Bacon’s bureaucratic utopia mirrored the mechanical philosophy’s passive-inert universe

Evidence

Bacon’s mechanistic utopia was fully compatible with the mechanical philosophy of nature that developed during the seventeenth century. Mechanism divided nature into atomic particles, which, like the civil citizens of Bensalem, were passive and inert. Motion and change were externally caused: in nature, the ultimate source was God, the seventeenth century’s divine father, clockmaker, and engineer; in Bensalem, it was the patriarchal scientific administration of Salomon’s House. … The linear hierarchy of apprentices, novices, and scientists who passed along the observations, experimental results, and generalizations made the scientific method as mechanical as the operation of the universe itself. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 741

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the ch23 reading of mechanical social metaphors — patriarchy and mechanism map onto each other at both cosmic and social scale. — connects to: The organic utopias opposed Bacon’s exploitative science by observing and emulating nature — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 389; The organic cosmos gave way to a mechanical order where power meant active intervention — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 758; The mechanical worldview reduced environment from complex existence to mere material object — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 487 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The organic cosmos gave way to a mechanical order where power meant active intervention #expands (0.82) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 758
• The mechanical worldview reduced environment from complex existence to mere material object #corroborates (0.78) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 487