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,
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