2 Dana — American Journal of Science, 1818-1918. 



used to their full extent the twin methods of observation 

 and experiment. In cases too numerous to mention they 

 have given us first, a tentative hypothesis ; then, through 

 the testing and correcting of the hypothesis by newly 

 acquired data, an accepted theory has been arrived at; 

 finally, by the same means carried further has been 

 established one of nature 's laws. 



Early Science. — Looking far back into the past, it 

 seems surprising that science should have had so late a 

 growth, but the wonderful record of man's genius in the 

 monuments he erected and in architectural remains 

 shows that the working of the human mind found expres- 

 sion first in art and further man also turned to litera- 

 ture. So far as man's thought was constructive, the 

 early results were systems of philosophy, and explana- 

 tions of the order of things as seen from within, not as 

 shown by nature herself. We date the real beginning of 

 science with the Greeks, but it was the century that pre- 

 ceded Aristotle that saw the building of the Parthenon 

 and the sculptures of Phidias. Even the great Aristotle 

 himself (384-322 B. C.) though he is sometimes called the 

 "founder of natural history/ ' was justly accused by 

 Lord Bacon many centuries later of having formed his 

 theories first and then to have forced the facts to agree 

 with them. 



The bringing together of facts through observation 

 alone began, to be sure, very early, for it was the motion 

 of the sun, moon, and stars and the relation of the earth 

 to them that first excited interest, and, especially in the 

 countries of the East, led to the accumulation of data as 

 to the motion of the planets, of comets and the occur- 

 rence of eclipses. But there was no coordination of 

 these facts and they were so involved in man's super- 

 stition as to be of little value. In passing, however, it is 

 worthy of mention that the Chinese astronomical data 

 accumulated more than two thousand years before the 

 Christian era have in trained hands yielded results of no 

 small significance. 



Doubtless were full knowledge available as to the 

 science existing in the early civilizations, we should rate 

 it higher than we can at present, but it would probably 

 prove even then to have been developed from within, like 

 the philosophies of the Greeks, and with but minor 

 influence from nature herself. It is indeed remarkable 



