Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/08720_Field_TCGG T485.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 866b | 16 lines

     Although the main work was done by Cromwell and
Napoleon, “ordnance” (or cannon) and gunpowder had at least
begun the levelling of castles, classes, and feudal distinctions.
So print, says Rabelais, has begun the homogenizing of
individuals and of talents. Later in the same century Francis
Bacon was prophesying that his scientific method would level
all talents and enable a child to make scientific discoveries of
consequence. And Bacon’s “method” we shall see was the
extension of the idea of the new printed page to the whole
encyclopedia of natural phenomena. That is, Bacon’s method
literally puts the whole of nature in Pantagruel’s mouth.

     Albert Guérard’s comment on this aspect of Rabelais in
The Life and Death of an Ideal  (p. 39) is as follows:

          This triumphant Pantagruelism inspires the