Technikatörténeti szemle 4. (1967)
TANULMÁNYOK - Makkai László: Gép, mechanika és mechanisztikus természetfilozófia
ing his mind that — contrary to antique authorities — bodies might be inert. Scientists of the 17th century were supported in acknowledging the machine-inspired reality as natural law by a factor outside science and technique: the central religious thought of Reformation. Any animistic and vitalistic idea appearing in the form of primitive magic superstition or pantheistic philosophy, was challenged by enthusiastic monotheistical combat, ruling out self-movement from bodies and deriving every movement írom the great mover. This was the ideological background bringing forth mechanics as a science and along with it the mechanistic natural philosophy. As obvious from the above said, it is only Objectified working movement which can be realised as objective natural law by man. This was the case with energy at the 17th century beginning of natural science, objectified in power machines by mediaeval technique. The next working movement, the control and programming of machine was still rather primitive, i. e. it was not technically objectified, therefore anthropomorphous ideas prevailed on respective fields of natural science. The classical form of mechanistic natural philosophy, deism, seemed to find the programming will of the world-machine in the personal idea of God, picturing him a gigantic watchmaker. All the same machine won the day in the minds of those, creating it, and the originating mechanistic thinking prepared for new victories of the machine.
