Bacon’s program required refuting Agrippa’s ethical strictures against manipulating nature

Evidence

Much of Bacon’s strategy in the New Atlantis was directed at removing ethical strictures against manipulative magic, of the sort found in Agrippa’s Vanity of Arts and Science (1530), a polemic probably written for Agrippa’s own self-protection, containing important arguments against transforming and altering nature. Just as Agricola had been obliged to refute Agrippa’s views on mining in order to liberate that activity from the ethical constrants imposed by ancient writers, so Bacon was obliged to refute the constraints against the manipulation of nature. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 735

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the Agricola refutation structure in ch13 — showing a recurring rhetorical pattern of liberating extractive activity from ancient ethical restraint. — connects to: Bacon’s utopia authorized the manipulation of living organisms for experimental gain — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 732

Broader Connections

• Bacon’s utopia authorized the manipulation of living organisms for experimental gain #corroborates (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 732