Natural philosophy
From Wikinfo
Natural philosophy is the objective study of nature and the physical universe before the development of modern science.
In other words, all forms of science historically developed out of philosophy or more specifically natural philosophy. According to the history of science, basic science really did not become a true form of science until the second half of the 19th century.
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Natural_philosophy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
