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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 Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com A History 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 Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com 2 A History of Science 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-devel