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

comparing merchandisersThe finale of Nature and Thomas Man and the Natural worldThe works of Carolyn Merchant and Keith Thomas pertain to the same subject progeny and even to the same time period. Nevertheless, in comparing their interpretations of the evidence and the manifestation of their arguments concerning the history of mankinds relationship with temperament in Tudor and Stuart England through and through the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, we find that they are quite different. Merchant presents us with a rather one-sided, retrospective attack on acquisition as the root of all environmental evil, composition Thomas offers a relatively neutral, prospective look at how the people of this time reacted to the ever-changing views of personality and what, exactly, caused these views 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 f ound in the early modern period, an date in which, Merchant says, nature was robbed by science of its right to vitality and spirit and became, effectively, a political machine. According to Merchant, in the early 16th cytosine with the rise of modern science and technology, mankinds view of nature as a living(a) being 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 ornament her point, none seems so warranted as that of Sir Francis Bacon, the father of modern science. We follow Bacon through Merchants book as one of the ringleaders of the movement to fit and de-spiritualize nature. The Baconian method, says Merchant, advocated power over nature through manual manipulation, technology, and... ...covery, he does show that, with new theological interpretations raising moral standards and with new scientific discovery, nature was, so to speak, given back some of its rights a s a living organism.While Thomas and Merchant argue different sides of the same coin, the twain authors do agree on one thing that, like the lyrics of a popular rock song, video killed the radio star, something new seems to have killed the thoroughgoing view of nature in the early modern period. But while Merchant stops there, pessimistically asserting that we have not go beyond the death of nature, Thomas believes that science, as opposed to being besides 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.