Sumner Maine has said, "Except the blind forces of Nature, 

 nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin," but 

 such a statement, even if it were intended so, cannot be accepted 

 literally. To the Greeks the Western world owes a debt it can 

 never pay, but the study of the origins of the different sciences 

 serves to show that other peoples than they had something to do in 

 helping mankind take its first wavering steps on the road of know- 

 ledge. 



Man's antiquity is measured not in centuries but in millenia, 

 and the beginnings of science are lost in dim and distant ages, 

 but, nevertheless, there is no doubt that long centuries had passed 

 before man had obtained a firm enough hold in the struggle for 

 existence to be able to consider reflectively the facts of his life. } 

 Unfortunately for th.e historian, many more centuries passed by, 

 before records were made and preserved, and to-day, he who would 

 understand the origin and early beginnings of science has before him 

 a very difficult, though intensely interesting, task. The task is 

 difficult, not only because of the paucity of the records that remain, 

 for we must believe that comparatively few have survived the 

 destructive acts of fire and flood, of monarchs and mobs, but even 

 more particularly because it is well-nigh impossible for us to divest 

 ourselves, in imagination, of our present knowledge, and to place 

 ourselves in the position of the early pioneers of science. And yet, 

 if this be not done, the early ventures of the race can neither be 

 understood nor appreciated. When modern science forgets or 

 neglects the history through which it has come, it is untrue to its 

 own principles and in danger, too, of misunderstanding its own 

 significance. 



Though many of the scientific pursuits, which engage men's 

 thought, can trace a long and ancient history, yet few, if 

 any, can lay claim to as early a beginning as the science, which, 

 to-day, is known as astronomy. Primitive man was compelled 

 to accommodate his acts to attacks of disease, to the fortunes 

 of war, and to the irregular changes of weather, but not less was he 

 forced to attend to the alternations of light and darkness, and of 

 heat and cold, and one of his earliest conclusions would, no doubt, 

 be that the sun was in some way connected with these varying 

 phenomena. This led to a search for other signs in the heaven, 



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