Introduction: a glance at the history of science

It was a philosophical system that provoked one of the most powerful attacks on historical thinking to date, or at least the overemphasis on it. Friedrich Nietzsche's early essay on The Use and Abuse of History (1873–4) scorned the predominance of history in nineteenth-century German culture, as an unmistakable sign of decadence for which above all one man was responsible – Hegel, who identified reason in everything historical and for whom eventually the highest and final stage of the world process came together in his own Berlin existence. Nietzsche's attack continues to be illuminating even if we remove it from its original context. While dealing with modern science and scholarship, large parts of his essay can also be read as addressing the use and abuse of the history of science, a field in which the illusion of scientific progress and the aberration of historical thinking merge:

The history of science, with its more than occasional output of very big books, has not enjoyed a particularly good reputation among scientists.