Mechanism killed the female world-soul by reducing nature to dead moving corpuscles

Evidence

The mechanists transformed the body of the world and its female soul, source of activity in the organic cosmos, into a mechanism of inert matter in motion, translated the world spirit into a corpuscular ether, purged individual spirits from nature, and transformed sympathies and antipathies into efficient causes. The resultant corpse was a mechanical system of dead corpuscles, set into motion by the Creator, so that each obeyed the law of inertia and moved only by external contact with another moving body. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 766

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the feminist reading that the female-soul removal is the gendered core of the death of nature, tying to the ecofeminist course thread. — connects to: Ecofeminism revalues a women-nature connection the west historically devalued to oppress women — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 60; The mechanistic worldview licensed exploitation of nature by rejecting the feminine as real. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 39; Neoplatonic cosmology retained a female world-soul as the source of natural motion — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 458 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The machine world view removed ethical scruples against destroying nature #corroborates (0.90) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 852
• Mechanism removed the moral barrier that had made controlling nature seem impious #corroborates (0.90) — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 419
• Nature’s figuration as submissive female gave scientific exploitation normative sanction #corroborates (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 755
• The mechanistic worldview sanctioned domination of both nature and women #corroborates (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 64
• Mechanical reproduction of beauty destroys the unconscious idolatry that made beauty vital #expands (0.75)