ABSTRACT
A long-standing dispute exists over whether “puritanism” and, specifically, the period of “Puritan” rule (1640-1660) were particularly conducive to the growth and institutionalization of science in England. Since the 1930s, affirmative arguments have proffered three interpretations: (1) a direct and consciously desired causal relationship between puritanism and science; (2) a number of parallel intellectual approaches but an inadvertent effect rather than a conscious puritan effort to institutionalize science; and (3) certain social and economic, rather than intellectual, changes pushing forward an interest in natural philosophy at the time the Puritans gained power. The Puritan-science question thus also involves the debate over an internal or external history of science.
