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Dr. Taylor's undertaking borders on the gigantic. More a vast and hurried panoramic view than a 'march' is this study, for in three hundred and ten pages the author has flown us through the entire span from the beginnings of science and the science of Greece through eastern, Arabic, medieval and the Renaissance through the rise of modern science; and in all too brief eighty pages he discusses what he calls the 'Age of Science', relating mostly to scientific progress since 1850.
The starting point of this erudite manuscript is a definition of natural science which is 'the grouping of well-tested observations into an ordered and intelligible scheme based on general principles or laws discovered from such observations and capable of being used to predict future phenomena'. The grouping of pure science includes physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and geology; engineering and medicine as the applied sciences and mathematics and logic are regarded as the instruments with which sciences are constructed. With this basic outline Dr. Taylor starts on his interesting journey through scientific eras.