Francis Preston Venable Quote

In attempting to discover traces of a science in earliest historic times, one must first disabuse his mind of the idea that he will find it in anything like the elaborated modern form in which he knows it. These natural sciences are the result of a long process of evolution, and the primal form will probably prove a very much disguised one.

A Short History of Chemistry, Part First (p. 1), D.C. Heath & Co. 1894