ABSTRACT
There are new thoughts come streaming to the people from afar, so quick, fleeting, and difficult to remember, that they are comparable to nothing so much as the intense and rapidly succeeding visions of a gorgeous dream. Drawing on Max Weber’s notion of the ‘Puritan ethic’, Robert K. Merton, writing in the 1930s, attributed the rise of science in seventeenth-century Britain to the values imparted by Protestantism. Churches arise at different epochs, calling themselves Christian. They build temples and cathedrals, and wed themselves to the most powerful dynasties of the earth. The discovery and evolution of great law of nature, however, can only generally take place through the united agency and exertions of numerous thinkers, all inspired by the same form of faith. Printing, watch and clock making, and a long list of most useful and ingenious arts, all originated in Germany, and there they are still cultivated with an energy and perseverance becoming the high character of her people.
