the historian in less degree--a difficulty due to the conflict between
the strictly chronological and the topical method of treatment. We must
hold as closely as possible to the actual sequence of events, since,
as already pointed out, one discovery leads on to another. But, on the
other hand, progressive steps are taken contemporaneously in the various
fields of
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