Despite the commonalities between scientific practice and epistemic practices found everywhere, modern science does have distinctively Western features, the products of a very particular history. A first feature of this history was a legal revolution that allowed for the creation of semi-autonomous corporate entities, including universities and scientific societies. A second was a passion for quantification, which emerged from the commercial revolution in late medieval Europe. A third was the growth of philosophical scepticism, which was (in part) a response to challenges to religious authority. As a result of these developments, early modern science was characterized by an emphasis on mechanism, the practice of organized scepticism, and a separation between fact and value, the scope of science being thought of as merely ‘matters of fact’.