It is certainly true that artisans, technological advance, and the problems posed by
technology, were crucial to the scientific advances of the seventeenth century. In addition
to the practical and experimental skills and mentality that were fostered by being an
artisan, the experiments that underlay these advances depended on technological innovations
such as telescopes; and the role of artillery, for example, in posing problems
connected with the flight of projectiles, is well known. However, it will be assumed that these factors are not a sufficient explanation for scientific advance–they were after all
present in other cultures, such as China, which did not reach the same scientific level–and
that arriving at a correct metaphysics is related to, and important for, scientific
achievement.