Table of Contents

Preface; Part I. Cosmogony: 1. The book of genesis; 2. Aristotle; 3. Aristarchus and Archimedes; 4. Copernicus; 5. Galileo Gallilei; 6. Newton; 7. Laplace; 8. Foucault, Stokes, Bunsen and Kirchhoff; 9. Einstein, Minkowski, Eddington. Relativity; Part II. Atomic Theory: 10. Lucretius; 11. Alchemy the parent of chemistry; 12. Lavoisier and the rise of modern chemistry; 13. Chemistry and the atomic theory; 14. The combination of gases; 15. Atoms and molecules; 16. The periodic law; 17. Electrochemistry; 18. The ionic dicclocation theory; 19. The electric properties of gases and the discovery of particles smaller than chemical atoms; 20. Positive rays and isotopes; 21. The nature of x-rays and the discovery of atomic numbers; 22. Radio-activity and the structure of the atom; Part III. The Theory of Evolution: 23. Aristotle; 24. The dark ages: Pliny; 25. Mediaeval allegories: physiologus; 26. Hooke: an early microscopist; 27. Species: the Linnaean system of classification; 28. New theories of evolution: Lamarck; 29. Evolution in geology: Lyell; 30. Organic chemistry: Wöhler; 31. Pasteur and the question of spontaneous generation; 32. The origin of species; 33. The laws of heredity: Mendel; 34. The chromosome theory of heredity; 35. Present progress; Index.

Promotional Information

This 1928 second edition of a 1924 original presents a series of extracts illustrating the development of scientific thought.