Page 367 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1668 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent
with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the
permanence and uniformity of natural laws—a thing which can never
be demonstrated. • Tyron Edwards (nineteenth century)

seems, the knowledge systems of foragers relied on the Mesopotamia and Egypt probably had contacts of some
hypothesis that reality was full of conscious and pur- kind with networks that extended from the Western
poseful beings of many different kinds, whose sometimes Mediterranean shores (and perhaps Neolithic Europe) to
eccentric behavior explained the unpredictability of the Sudan, northern India, and Central Asia, in what some
real world.Animism seems to have been widespread, and authors have described as the first world system.
perhaps universal, in small-scale foraging communities, Calendrical knowledge was particularly important to
and it is not unreasonable to treat the core ideas of ani- coordinate the agricultural activities, markets, and public
mism as an attempt to generalize about the nature of real- rituals of large and diverse populations.The earliest cal-
ity. But paleolithic knowledge systems shared more than endars distilled a single system of time reckoning from
this quality with modern science.There are good a priori many diverse local systems, and they did so by basing
reasons to suppose that paleolithic communities had time reckoning on universals such as the movements of
plenty of well-founded empirical knowledge about their the heavenly bodies. This may be why evidence of care-
environment, based on careful and sustained observa- ful astronomical observations appears in developed
tions over long periods of time. And modern anthro- Neolithic societies in Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica
pological studies of foraging communities have (whose calendars may have been the most accurate of all
demonstrated the remarkable range of precise knowledge in the agrarian era), and even in more remote environ-
that foragers may have of those aspects of their environ- ments such as England (as evidenced by Stonehenge) or
ment that are most significant to them, such as the habits Easter Island. The development of mathematics repre-
and potential uses of particular species of animals and sents a similar search for universally valid principles of
plants. Archaeological evidence has also yielded hints of calculation. It was stimulated in part by the building of
more systematic attempts to generalize about reality. In complex irrigation systems and large monumental struc-
Ukraine and eastern Europe engraved bones dating to as tures such as pyramids, as well as by the need to keep
early as thirty thousand years ago have been found that accurate records of stored goods. In Mesopotamia, a sex-
appear to record astronomical observations.All in all, the agesimal system of calculation was developed that
knowledge systems of foraging societies possessed many allowed complex mathematical manipulations including
of the theoretical and practical qualities we commonly the generation of squares and reciprocals.
associate with modern science. Nevertheless, it remains In the third and second millennia BCE, Eurasian net-
true that the science of foragers lacked the explanatory works of commercial and information exchanges reached
power and the universality of modern science—hardly further than ever before. By 2000 BCE, there existed trad-
surprising given the limited amount of information that ing cities in Central Asia that had contacts with
could accumulate within small communities and the Mesopotamia, northern India, and China, linking vast
small scale of the truth markets within which such ideas areas of Eurasia into loose networks of exchange. Late in
were tested. the first millennium BCE, goods and ideas began traveling
With the appearance of agricultural technologies that regularly from the Mediterranean to China and vice
could support larger, denser, and more varied communi- versa along what came to be known as the Silk Roads.
ties, information and ideas began to be exchanged within The scale of these exchange networks may help explain
networks incorporating millions rather than hundreds of the universalistic claims of religions of this era, such as
individuals, and a much greater diversity of experiences Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Christianity.
and ideas. By the time the first urban civilizations ap- The impact of these developments on knowledge sys-
peared, in Mesopotamia and Egypt late in the fourth mil- tems is easiest to see in the intellectual history of classi-
lennium BCE, networks of commercial and intellectual cal Greece. Here, perhaps for the first time in human
exchange already extended over large and diverse regions. history, knowledge systems acquired a new degree of