The word 'revolution' first brings to mind violent upheavals in the state, but ideas of revolution in science, and of political revolution, are almost coeval. The word once meant only a revolving, a circular return to an origin, as when we speak of revolutions per minute or the revolution of the planets about the sun.

It is possible to argue that our present conception of revolution was staked out more securely in science than in political action.

As a political metaphor, a revolution could, in that sense, mean only a return to better times, or to the true constitution: a ridding of excess or usurpers.

Ian Hacking Quotes