Centralized state rationalization made the mechanistic cosmos intellectually appealing in France

Evidence

In France, the rise of the mechanical world view was coincident with a general tendency toward central governmental controls and the concentration of power in the hands of the royal ministers. The rationalization of administration and of the natural order was occurring simultaneously. Rational management in the social and economic spheres helps to explain the appeal of mechanism as a rational order created by a powerful sovereign deity. As Descartes wrote to Mersenne in 1630, “God sets up mathematical laws in nature as a king sets up laws in his kingdom.” — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 800

Categorization

• XREF: Mirror of the book’s core thesis that social/material context selects among cosmologies; ties to earlier ch4 claim ‘Social change selects among available ideas rather than dictating belief.’ — connects to: Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 141; The French Revolution prefigured later totalitarian society-building projects

Broader Connections

• Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 141
• The French Revolution prefigured later totalitarian society-building projects #complicates (0.72)