PREFACE 



THOUGH there are many histories of the different 

 branches of science and of science itself, a general 

 survey of the progress of natural knowledge in its 

 relation to other fields of human thought seems not 

 previously to have been written. This attempt to 

 supply the need does not pretend to give a detailed 

 account of the growth of the various sciences. It is 

 evident that almost every section could be expanded 

 into a volume, and each chapter heading could 

 appropriately become the title for an exhaustive 

 treatise. We have deliberately constrained ourselves 

 to produce an outline, rather than the fuller study 

 towards which we were frequently tempted. We 

 have set out to tell in plain language the story of the 

 separation of science from the association with theology 

 and philosophy by which, of necessity, its origins were 

 beset. We have tried to recount the marvellous 

 extension of natural knowledge, following on the 

 liberation of science ; to trace and to justify the rise 

 of a mechanical theory of life, and to explain the 

 recent tendency once more to recognize its limitations. 

 Lastly, we have endeavoured to weigh the influence 

 which, in turn, science, now admittedly supreme within 



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