Acknowledgements

The final version of this essay was written in ten days, but the work on which it is based covers nearly 20 years. This would not have been possible without an extra ordinary amount of support. At the outset a doctoral fellowship from the Canada Council permitted me to work in London (1971-1975). This was followed by a senior Research Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust (1975-1977). The seven years of research at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel (1977-1984) saw a series of fellowships from the Volkswagen, A. Von Humboldt, Thyssen and Gerda Henkel Foundations. Next came a year at the Getty Centre for Art History and the Humanities (1986-1987), since which time there has again been support from the home base through a Canada Research Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (1987-1992). I am very grateful to these bodies both for their individual support and for the cumulative effects which their help has brought. I am grateful also to the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology in Victoria College at the University of Toronto, which has been my base for the past seven years.

Those who are not inclined to write by nature need encouragement and sometimes persuasion to arrange their material for a public audience. Hence I am thankful to the organizers of the 1981 conference in Milan, to Professor Dan Blickman who organized the three lectures at Brigham Young; Dr. Michael Sukale who was so kind in making arrangements for the six lectures at Alpbach and to Ing. De Toni for making possible this publication. I am deeply indebted to my friend Dr R. N. D. Martin who painstakingly read through the draft and helped transform a series of lectures into a statement.