AN INTKODUCTION TO THE 

 HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



CHAPTER I 



SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL NEEDS EGYPT AND 



BABYLONIA 



IF you consult encyclopedias and special works in 

 reference to the early history of any one of the sci- 

 ences, astronomy, geology, geometry, physiology, 

 logic, or political science, for example, you will find 

 strongly emphasized the part played by the Greeks 

 in the development of organized knowledge. Great, 

 indeed, as we shall see in the next chapter, are the 

 contributions to the growth of science of this highly 

 rational and speculative people. It must be conceded, 

 also, that the influence on Western science of civili- 

 zations earlier than theirs has come to us, to a con- 

 siderable extent at least, through the channels of 

 Greek literature. 



Nevertheless, if you seek the very origins of the 

 sciences, you will inevitably be drawn to the banks 

 of the Nile, and to the valleys of the Tigris and the 

 Euphrates. Here, in Egypt, in Assyria and Babylonia, 

 dwelt from very remote times nations whose genius 

 was practical and religious rather than intellectual 

 and theoretical, and whose mental life, therefore, was 

 more akin to our own than was the highly evolved 

 culture of the Greeks. Though more remote in time, 



