What did scientists think before they discovered cells as building blockings for all living things?

Question

What did scientists think before they discovered cells as building blockings for all living things?

Answer 1

Nothing.

Modern scientific method dates back to Charles Sanders Peirce's publication of  How to Make Our Ideas Clear in 1878, whereas the first observations of single-celled organisms and strands of cells in algae dates back to Antony van Leeuwenhoek's many experiments with making microscopes and describing what he saw in letters to the Royal Society of London in the 1600s. Therefore, what we now call by the term 'scientist' postdates the discovery of cells by about 2 centuries. Some argument can be made that the early origins of scientific method can be seen emerging in the 1600s at about the same time Leeuwenhoek was working. Either way, prior to the the discovery of cells, there was no modern scientific method, ergo no 'scientists.'

If you wish to include experimenters from earlier periods, records of investigation and experimentation of various sorts date at least back to the Early Egyptians and popular thinking on the nature of life basically ran riot through the millennia. One theory that I recall off hand is that there were four basic elements - earth, wind, fire, water - and that living things were made up of all four in varying ratios. There were plenty of other notions that held sway in various cultures and they are far too many to list here.