Searle, John R. - Mind, Language, and Society: Philosophy in the Real World

From the time of the scientific revolutions of the seventeenth century until the early decades of the twentieth, it was possible for an educated person to believe that he or she could come to know and understand the important things about how the universe works. From the Copernican Revolution, through Newtonian mechanics, the theory of electromagnetism, and Darwin's theory of evolution, the universe made a kind of sense, had a kind of intelligibility, and was becoming ever more accessible through the steadily increasing growth of knowledge and understanding.