The Puritan as Scientist: The Right Use of Reason

The most famous “thesis” concerning Protestantism and modernity is undoubtedly that of the German sociologist and historian Max Weber (1864–1920). The “Weber thesis” has to do with the origins of modern capitalism and the Protestant ethic that gave economics its spiritual force. The Puritan plays a major role in Weber’s thesis, functioning as the mechanism for the original combination of pious fervor and practical sense. “The Puritan wanted to work in a calling,” concluded Weber. “We are forced to do so.” Weber’s thesis turns in part on the role of a Protestant and particularly Puritan conception of vocation. But it also turns on a popular, if largely mistaken, stereotype of the Puritan as dour and somber. Weber goes so far as to claim that “the English, Dutch, and American Puritans were characterized by the exact opposite of the joy of living.” 

Another contribution to this issue by Erik Matson explores the Puritan as entrepreneur. But the understanding of calling that Weber rightly understands as important but wrongly construes as joyless is significant not only for the development of modern economics but also for modern science. And here we must turn to another less-famous but perhaps no less influential thesis, the so-called “Merton thesis,” named for the American sociologist Robert K. Merton (1910–2003). Merton’s work, particularly in his 1938 essay “Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England,” argued for a positive connection between the piety and devotional life of Puritanism and the character of experimental science in the early modern period. 

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