ST. THOMAS AQUINAS OVERCOMING AVERROËS 54 DR. GILBERT SHOWING HIS ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTS TO QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HER COURT 72 THE TICHONIC QUADRANT 88 WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD 104 SIR ISAAC NEWTON 112 JOHN DALTON COLLECTING MARSH GAS 162 THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL HEAVIER-THAN-AIR FLYING MACHINE 236 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE CHAPTER I SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL NEEDS--EGYPT AND BABYLONIA If you consult encyclopedias and special works in reference to the early history of any one of the sciences,--astronomy, geology, geometry, physiology, logic, or political science, for example,--you will find strongly emphasized the part played by the Greeks in the development of organized knowledge. Great, indeed, as we shall see in the next chapter, are the contributions to the growth of science of this highly rational and speculative people. It must be conceded, also, that the influence on Western science of civilizations earlier than theirs has come to us, to a considerable extent at least, through the channels of Greek literature. Nevertheless, if you seek the very origins of the sciences, you will inevitably be drawn to the banks of the Nile, and to the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Here, in Egypt, in Assyria and Babylonia, dwelt from very remote times nations whose genius was practical and religious rather than intellectual and theoretical, and whose mental life, therefore, was more akin to our own than was the highly evolved culture of the Greeks. Though more remote in time, the wisdom and practical knowledge of Thebes and Memphis, Nineveh and Babylon, are more readily comprehended by our minds than the difficult speculations of Athenian philosophy.