582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



record, or only a very incomplete one ? If we say, the French character 

 is the product of French history, we mean one thing; if we say, M. 

 Martin wrote a French history or a history of the French, we mean 

 something quite different. This distinction is rarely ohserved with care. 



All knowledge, every fact as distinguished from opinion or belief, 

 may be classed under the head of science ; at any rate, it is difficult to 

 distinguish between them. There is a great deal of knowledge not in- 

 tellectually apprehended that is the result of experience or of instinct. 

 We are wont to employ the latter term to designate a capacity which we 

 can not further analyze. Most quadrupeds when thrown into deep 

 water swim as readily the first time as the twentieth, while man can not 

 swim until he has learned. We know that quadrupeds can swim, but 

 it is a question whether they know it. Is it proper to apply the term 

 Icnowledge to what is known without having been learned? Most 

 men as well as other animals learn by experience; the latter only to a 

 limited extent however. The most important discovery ever made by 

 man was the use of fire. How he made it we do not know. The Greek 

 myth of Prometheus, who is reputed to have stolen it from heaven, 

 points to a celestial origin, that is to a stroke of lightning. How highly 

 fire was prized in ancient times is demonstrated by the veneration ac- 

 corded to the Vestal virgins. They represented the last remnant of 

 paganism to give way before the advance of Christianity. Herodotus 

 relates that the sole survivor of the Lacedaemonians at the battle of 

 Thermopylae was so disgraced that " no Spartan would give him a light 

 to kindle his fire." In pioneer times the housewife was usually careful 

 to keep the fire on the hearth from going out in the summer when it was 

 not needed for warmth. In this respect civilized people usually exhibit 

 less ingenuity than savages. The practical use that could be made of 

 fire was without doubt the most important discovery made by prehis- 

 toric man; it is probable that his rise from the bestial stage began 

 with it. 



Buckle believed history to be the most popular branch of knowledge 

 and the one upon which most had been -written. If his opinion is cor- 

 rect it is due to the circumstance that it is hardly possible to deal with 

 any subject without viewing it to some extent historically. But he also 

 considered the most celebrated historians inferior to the most successful 

 cultivators of physical science. The comparison is unfair because the 

 subject matter is widely disparate. The cultivator of a physical science 

 works with his materials directly ; the historian indirectly. The former 

 is a good deal in the position of the magistrate who, when trying a case, 

 has his witnesses before him. He can examine and cross-examine until 

 he has ascertained the truth as nearly as possible. The latter is like 

 the same official who has to rely upon affidavits. He can not go behind 

 the returns, or if he does, he has to depend upon surmises and prob- 



