A Short History of Chemistry

In attempting to discover traces of a science in earliest historic times the first step is to disabuse the mind of the idea that they will find it in anything like the elaborated modern form in which they know it. These natural sciences are the result of a long process of evolution and the primal form will probably prove a very much disguised one. In most cases it is idle to speak of systematic science as existing among the ancients. Unquestionably there was knowledge of isolated scientific facts—here and there one may find a crude theory more justly to be styled a philosopher’s dream—but of system there was none.