The elements which go into the making of “modernity” may be seen … first … in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some historians attributed the change to the liberation of men's minds during the Renaissance and the Reformation. Today many historians would be more likely to stress the conservatism of these two movements … Their emphasis tends instead to fall on … “the Scientific Revolution.”

By this is meant above all the imaginative achievements associated with the names of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton … Within the space of a century and a half a revolution had occurred in the way in which men regarded the universe. Most of this was made possible by the application of mathematics to the problems of the natural world …

All this is by now well known … though many of the details are still to be worked out … What is not clear is how it all came about.