INTRODUCTION 5 



science a pleasing line of descent, since the man of 

 science, like the magician, seeks to control the forces of 

 nature and recognizes that knowledge is power. As 

 Mr Cornford says, in his book From Religion to Philo- 

 sophy, " Science, with its practical impulse, is like 

 magic in attempting direct control over the world, 

 whereas religion interposes between desire and its end 

 an uncontrollable and unknowable factor the will of 

 a personal God. The perpetual, if unconscious, aim 

 of science is to avoid this circuit through the unknown, 

 and to substitute for religious representation, involving 

 this arbitrary factor, a closed system ruled throughout 

 by necessity." But whatever be the outcome of the 

 enquiries now being made by anthropologists and 

 archaeologists, it is yet too soon to attempt to trace 

 the origins of science in the dim regions of totemism. 

 We take up our tale when religion, still carrying, it is 

 true, signs of more archaic modes of thought, has 

 passed into the animistic or into the anthropomorphic 

 form. 



At the stage when we begin to recognize the germs 

 of science, knowledge is not differentiated into definite 

 branches. The priest is also the philosopher and the 

 physician. The first requisite for growth is the 

 recognition of the need for separation, and the fearless 

 pursuit of one branch of knowledge, unhindered by 

 the trammels of methods of thought foreign to the 

 spirit of that particular enquiry. At a much later 

 stage, it is possible that some of the separate streams 

 may once more converge in a higher unity, and each 

 help the other in pushing forward a joint flood of 

 knowledge. But, in the beginning, clear separation 

 is necessary. Hence the first sign of advance, whether 



