A History of Science (Vol. 1-5). Edward Huntington Williams

reverence for the human body that the priests themselves were not permitted to make the abdominal incision which was a necessary preliminary of the process. This incision, as we are informed by both Herodotus(7) and Diodorus(8), was made by a special officer, whose status, if we may believe the explicit statement of Diodorus, was quite comparable to that of the modern hangman. The paraschistas, as he was called, having performed his necessary but obnoxious function, with the aid of a sharp Ethiopian stone, retired hastily, leaving the remaining processes to the priests. These, however, confined their observations to the abdominal viscera; under no consideration did they make other incisions in the body. It follows, therefore, that their opportunity for anatomical observations was most limited.

      Since even the necessary mutilation inflicted on the corpse was regarded with such horror, it follows that anything in the way of dissection for a less sacred purpose was absolutely prohibited. Probably the same prohibition extended to a large number of animals, since most of these were held sacred in one part of Egypt or another. Moreover, there is nothing in what we know of the Egyptian mind to suggest the probability that any Egyptian physician would make extensive anatomical observations for the love of pure knowledge. All Egyptian science is eminently practical. If we think of the Egyptian as mysterious, it is because of the superstitious observances that we everywhere associate with his daily acts; but these, as we have already tried to make clear, were really based on scientific observations of a kind, and the attempt at true inferences from these observations. But whether or not the Egyptian physician desired anatomical knowledge, the results of his inquiries were certainly most meagre. The essentials of his system had to do with a series of vessels, alleged to be twenty-two or twenty-four in number, which penetrated the head and were distributed in pairs to the various members of the body, and which were vaguely thought of as carriers of water, air, excretory fluids, etc. Yet back of this vagueness, as must not be overlooked, there was an all-essential recognition of the heart as the central vascular organ. The heart is called the beginning of all the members. Its vessels, we are told, "lead to all the members; whether the doctor lays his finger on the forehead, on the back of the head, on the hands, on the place of the stomach (?), on the arms, or on the feet, everywhere he meets with the heart, because its vessels lead to all the members."(9) This recognition of the pulse must be credited to the Egyptian physician as a piece of practical knowledge, in some measure off-setting the vagueness of his anatomical theories.

      ABSTRACT SCIENCE

      But, indeed, practical knowledge was, as has been said over and over, the essential characteristic of Egyptian science. Yet another illustration of this is furnished us if we turn to the more abstract departments of thought and inquire what were the Egyptian attempts in such a field as mathematics. The answer does not tend greatly to increase our admiration for the Egyptian mind. We are led to see, indeed, that the Egyptian merchant was able to perform all the computations necessary to his craft, but we are forced to conclude that the knowledge of numbers scarcely extended beyond this, and that even here the methods of reckoning were tedious and cumbersome. Our knowledge of the subject rests largely upon the so-called papyrus Rhind,(10) which is a sort of mythological hand-book of the ancient Egyptians. Analyzing this document, Professor Erman concludes that the knowledge of the Egyptians was adequate to all practical requirements. Their mathematics taught them "how in the exchange of bread for beer the respective value was to be determined when converted into a quantity of corn; how to reckon the size of a field; how to determine how a given quantity of corn would go into a granary of a certain size," and like every-day problems. Yet they were obliged to make some of their simple computations in a very roundabout way. It would appear, for example, that their mental arithmetic did not enable them to multiply by a number larger than two, and that they did not reach a clear conception of complex fractional numbers. They did, indeed, recognize that each part of an object divided into 10 pieces became 1/10 of that object; they even grasped the idea of ⅔ this being a conception easily visualized; but they apparently did not visualize such a conception as 3/10 except in the crude form of 1/10 plus 1/10 plus 1/10. Their entire idea of division seems defective. They viewed the subject from the more elementary stand-point of multiplication. Thus, in order to find out how many times 7 is contained in 77, an existing example shows that the numbers representing 1 times 7, 2 times 7, 4 times 7, 8 times 7 were set down successively and various experimental additions made to find out which sets of these numbers aggregated 77.

      —1 7

      —2 14

      —4 28

      —8 56

      A line before the first, second, and fourth of these numbers indicated that it is necessary to multiply 7 by 1 plus 2 plus 8—that is, by 11, in order to obtain 77; that is to say, 7 goes 11 times in 77. All this seems very cumbersome indeed, yet we must not overlook the fact that the process which goes on in our own minds in performing such a problem as this is precisely similar, except that we have learned to slur over certain of the intermediate steps with the aid of a memorized multiplication table. In the last analysis, division is only the obverse side of multiplication, and any one who has not learned his multiplication table is reduced to some such expedient as that of the Egyptian. Indeed, whenever we pass beyond the range of our memorized multiplication table-which for most of us ends with the twelves—the experimental character of the trial multiplication through which division is finally effected does not so greatly differ from the experimental efforts which the Egyptian was obliged to apply to smaller numbers.

      Despite his defective comprehension of fractions, the Egyptian was able to work out problems of relative complexity; for example, he could determine the answer of such a problem as this: a number together with its fifth part makes 21; what is the number? The process by which the Egyptian solved this problem seems very cumbersome to any one for whom a rudimentary knowledge of algebra makes it simple, yet the method which we employ differs only in that we are enabled, thanks to our hypothetical x, to make a short cut, and the essential fact must not be overlooked that the Egyptian reached a correct solution of the problem. With all due desire to give credit, however, the fact remains that the Egyptian was but a crude mathematician. Here, as elsewhere, it is impossible to admire him for any high development of theoretical science. First, last, and all the time, he was practical, and there is nothing to show that the thought of science for its own sake, for the mere love of knowing, ever entered his head.

      In general, then, we must admit that the Egyptian had not progressed far in the hard way of abstract thinking. He worshipped everything about him because he feared the result of failing to do so. He embalmed the dead lest the spirit of the neglected one might come to torment him. Eye-minded as he was, he came to have an artistic sense, to love decorative effects. But he let these always take precedence over his sense of truth; as, for example, when he modified his lists of kings at Abydos to fit the space which the architect had left to be filled; he had no historical sense to show to him that truth should take precedence over mere decoration. And everywhere he lived in the same happy-go-lucky way. He loved personal ease, the pleasures of the table, the luxuries of life, games, recreations, festivals. He took no heed for the morrow, except as the morrow might minister to his personal needs. Essentially a sensual being, he scarcely conceived the meaning of the intellectual life in the modern sense of the term. He had perforce learned some things about astronomy, because these were necessary to his worship of the gods; about practical medicine, because this ministered to his material needs; about practical arithmetic, because this aided him in every-day affairs. The bare rudiments of an historical science may be said to be crudely outlined in his defective lists of kings. But beyond this he did not go. Science as science, and for its own sake, was unknown to him. He had gods for all material functions, and festivals in honor of every god; but there was no goddess of mere wisdom in his pantheon. The conception of Minerva was reserved for the creative genius of another people.

      III. SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

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      Throughout classical antiquity Egyptian science was famous. We know that Plato spent some years in Egypt in the hope of penetrating the alleged mysteries of its fabled learning; and the story of the Egyptian priest who patronizingly assured Solon that the Greeks were but babes was quoted everywhere without disapproval.