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Science in the Gothic Era


Within their private chambers,

Dreamt of in solitude,

In hopes of attaining the truth,

The great men of God pursued,

An impulse for discovery, the Perpetuum Mobile;

A Machine which forever moves,

Independently, of the hand which

Creates;

Son of Man, you’ve

Brought about your very fate.


The book of god, had been written;

An author, for the book of nature,

Long awaited…


Apply the proper technics,

Nature, dissected, scrutinized

Through verifiable methods.

“The handmaid of theology,”

Is working with a new hypothesis;

Here turns, the clockwork of the universe,

As the laws of nature are discerned,

With the new instruments;

Spelling out the secrets, of

The Kingdom of Nature,

Ever so subtly, dethroning the maker.

The churchman adopts the wheel and the pulley;

The handmaid becomes the servant of scientific experimentation;

The Divine is superseded by a superior invocation:

The totam mundi machinam (whole machine of the universe.)



‘Let us not deceive ourselves:’

The ‘whole machine of the universe’

First emerged, as far back as Greek Antiquity;

If only in the form of Aristotle’s God:

The unmoved mover, the first

Cause.

A tragic irony, hitherto unthought;

Western man, fulfilling his scholastic dreams!

The likes of which, religious men could Never have foreseen!

These Devout monks of the Gothic Epoch:

Petrus Peregrinus, Albertus Magnus,

Roger Bacon;

Developing experimental methods,

Undermining God: the unforeseen consequences.

But, who could turn back time?

Out of the Gothic, lies the Hidden

Demise,

When Modern science invariably arrives.



What is the animating force,

Behind these tendencies?

The figure of Faust.

A tragic Promethean, with the

Will to infinity.

The spell of Faust, Once

Peculiar to the Occident,

Now, reaches over to the Orient;

The great machine is set in motion.

Men of the Gothic church, designed

The clockwork;

Fatalistically we approach the closing

Moments.

Mock religions are created, as

Attempts to take the former place,

Of the venerable traditions;

Whilst the world cities eclipse

The countryside,

Whilst the world of history

Is relegated to revisions,

The single person is dwarfed by

The confusion.

Why not turn to new superstitions?

Allow technics to supplant religious

faith?

Why not, let the machine be the icon,

To which men pledge their allegiance,

The fire of Prometheus,

Binding their fate.

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