A crucial philosophical change occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the perspectives of the new mechanical age replaced the organic view of nature. Marjorie Nicolson has called this transition the “death of the Earth,” meaning that the Earth was no longer regarded as an animate creature, but as a vast machine. This change in perception was primarily a result of the new physics of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, and new highly successful machines. Stars and planets moved like clockwork according to universal rules and the Earth itself obeyed these rules. To project its position and path through space only its current state need be known. New machines such as telescopes, improved clocks, and turbine wheels made such discoveries possible. The development of modern sciences, beginning with physics, led to a change in metaphors, but more profoundly to a change in explanation; from a belief in the Earth as an organism created by the Great Artist to a belief in the Earth as a magnificent machine invented by the Great Engineer.
The rise of the mechanical world view had several important consequences. First was the recognition of the power of the new laws of physics. Second was the rise of machines: the steam engine, the steam engine, the steam train, the sewing machine — the entire Industrial Revolution. The success of the machines and their ability to transform society and improve the standard of living reinforced the growing faith in the new sciences and the machine ideal. Third, the mechanistic view offered a new kind of theological perspective. A perfectly working, idealized machine could be seen as the product of a perfect God. Thus we find the rise of the argument only too familiar to beginning students in philosophy, that the world is “like a clock,” not only a perfect machine, but a machine with a perfect maker. Finally, a mechanistic “nature” can also be re-engineers by us; from this point of view, we believe that we can tinker with nature and improve it, replace nature’s equivalent of a waterwheel with a turbine wheel. This is the other side of the coin of the mechanistic view, the side that has dominated much of our management of natural resources and the environment in the twentieth century.
The rise of the mechanical world view had several important consequences. First was the recognition of the power of the new laws of physics. Second was the rise of machines: the steam engine, the steam engine, the steam train, the sewing machine — the entire Industrial Revolution. The success of the machines and their ability to transform society and improve the standard of living reinforced the growing faith in the new sciences and the machine ideal. Third, the mechanistic view offered a new kind of theological perspective. A perfectly working, idealized machine could be seen as the product of a perfect God. Thus we find the rise of the argument only too familiar to beginning students in philosophy, that the world is “like a clock,” not only a perfect machine, but a machine with a perfect maker. Finally, a mechanistic “nature” can also be re-engineers by us; from this point of view, we believe that we can tinker with nature and improve it, replace nature’s equivalent of a waterwheel with a turbine wheel. This is the other side of the coin of the mechanistic view, the side that has dominated much of our management of natural resources and the environment in the twentieth century.