ABSTRACT
Knowledge which is a condition of the power to act had very modest beginnings. The body of knowledge was formed only very slowly; just as vegetable mould is formed by innumerable generations of fallen leaves, so the fertile ground on which the sciences were finally to bloom took centuries to form. The very little knowledge that was amassed appears to us to remain for ages buried under conjecture and error and fantastic notions which seem like the visions that haunt a sick bed. The scientific spirit which consists in considering as true only what can be demonstrated, a spirit which is not very prevalent even to-day, was conspicuously lacking in primitive man.
