in spite of himself, he knew certain rudimentary principles of
science, even though he did not formulate them.

Let us inquire what some of these principles are. Such an inquiry
will, as it were, clear the ground for our structure of science.
It will show the plane of knowledge on which historical
investigation begins. Incidentally, perhaps, it will reveal to us
unsuspected affinities between ourselves and our remote ancestor.
Without attempting anything like a full analysis, we may note in
passing, not merely what primitive man knew, but what he did not
know; that at least a vague notion may be gained of the field for
scientific research that lay open for historic man to cultivate.


It must be understood that the knowledge of primitive man, as we
are about to outline it, is inferential. We cannot trace the
development of these principles, much less can we say who
discovered them. Some of them, as already suggested, are man's
heritage from non-human ancestors. Others can only have been
grasped by him after he had reached a relatively high stage of
human development. But all the principles here listed must surely
have been parts of our primitive ancestor's knowledge before
those earliest days of Egyptian and Babylonian civilization, the
records of which constitute our first introduction to the
so-called historical period. Taken somewhat in the order of their
probable discovery, the scientific ideas of primitive man may be
roughly listed as follows:

1. Primitive man must have conceived that the earth is flat and
of limitless extent. By this it is not meant to imply that he had