PREFACE 



In 1943 I was invited to accept the Hitchcock professorship 

 at the University of California. Tlie Hitchcock professor 

 is expected to give a course of public lectures, and the subject 

 selected was the development of science and its relation to the 

 history of society. These lectures have been expanded into 

 this book with the purpose of presenting the development of 

 modern science against the background of history. 



There is not room for a complete history of science in a 

 book of this type, but Chapters V, \^I, and VII are intended 

 to give an account of the gro^vth of ideas in the three major 

 sciences so that the reader can understand how the ideas of 

 modern science have developed. 



My thanks are due to many friends for criticism and assist- 

 ance and especially to Dr. John R. Baker, w^io w^rote Chapter 

 VII, The Growth of Biological Ideas, and w^hose criticism of 

 the w^hole manuscript as it progressed has been most valuable. 



Although the book is largely historical. Dr. Baker and I 

 are not professional historians of science. Dr. Baker is an 

 investigator in pure science, and I am a director of industrial 

 scientific research. It is hoped that our active participation 

 in the advance of science and technology has given us a view- 

 point that compensates for the lack of historical training. 



C. E. K. Mees 



Rochester, N. Y. 

 1946 



