Comparing Merchant’sThe Death of Nature and Thomas’ Man and the Natural

Comparing merchantsThe Death of Nature and doubting Thomas Man and the rude(a) WorldThe works of Carolyn Merchant and Keith Thomas pertain to the identical battlefield matter and even to the same magazine period. Nevertheless, in comparing their interpretations of the tell and the presentation of their arguments concerning the history of mankinds relationship with nature in Tudor and Stuart England through the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, we find that they are instead different. Merchant presents us with a rather one-sided, retrospective attack on science as the root of all environmental evil, while Thomas offers a relatively neutral, prospective look at how the people of this time reacted to the changing bring ins of nature and what, exactly, caused these fascinates to change.The theme running through Merchants book, The Death of Nature, is one of pessimism toward science. Her main argument is that the root of todays environmental problems can be found in the early current period, an era in which, Merchant says, nature was robbed by science of its in force(p) to life and spirit and became, effectively, a machine. According to Merchant, in the early sixteenth century with the rise of modern science and technology, mankinds view of nature as a living be changed and nature became a machine to be dominated, dismantled and its secrets discovered, no matter what the cost.Of the many examples Merchant uses to illustrate her point, none seems so warranted as that of Sir Francis Bacon, the father of modern science. We discover Bacon through Merchants book as one of the ringleaders of the effect to mechanize and de-spiritualize nature. The Baconian method, says Merchant, advocated power over nature through manual manipulation, technology, and... ...covery, he does imply that, with new theological interpretations raising moral standards and with new scientific discovery, nature was, so to speak, given back some of its rights as a living organism.Wh ile Thomas and Merchant argue different sides of the same coin, the two authors do agree on one thing that, deal the lyrics of a popular rock song, video killed the radio star, something new seems to deliver killed the organic view of nature in the early modern period. alone while Merchant stops there, pessimistically asserting that we have not moved beyond the death of nature, Thomas believes that science, as opposed to being merely an enemy of nature, actually resuscitated it, saving it from the earlier, anthropocentric view of Tudor and Stuart England. Works CitedMerchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature, Thomas, Keith. Man and the Natural World.