Bacon justified domination of nature as recovering man’s lost right from the Fall

Evidence

Much of Bacon’s program in the New Atlantis was meant to sanction just such manipulations, his whole objective being to recover man’s right over nature, lost in the Fall. … In order to control the ravages of wild tempestuous nature, Bacon set as one of the objectives of Salomon’s House the artificial control of the weather and its concomitant monsters and pestilences: “We have also great and spacious houses, where we imitate and demonstrate meteors, as snow, hail, rain, some artificial rains of bodies and not of water, thunder, lightnings, also generation of bodies in air, as frogs, flies, and diverse others.” — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 738

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off the ch44 claim ‘Bacon converted Eden’s divine punishment into a license for scientific dominion.’ — connects to: Bacon welded natural magic, mining, and patriarchy into an ethic of nature exploitation. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 656; Bacon classified nature as free, erring, or bound, justifying constraint of wayward matter — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 677; Bacon promised that mechanical arts would conquer and subdue nature — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 683 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Bacon grounded his entire philosophical project in achieving practical mastery over nature #expands (0.80) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1994