How and why did governments become involved in science during the period from about 1500-1800? Given that it was entirely fictional, what can Bacon's New Atlantis tell us about what appealed to governments about the developing sciences, and what they might have hoped to accomplish in them?
How does Compte think out understanding of the world has progressed from ancient times to his own day? How does this related to his idea of what science is? Brownie points if you can relate this to the role of the idea of "progress" in nineteenth-century scientific thought.