History of science is a relatively young academic discipline in modern institutions of learning; the individual sciences have grown hypertrophically, leaped forward to magnificent achievements, but also into ever greater independence and isolation. Man has been unable to catch up with these breath-taking advances, to integrate them into a unified human consciousness, the essential condition for an unrestricted and wholesome participation in all the macro- and microcosmic processes on which man's entire life depends. So in recent times ever more people, including specialized scientists, have become aware of the need to trace the historical development of the sciences.

Too often, though, this branch of history is guided by a rigidified modern conception of its specific object: science, not as one of man's activities only, but as the abstract, superhuman force, pictured as the ever triumphant conqueror of ignorance throughout the ages. The result is, as we all know...