ABSTRACT
Looking back to the seventeenth century while preparing the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1787, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant saw it as the end of centuries of darkness. Suddenly, it seemed a new light had burst upon natural philosophers and illuminated the true methods of scientific inquiry. Certainly it is possible to see Kant’s bright light reflected in the work of such giants of this age as Galileo, Newton, and Harvey. And yet certainly deeper, darker, and more fundamental forces were at work during the age that witnessed the construction of modern experimental science. Although it is important to remember that the terms “science” and “scientist” were not in general use until the nineteenth century, a discussion of the scientific revolution and the establishment of scientific societies that stringently excludes these terms because they are anachronistic tends to become awkward and confusing.
