Science

In most kinds of human activity the seventeenth century was, in the end, a time of failure. Hopeful revolutions were crushed; political and social ideals faded; intolerance and oppression flourished; hardly anything was done to mitigate disease and famine; where material resources increased, they were squandered in war. No other century until the twentieth produced so much deliberate destruction. But in one achievement these years are outstanding: the great barriers in human thought that held back the understanding of the material universe were decisively breached. The ‘Scientific ¹ Revolution’, a term that would have meant nothing to historians of the period a couple of generations ago, is now recognized as one of its most significant aspects. Those who reject the word ‘revolution’ in this context are usually concerned not to deny the achievements of the century but to stress that, for instance, Greece, medieval Europe, and the renaissance made impressive discoveries. None of them came anything like as close to an understanding of how factual information could be tested, quantified, and improved.