It is not an easy thing for the historian to define science because throughout the ages it has been growing into an ever more sharpl; defined entity. ‘ if we require a definition that shall be applicable from the earliest period. of civilization to the present time, we may say that science in its widest sense is a systematic method of describing another controlling the material world
Earlier we had unwritten science and later recorded, e g the recipes and records of the Egyptians and Babylonians gave place to the theoretical and Philosophical science of the Greeks This dominate the world for ever 2000 years before it was rejected in the 17th century as philosophy was divorced from science ‘
Science can be understood in two ways. it can be seen as it stand at any moment, as a logical coherent account of that order which the scientist of the time finds in nature: and the man who wishes to us science or add to it can in fact get on well without knowing its History. ‘
It is not merely a coherent system here and now as it is also something that has grown and is growing and that as it .grow progressively,’ It affects man‘s life. Anything that grows and develop can only be understood by studying it historically. An organism, civilization must be studied in time and in so far as we cancer ourselves with science as something in progress, and as something that brings about changes in the institutions of mankind, so we must study it history.
