The origins and evolution of modern science are problems of perennial fascination. In the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries the West witnessed a fundamental and decisive change in man's attitude to the world about him, which led him to abandon his ancient intellectual traditions in quest of a new philosophy of Nature. The intellectual ferment of the period yielded a sharper spirit of enquiry, and from it, painfully but triumphantly, emerged modern science and the modern scientific mind. This revolution, and the rapid growth of scientific knowledge that came as a consequence, are the subjects of this book. -- Book cover.