A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



Such an inquiry will, as it were, clear the ground for 

 our structure of science. It will show the plane of 

 knowledge on which historical investigation begins. 

 Incidentally, perhaps, it will reveal to us unsuspected 

 affinities between ourselves and our remote ancestor. 

 Without attempting anything like a full analysis, we 

 may note in passing, not merely what primitive man 

 knew, but what he did not know ; that at least a vague 

 notion may be gained of the field for scientific research 

 that lay open for historic man to cultivate. 



It must be understood that the knowledge of primi- 

 tive man, as we are about to outline it, is inferential. 

 We cannot trace the development of these principles, 

 much less can we say who discovered them. Some of 

 them, as already suggested, are man's heritage from 

 non-human ancestors. Others can only have been 

 grasped by him after he had reached a relatively high 

 stage of human development. But all the principles 

 here listed must surely have been parts of our primi- 

 tive ancestor's knowledge before those earliest days of 

 Egyptian and Babylonian civilization, the records of 

 which constitute our first introduction to the so-called 

 historical period. Taken somewhat in the order of 

 their probable discovery, the scientific ideas of primi- 

 tive man may be roughly listed as follows : 



i. Primitive man must have conceived that the 

 earth is flat and of limitless extent. By this it is not 

 meant to imply that he had a distinct conception of 

 infinity, but, for that matter, it cannot be said that 

 any one to-day has a conception of infinity that could 

 be called definite. But, reasoning from experience 



6 



