It will come as no surprise that the silencing of Duhem was undetaken by those who have subsequently led mankind into the simplistic quagmires of Scientism, where a blind faith in atomism as a unifying explanation of all reality now reigns supreme. Duhem dared to show that nothing was that simple. He also dared to imply that modern systems pretending to supply a philosophical coherence to such over-simplifications were at best irrelevant, at worst bunkum. But more, he dared to suggest that the mind, in being a repository of Common Sense, was best served by a philosophy which served that virtue without engaging the subject sciences directly, and indicated that we should re-examine the peripatetic methody, cleaned up of its ancient detritus and pagan theolog, which alone seems to allow the human intellect so to act.

Finally it should not be forgotten that Duhem stood, even when he was still unaware of the fact, against pagan Greece and ancient atomism, nothing less; nor should it be lost to us that had modern paganism not also swept away the philosophy that might have limited its wilder excess, such a fish-fowl of science and metaphysics, could never have developed such power to distort science in the first place.

For those who have picked up prejudices against the name of Pierre Duhem, the following must surely provide a timely caution …there are no doubt many paths we must retrace in order to correct our present follies at source. We could do worse than follow the thread back to Duhem and turn of the century France.