In this article I examine the historical background to Merton's formulation of the scientific ethos, especially in relation to his dissertation, published in 1938 as Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England. Here Merton outlined the so-called `Merton thesis', and I emphasize how both the content and the context of the monograph is related to his formulation of an `ethos of science' — introduced for the first time in 1938 in `Science and the Social Order'. Three different readings can, however, highlight different aspects of Merton's monograph, thus the article attempts to enrich the understanding both of the ethos of science and of Merton as a politically engaged social scientist by discussing `The Three Merton Theses'.
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