A History of Science, vol 2 | Page 3

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A History of Science, Volume 2, by Henry Smith Williams
Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software

A HISTORY OF SCIENCE BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, M.D.,
LL.D. ASSISTED BY EDWARD H. WILLIAMS, M.D.
IN FIVE VOLUMES VOLUME II.

CONTENTS
BOOK II

CHAPTER I
. SCIENCE IN THE DARK AGE

CHAPTER II
. MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE AMONG THE ARABIANS

CHAPTER III
. MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE IN THE WEST

CHAPTER IV
. THE NEW COSMOLOGY--COPERNICUS TO KEPLER AND
GALILEO

CHAPTER V

. GALILEO AND THE NEW PHYSICS

CHAPTER VI
. TWO PSEUDO-SCIENCES--ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY

CHAPTER VII
. FROM PARACELSUS TO HARVEY

CHAPTER VIII
. MEDICINE IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH
CENTURIES

CHAPTER IX
. PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTISTS AND NEW INSTITUTIONS OF
LEARNING

CHAPTER X
. THE SUCCESSORS OF GALILEO IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER XI
. NEWTON AND THE COMPOSITION OF LIGHT

CHAPTER XII
. NEWTON AND THE LAW OF GRAVITATION

CHAPTER XIII
. INSTRUMENTS OF PRECISION IN THE AGE OF NEWTON

CHAPTER XIV
. PROGRESS IN ELECTRICITY FROM GILBERT AND VON
GUERICKE TO FRANKLIN

CHAPTER XV
. NATURAL HISTORY TO THE TIME OF LINNAEUS
APPENDIX

A HISTORY OF SCIENCE
BOOK II
THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SCIENCE
The studies of the present book cover the progress of science from the
close of the Roman period in the fifth century A.D. to about the middle
of the eighteenth century. In tracing the course of events through so
long a period, a difficulty becomes prominent which everywhere besets
the historian in less degree--a difficulty due to the conflict between the
strictly chronological and the topical method of treatment. We must
hold as closely as possible to the actual sequence of events, since, as
already pointed out, one discovery leads on to another. But, on the
other hand, progressive steps are taken contemporaneously in the
various fields of science, and if we were to attempt to introduce these in
strict chronological order we should lose all sense of topical continuity.
Our method has been to adopt a compromise, following the course of a
single science in each great epoch to a convenient stopping-point, and
then turning back to bring forward the story of another science. Thus,
for example, we tell the story of Copernicus and Galileo, bringing the
record of cosmical and mechanical progress down to about the middle
of the seventeenth century, before turning back to take up the
physiological progress of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Once the
latter stream is entered, however, we follow it without interruption to
the time of Harvey and his contemporaries in the middle of the
seventeenth century, where we leave it to return to the field of
mechanics as exploited by