A Popular History of Science (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Popular History of Science

Therefore, the work has features very different from those which might be expected in a history of graver pretensions. The general reader is here supplied with simple illustrations of laws and principles, and with ample details of experiments and observations, which illustra tions and details would in no wise be needed by the accom plished student. An expert in this or that branch of science might perhaps complain that we have not always brought into view those highly generalized conceptions of modern thought with whose value and importance he is familiar. But the highly general and abstract character which gives philosophic value to such conceptions render them unsuitable for' popular presentation, for they must ever remain unmean ing and unintelligible to minds not prepared for their recep tion by profound and systematic study. Without, however, assuming the possession on the part of the reader of other attainments than those possessed by the average schoolboy or schoolgirl, who has had the ordinary opportunities of witnessing experiments at popular lectures, we believe that it is possible.

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