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PREFACE 



iiviDED into two parts which are very different yet com- 

 plete each other, this Guide may attract and serve two 

 Kinds of readers; on the one hand, scientists and schol- 

 ars, on the other hand, historians of science. The first 

 and shorter part explains the purpose and meaning of 

 the history of science in the form of three lectures de- 

 hvered at various European universities; the second, 

 much longer part, is a bibliographic summary prepared 

 for the guidance of scholars interested in those studies. 

 The first part is meant to be read, the second to be 

 used as a tool. 



The lectures of the first part were originally thought 

 out at the request of the University of London, and they were first delivered in the 

 Anatomy Theatre of University College in March 1948. The University had invited 

 me twice previously but I had not been able to accept its flattering invitations more 

 promptly, because I could not leave the United States before the printing of the 

 third volume of my Introduction to the History of Science (Science and Learning 

 in the Fourteenth Century) was completed. Freedom to leave Cambridge was not 

 in sight -until the end of 1947. 



When a man has devoted the best part of his life to definite studies, he may be 

 forgiven if he interrupts his real work for a while in order to explain it to others. 

 It is for that reason that when the University of London invited me, I yielded to 

 the temptation. 



The problems dealt with in these London lectures were dealt with again in other 

 lectures delivered on the Continent. The ideas of the first lecture were discussed 

 in English before the Vlaamse Club of Brussels, and in French at the Institut d'his- 

 toire des sciences (Faculte des Lettres) of Paris; those of the second lecture were 

 explained in French at the University of Liege and at the College de France; those 

 of the third were summarized in French before the annual meeting of the Association 

 frangaise pour I'Avancement des Sciences in Geneva. 



As all my lectures, whether in English or in French, were dehvered with but a 

 minimum of written notes and recreated to some extent for each occasion, the text 

 which is printed below does not reproduce them except in a general way. The text 

 contains much less than the lectures, but also something more, and it differs from 

 each spoken lecture at least as much as each spoken lecture differed from the others 

 dealing with the same subject. 



To the lectures has been added a general bibhography meant to provide a kind 

 of vade mecum for students. The lectures try to explain tliat it is worth while to 

 study the history of science, and indeed that general history is utterly incomplete 

 if it be not focussed upon the development of science; the bibliography appended to 

 them gives the means of implementing the purpose which they advocate. 



The history of science is slowly coming into its own. Its study has been delayed 

 by administrators without imagination, and later it has been sidetracked and jeopard- 

 ized by other administrators having more imagination than knowledge, who mis- 

 understood the discipline, substituted something else in its place and intrusted the 

 study and teaching to scholars who were insufficiently prepared. Historians of 

 science must know science and history; the most perfect knowledge of the one is 

 insufficient without some understanding of the other. A historian of culture is not 



