Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity,

by Paul Kingsnorth. Thesis, 368 pages, $32

The historian of science E.J. Dijksterhuis memorably characterized the scientific revolution of the early modern period as a “mechanization of the world picture.” What did this amount to? And what was the character of the previous world picture this mechanization replaced?

The medievals, following common sense and Aristotle alike, took the world to comprise a vast diversity of irreducibly different kinds—water, stone, gold, lead, grass, trees, birds, fish, clouds, stars, planets, people, and so on. Each was a substance sharply demarcated from other substances. Each had a defining nature or essence that united it to other members of its kind and set it apart from other kinds. Each had, by virtue of its nature, a distinctive teleology or final causality—a built-in directedness toward certain ends. Water by its nature was directed toward being liquid at room temperature, stone toward being solid. Trees by nature were directed toward sinking roots into the ground, and birds toward building nests. Human beings, by nature rational animals, were directed toward knowing the natures of things.

These natures and the final causes they entailed provided a basis