PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



IT is not without some anxiety that I offer this little work 

 to the public, for it is, I believe, the rirst attempt which has 

 been made to treat the difficult subject of the History of 

 Science in a short and simple way. 1 



Its object is to place before young and unscientific 

 people those main discoveries of science which ought to be 

 known by every educated ' person, and at the same time to 

 impart a living interest to the whole, by associating with each 

 step in advance some history of the men who made it. 



During the many years that I enjoyed the privilege of 

 acting as secretary to the late Sir Charles Lyell, and was 

 thus brought in contact with many of the leading scientific 

 men of our day, I often felt very forcibly how many 

 important facts and generalisations of science, which are of 

 great value both in the formation of character and in giving 

 a true estimate of life and its conditions, are totally un- 

 known to the majority of otherwise well-educated persons. 



Great efforts are now being made to meet this difficulty, 



1 Mr. Baden Powell's excellent little ' History of Natural Philo- 

 sophy,' published in Lardner's 'Cyclopaedia' in 1834, is scarcely 

 intended for beginners, and does not extend farther than the seventeenth 

 century. This is the cxily work of the kind 1 have been able to find. 



